The Unforgivable Sin

"Iraqi police confirm that [two] children were used as decoys in a car bombing over the weekend. They say the driver gained permission to a busy shopping area because the children were visible in the back seat. The account appears to confirm one that was given yesterday by a U-S general who said children were used in a bombing in northern Baghdad. The general says the adults fled the car, and it was blown up with the children still inside."

This possibly is the most wretched single act of pure evil committed by any human being from the beginning of time, and I cannot see - I pray it cannot happen - how there could be a worse until the end of time.

My faith teaches me that there is but one unpardonable sin - to sin against the Holy Ghost. We know this, as these were Christ's own words.

As given in the Gospel according to Saint Matthew:

"Therefore I say to you: Every sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven men, but the blasphemy of the Spirit shall not be forgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not he forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come."

Theologians have wrestled with the full meaning and import of this down the centuries. Saint Thomas Aquinas - in my book at the very top of the theological tree in this and most, if not all, matters - wrote of three connected variants of interpretation:

First, there is the direct attribution of malice to the Divine Spirit itself. Second, it is the final perseverance of lack of repentance for sins unto the moment of death. Third, it is the malicious, wilful commitment of a sin against the stirrings of the Divine Spirit: sins against the Father can be forgiven on the grounds of frailty, those against Christ on grounds of ignorance; but against the spirit of grace, truth and love stirring in the soul then no.

The bombers who deliberately used, then murdered, children to deliver a bomb were not frail, nor were they ignorant. They planned what they did and they understood precisely the consequences. They knew how offensive to man and to God that was. They spat in the very face of the Almighty - be that the One God of Islam or the Trinity of Christianity. They were not frail, they were not ignorant. They were malicious.

I will not, therefore, pray for them. Their souls are doomed to burn forever in Hell, wracked by unending pain, torment and sorrow. I am taught not to judge lest I in my turn be judged; to forgive that I myself may be forgiven. But in this I do judge. I cannot and I shall not forgive.

That the adult bombers have lived is a mercy. They will, in time one hopes, face human justice for their crimes against all that is human. They may even live long enough to repent of their crimes, if they have not already. But can there be repentance for the unforgivable sin?