The Mystery of Evil
Up until now, we’ve been considering the economy of grace, the mysterious plan by which God calls all people to salvation in the Church. We also considered our part in this as evangelists. Our purpose is to see … that God knows how to save His children. Despite the sad state of the world around us, we know that God is not weak or unwilling to save; and that we can participate in His saving work. And in knowing these things, we can have profound hope for the salvation of a great many people; even some who might be unexpected.
But our Lord teaches in the Gospel that though He wants all to be saved, not all will be saved. That’s why, at the end of the last lesson, we brought to mind the “bad thief” crucified next to Jesus.
Let’s talk more about the “bad thief.” God created this man out of love, sustained him, and provided for him. He gave him the witness of Moses and the prophets to guide him in the right path. He sent him trials in life to correct his errors and put him back on the right path when he strayed. Even more, God assumed flesh and was crucified for love of him, winning for him an abundance of grace. And here was this man, himself crucified for wicked crimes against others, at most only hours away from death. He’s less than (probably) 15 feet away from his crucified God … and what is he doing? He’s ridiculing and mocking Him.
How do we make sense of this? Saint Paul wrote to the Thessalonians that “the mystery of iniquity is already at work.” Evil is a mystery. It is a mystery that a man, created and redeemed by an all-good God, could so wickedly reject such a lavish love.
Any sin, really, is a mystery. How is it that someone would knowingly choose to do what they know to be bad — even to their own harm — for the sake of some minor payoff? And yet, we have all had the experience of doing just that.
The Biblical story of Esau selling his birthright for a bowl of stew is a lesson on this “insanity” of sin. A mortal sin is essentially despising our divine birthright as sons and daughters of God, for the sake of something comparatively worthless. It’s usually a pittance: a momentary pleasure; a false sense of security; a shallow feeling of self-importance.
But praise be to God! Though we often sin, Our Good and Merciful Father does not leave us completely to our own devices. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” We are always free to choose, but He gives grace, again and again, to attract and “woo us” to Himself. And He uses trials and tribulations to shake us into our senses.
There is no sin so evil that God is unwilling to forgive it. And in a sense, He actually will forgive all sins … all except one. In fact, Jesus solemnly declares this very thing: “Amen, I say to you, all sins and all blasphemies … will be forgiven.” “But,” he continues: “whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.”
At this point, once again, the mystery of evil is on full display. What does it mean to be guilty of an “eternal sin”? What does it mean to “blaspheme against the Holy Spirit”?
If we examine the passage of the Gospel in its context, and the tradition of the Church, we see that “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is a complex reality. It is hardening oneself to the work of the Holy Spirit. It is defiantly refusing to recognize God working before one’s own eyes. Even considering God’s work evil.
But the work of the Holy Spirit is to manifest the truth of God’s love and convict our heart of sin. … And so “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit” is also scorning God’s mercy. … By it, a person closes himself off to the inner working of the Holy Spirit who is seeking his conversion and salvation.
Why is this sin called “unforgivable”? If a person stubbornly persists in this kind of knowing rejection of God; their choice would become hardened, and, at the moment of death … become permanent.
The Catechism teaches that “our freedom has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back.” In fact, no choice we make can be really, truly undone — once a choice is made, you can’t “go back in time” to undo it. At most, a choice can be “repented” by making a new choice which renounces it.
But what if someone chose, again and again and again, to resist and reject repentance itself? Repentance is the only thing by which we can, in some sense, “undo” our sinful rejection of God. Saint John Chrysostom says, “Grace, even though it is grace, saves those who wish, not those who do not wish and who turn [grace] aside and constantly war against it and oppose it.”
Speaking of the fallen angels, the Catechism says something that could also be said of the human being who “blasphemes the Holy Spirit” until death. “It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes [their] sin unforgivable.”
An “irrevocable choice.”: … To put it again in our Lord’s words, there is something “eternal” in the sin of the wicked person who obstinately rejects the call to repent. Like the sin of Satan and the fallen angels, the sin of such people, sealed at the moment of death, represents their fully-complete, fully-considered, free and permanent choice to prefer selfishness to love. As Moses presented the Israelites with the choice between death and life, so we are offered the same choice. Some people, it seems, choose death.
There remains a great deal of mystery here, no doubt. Surely, only God is capable of discerning when a person’s refusal to repent reaches the required extreme, and takes on the full meaning of “blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.” And there are many other questions we could ask.
So the mystery remains. But even so, by examining what the Scriptures and the Tradition of the Church teach, we shed some helpful light on the mystery, and say with confidence that God is not responsible for anyone losing eternal life. It is one-hundred percent the fault of the person. As the Scriptures say, “Destruction is thy own, O Israel: thy help is only in me.” In the next lesson, we will consider the mystery of hell.