The Sin against the Holy Spirit
- SIMONE WEIL
The sin against the Spirit consists of knowing a thing to be good and hating it because it is good.
We experience the equivalent of it in the form of resistance every time we set our faces in the direction of good. For every contact with good leads to a knowledge of the distance between good and evil and the commencement of a painful effort of assimilation. It is something which hurts and we are afraid. This fear is perhaps the sign of the reality of the contact. The corresponding sin cannot come about unless a lack of hope makes the consciousness of the distance intolerable and changes the pain into hatred. Hope is a remedy in this respect, but a better remedy is indifference to ourselves and happiness because the good is good although we are far from it and may even suppose that we are destined to remain separated from it for ever.
Once an atom of pure good has entered the soul, the most criminal weakness is infinitely less dangerous than the very slightest treason, even though this should be confined to a purely inward movement of thought lasting no more than an instant but to which we have given our consent. That is a participation in hell. So long as the soul has not tasted of pure goodness it is separated from hell as it is from paradise…. When we love God through evil as such, it is really God whom we love
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Acknowledgement
Simone Weil "The Sin against the Holy Spirit." from Gravity & Grace (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1980).
Published under fair usage.
The Author
Simone Weil (1909-1943) was a French philosopher and political activist. As her life progressed she became more religious and inclined towards mysticism. In the 1950s and 1960s, her work became famous in continental Europe and throughout the English-speaking world. Albert Camus described her as "the only great spirit of our times". Simone Weil is the author of Waiting for God, Gravity and Grace, The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind, and Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us.
Copyright © 1980 G. P. Putnam's Sons