John Paul II uses the standard title for “the unforgiveable sin”--"blasphemy against the Holy Spirit"--in Dominum et Vivificantem when referring to “the sin against the Holy Spirit”. Blasphemy is the opposite of worship and reverence, a denial that the Holy Spirit is God. In Greek “blasphemia” means “literally, slow (sluggish) to call something good (that really is good)” (Strong’s Concordance, Section 988). John Paul II recalls the saying of Pope Pius XII and connects it to blasphemy: ”Pope Pius XII had already declared that ”the sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin” and this loss goes hand in hand with the "loss of the sense of God."” (John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, Section 47). It is this sluggishness to reverence God, whether at a Novus Ordo mass or in the midst of selfie-takers in the middle of natural splendor, that denies the redemptive and salvific power of the Holy Spirit convicting of sin.
As if to emphasize this sin against the role of the Holy Spirit, blasphemy also means “calls what God disapproves, ‘right’ which "exchanges the truth of God for a lie"(Strong’s Concordance, Section 988). Blasphemy, then, proclaims “…the ’anti-Word,’ that is to say the ‘anti-truth’…This "anti-truth" is possible because at the same time there is a complete falsification of the truth about who God is.” (John Paul II, Dominum et Vivificantem, Section 37). The sin against the Holy Spirit thus denies the truth of God by proclaiming the opposite.
Without access to the truth, the sin against the Holy Spirit leaves the proclaimer confused as to their sin since their conscience is “darkened”: “To man, created to the image of God, the Holy Spirit gives the gift of conscience so that in this conscience the image may faithfully reflect its model, which is both Wisdom and eternal Law, the source of the moral order in man and in the world.” (Ibid., Section 36). The conscience of the blasphemer reflects the “anti-truth”, then, and thus is unable to navigate the Natural Law and exercise his freedom: “…a turning away from God, and in a certain sense the closing up of human freedom in this regard. It also means a certain opening of this freedom-of the human mind and will-to the one who is the ‘father of lies.’” (Ibid., Section 37). The blaspheming against the Holy Spirit opens one to the condemnation of the accuser of the brethren and closes one to the offer of a loving relationship with God, which is lost to consciousness as if it does not exist; the sinner is unable to find his way to God. Thus, the sin against the Holy Spirit precludes God’s forgiveness and mercy since the sinner is unable to respond to the love of the Father in the darkness of his conscience.
