Beyond Unconscious Unreality

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20

Isaiah has already revealed that Israel and Judah's original problem was unconscious unreality, i.e., a lack of the grasping of truth: they did not recognize that they were "the work of the Lord," and so on and so forth (see Isaiah 5:7, 12). This condition is similar to the Pharisees not recognizing Jesus as the Messiah because their grasping of who and what the Messiah was was off.
However, we now see that Israel and Judah have gone a step further (at least most of them; their is always a faithful remnant left). They have gone beyond unconscious unreality into what we should call conscious unreality. Here is the difference: in unconscious unreality, one rejects the truth because one believes that what one believes already is the truth. Perhaps another name for this would be willful ignorance. However, in conscious unreality, one realizes that what they believe is a lie, but they cling to the lie and reject the truth anyway because they hate the truth. Perhaps we could call this one willful sin. In the first unreality, the truth is rejected because of misconception; in the second unreality, the truth is rejected because of hatred. It is the second that is the most diabolical.
The Pharisees not only suffered from unconscious unreality, but they also stepped into conscious unreality. And it is conscious unreality that is the "unpardonable sin."
Allow me to explain. When Jesus told the Pharisees that they had committed the sin that would "not be forgiven," it was within the context of Jesus having just cast out a demon. The Pharisees very boldly proclaimed that he cast the demon out, not by the Spirit of God, but by the spirit of the devil (Matthew 12:24). Jesus immediately pointed out that such logic is absurd: the devil cannot stand against himself and win. Logic says that only the Spirit of God can repel a demonic presence: the Pharisees should have known that. Instead, however, they claim that Christ has "an unclean spirit," (Mark 3:30). Their hatred for Jesus led them to identify what they should have known as the Spirit of God for the spirit of the devil, i.e., they willfully exchanged good for evil, light for darkness, sweet for bitter.
I assert "willfully" because not only should the Pharisees have known better about Whose Spirit could cast out demons, but also because at that point in dealing with Jesus, their was no excuse for the Pharisees rejection of Christ except that the rejection was willful. Nicodemus was a Pharisee, he heard what Christ said, and believed. The other Pharisees had heard just as much as Nicodemus; the proofs were all around them that this man was someone from God. They should have been convinced, but instead they replaced the good with evil. Therefore, Jesus told them that, because they identified the Spirit of God with the spirit of the devil, they had committed the sin that could not be forgiven, i.e., the rejection of Christ, i.e., rejection of the truth, i.e., willful placement of good as evil, i.e., conscious unreality.
"And this is the condemnation," this is what condemns you to hell, "that the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light..." (John 3:19). Christ is the light that came (John 1:4, 5, 9), and condemnation is brought by the willful rejection of Christ.
I must take a moment and "demystify" the words "unpardonable" and "unforgivable." Rejection of Christ is "unpardonable/unforgivable" not because it is beyond God's power to forgive (He can save to the uttermost; Hebrews 7:25). Rejection of Christ is "unpardonable/unforgivable" because you are rejecting the only thing that can pardon/forgive you. This sin will not be pardoned/forgiven because your are rejecting your pardon, rejecting forgiveness.
In Paradise Lost, Satan embodies conscious unreality when he declares, "Evil be thou my Good." This is the ultimate evil, to "change the truth of God into a lie," (Romans 1:25a) to know that "they which commit such things [i.e., sins] are worthy of death, [but you] not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them." (Romans 1:32)
If anyone asks you what sin condemns them to hell, tell them the rejection of Christ. All sins can be forgiven, except the one that rejects forgiveness. This is why Satan will not be forgiven: his entire will is bent towards "unreality," or (as Dorothy Sayers put it), the "not-God...negation and destruction...He turned away from God, and found it was hell." Conscious unreality is the embodiment of Satan himself.