wyrdwillows

About a week or so ago I heard R.C. Sproul (I believe) on the radio trying to explain the unforgivable sin: blaspheming the Holy Spirit. He said this sin was "tricky" because, as "we" believe in a trinity, how could we blaspheme one part of God and not another?

He went on to explain that those who know Jesus (through the Holy Spirit's promptings) and THEN reject and blaspheme God have committed the unforgivable sin. He then said that he didn't believe many, if any, people have actually committed this blasphemy (because of God's mercy), though humans are certainly capable.

I, however, find this completely unconvincing.

I picked up the Nag Hammadi Library recently, and I've come to realize how much more sense the Bible makes from the Gnostic point of view.

Unless I'm mistaken, there is no Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in this view (certainly not in the traditional sense, at any rate). However, the unforgivable sin has become astonishingly clear now that I've read part of the Gnostic mythology.

The Holy Spirit and the Son of Man (Jesus) are separate beings. Thus, it is permitted to blaspheme the Son, a lesser being, but not the Holy Spirit, because that entity is the unknowable, perfect reality from which all comes. I also think that when Jesus refers to the Father he means the Holy Spirit.

The Old Testament Yahweh, incidentally, is the bad guy in Gnosticism; his true names are Ialdabaoth, or Saklas, or Samael (which means "poison angel") and he falsely claimed (loudly) to be God. The reasons for this belief, I think, are self-evident. Obviously, this being is not the "Father" since he brought the curse of the law and empty ritual to the Israelites. My own conclusion is that Jesus defeated Samael at his own game by perfectly fulfilling his hollow law and by establishing a true faith based on love rather than pointless sacrifices and fear.

In summary: The unforgivable sin is incoherent if God is a trinity, as it is nonsensical to be able to blaspheme one person of the trinity and not another (as all three are exactly the same being). What's more, the Trinity itself is incoherent.

In Gnosticism, however, the Son of Man is a servant, and the Holy Spirit is God. It stands to reason that blaspheming the latter is a worse offense.

A note about the context: Jesus announces this sin when the Pharisees attribute the Holy Spirit's work to that of a demon. However, it seems clear to me that Jesus extends this example out to any blasphemy against the Spirit. Even if he's not, my point still stands, I think.

Also, someone please correct me if I horribly mangled the Gnostic beliefs.

EDIT: I guess I should ask some questions for discussion.

Does anyone think the modern, popular view (the Trinity) is a better explanation of the unforgivable sin than Gnosticism? If so, why? I suppose this discussion could get too broad--into Gnosticism itself, for example, or whether Yahweh/Ialdabaoth is really evil, but I'm primarily interested in the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit here, and whether the traditional Christian view stacks up to a Gnostic explanation. Or any other comments or whatever about the scenario I presented in the OP...

wyrdwillows

bump

Amos

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Not tricky at all and has nothing to do with blasphemy in the literal sense. The sin against the HS is to rob Mary of her virginity . . . which sounds logical because you can only be a virgin once. The way to do is to willingly accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior in which case you will be born again from carnal desire instead of God. Go to Jn.1:13 and read the difference between born of God and born of carnal desire "who were begotten not by blood, nor by carnal desire, nor by man's willing it but by God." This theme continues throughout John and the Epistels and finally Revelation.

The problem here is that you'll be given a scorpoin instead of a fish and the angel of light (bible passages) must be your guide by day and a candle must be your light by night due to the enhanced sensitivity towards sin over which there never will be victory = no revelation to illumimate our nights. etc.

Of course they are because Mary is in charge of the HS. Jesus has a dual nature and son of man is Christ while Jesus was the old human nature that needed to be crucified before it could become one with Christ (best thing that could have happened to him).

The Father is not the HS but the HS is a sublet of Mary who is therefore first released to see Jesus through his purification (Gospels) and is later Assumed (not ascend) into heaven to rule there as Queen of heaven and earth.

Trinity is a human concept to distinguish the relationship between Gabriel, Michael, Raphael and Lucifer. We all know Lucifer and will never know the son without Michael and never know Michael without Gabriel and vice versa to the father.

Son of Man is servant and Mary is in charge from behind the scene. The descent of the dove signifies that the HS is redundant after we are born again (sic) which is when we find favor with God as per John 1:13.

Gnosticism is just another religion who think they know something.

NearNihil Experience

Well, you didn't mangle them. Though the Holy Spirit would more likely be a refrence to the I think "Sophia" ...Wisdom and it is a female being. The "Father" is the acursed "Demi-urge" that seeing itself as uncreated claimed its highest right and trapped all spirit in matter to abided by Him. That was Yahweh...a malign spirit determined to keep mans spirit trapped and isolated away from reunion with the true originator God. Then the "Adamatic spirit", thats what we have in us, was expressed in its highest form yet in Jesus Christ. He came to bring knowledge of the spirit, of reunion with the highest holy, knowledge that this matter and the Jewish God were not all that there is.

And this is why trinity make nosense in Gnosticsm and why Gnosticism is totaly heretical...because Trinitarians claim that their God is the highest and oldest and Faith in that God will free you form this prison of matter...Gnostics believe that that God, in its arrogance and rapture in itself forgot its origins in Wisdom and imprsoned us giving us no "Out". The only Out was knowledge of higher beings and our place ABOVE the Demi-urge through understanding our true place in the world and the true motives we are driven by and subject too.

The Christian and Jewish God is malign, arrogant, and bold. Think of the creation story as a parable towards basics in life...that power(the Demi-urge), is nothing but dangerous and destructive without understanding the wisdom(Sophia) it sprung from and the humanity(Adamatic) its built on.
If there is any Trinity in Gnosticism, its Demi-urge, Sophia, Adamatic....but noone would ever claim this and mean it....well...maybe someone would.

When talking Gnosticism, always keep in mind that Yahweh is malign and the enemy of man...a jailer, a torturer, and a warmonger...The Satan we hear so uch about later in the world beyond later Gnosticism. Our knowledge through spriitual awakening and knwoledge of our world and its working is our escape from God and our return to the knowledge of the bigger and more beautiful picture.

I am basing this alot on their creation story, and not a gnostic view of the Gospels. Gnostic gospels make sense in gnosticism, round gnostic gospels hard to fit in square mainstream Christian hole.

As the name suggests.
Its an active spiritual pursuit through life. Not our modern mysanthropic self-flagelation.

Gary Hudson

Christianity and Gnosticism (tantric Christianity) are both archaic religions based on mankind’s in ability to describe the source and spectrum of consciousness in any other terms but anthropomorphic hierarchy.

In truth (reality) there is no “Other�, all apparent division is a manifestation of fragmented or partitioned human consciousness. There is only the whole.. there is only God (source).

We perceive that whole, because of our condition mind, as a trinity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. The father or source is ineffable, beyond conceptualization, and direct awareness of it renders one temporarily unconsciousness (Samadhi or sleep for the less aware). The Son is manifested within humanity as ordinary awareness (the light of man) and the Holy Spirit, Sophia and Mary are the luminous thoughts of our imagination.

Only when we are freed from our adversarial (evil, egoic, divided) nature will we perceive a united trinity.

The process of becoming whole (Holy) is what the “Passion of Christ� and the tribulation of Revelation allegorically describe.

Gary

Amos

This is true and means that there is no trinity in heaven. The trinity is a human concept that is set before us to identify the forces in our life as we can perceive them on their own. I used the angelic influences that must introduce us to these steps along the way to understanding . . . and here the order is Gabriel, Raphael and Michael = Father, Son and Spirit.

gregor

Leaping over the past two confusing posts. . .

I have never really considered that unpardonable sin issue, but I agree that it does square nicely with your discussion of gnosticism (as I understand it). Ehrman's Lost Christianities has a good, three page synopsis of the major tenants of gnosticisms. Ehrman emphasizes several variants of gnosticism existed, so there is no single orthodoxy - but your summary is similar to his summary.

To add to your theory, since Sophia was higher than Yahweh, and everyone's main goal is to by-pass Yahweh, find their spark that was a part of Sophia, and return to Sophia, it makes sense that the one thing that can destroy your "gnosis" is to blaspheme Sophia.

Gary Hudson

Leaping over and discounting commentary that is perceived as to difficult to understand is exactly why literalist Christianity became the only Christianity.


Yes but both are based on an archaic habit of anthropomorphizing consciousness. There is only one “Sin� and that is basically mistaking the content of consciousness as reality and the thinker as the source. All other sins are derived from this one fundamental error of perception. In making this error, Yahweh/Ialdabaoth (ego, the thinker) mistakes his own content, his creation projected in thought (Sophia), as reality and assumes the role of creator.

Jesus, as the essence of God (pure awareness and the light of man) provides the way of transcending the shadow world of the false God and uniting with the ineffable source.

However that essence (Jesus, pure awareness) has been nailed to the world of appearances (by us) and must bare the suffering of the world as his own in order to return to the source. The hidden message is that we must see/feel our suffering without resistance (witness) in order to be liberated from it.



Gnostic Christianity is the original secret or inner teaching (given to the elect) of Christianity. Orthodox Christianity was the outer teaching (a panacea for the beast nature of the ignorant masses) which after Constantine became the only legal Christianity (on pain of excommunication and death). If you can find God on your own, who needs an emperor or a pope?


The reality is that Jesus (the son/sun) manifests within us on a daily basis as ordinary awareness and the Holy Spirit as the inner spirit wind and they are habitually taken for granted (blasphemed ) by the most pious in Christendom.


Gary

gregor

Riiiiiiiight