On Suicide

My wife's tattoo guy went missing this last week and all we know is that as of a couple of days ago, he was found dead. We don't know what happened. My wife informed me that he was diabetic, but my thoughts went to perhaps suicide, for whatever reason. Suicide is a point of frustration with me. Sadly, I have a family member who struggles with its heavy cloud of temptation. I have wrestled to understand suicide in light of my Christian faith. I am ill at ease.

My loved one who struggles was severely abused in life and has hence developed some emotional disorders. For this person, the pain of emotional and physical trauma weighs so oppressively on their soul that it seems like a legitimate way to not only shake off the evils of this life permanently, but it has been suggested that it would remove the emotional burden of this person's life from affecting the lives of their friends and family. At times, I have even heard this person praise the news of successful suicides, "Good for them." It's a bit disconcerting and worrying, and I have tried to place myself in this person's shoes, without offering patronizing comments like, "Two wrongs don't make a right," or positing some selfish reasoning for keeping this person alive and in my life. It all rings hollow.


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Many years ago a film came out detailing the life of Protestant reformer Martin Luther and his struggles with faith and self-worth. His wrestling helped him to empathize with the plight of the suicidal. While I have not researched the validity of Luther's experience, the movie portrays his response to his parish losing a young boy to suicide. Accordingly, suicides were not permitted burial in Catholic cemeteries, because suicide amounts to an unrepentant sin. Luther, ignoring the rules, buried this particular suicide on "holy ground," with the projected understanding that it was the lies of demons that pushed the boy to commit his act and so Luther absolved much of the responsibility for the act and permitted his burial with the "saints." 

Many in the Protestant West have softened their tone regarding suicide too. Some people write it off as the result of mental illness and others allow for a moment of repentance being possible in the dying person's last thoughts. This latter understanding is largely a construct to comfort those left behind and is theologically insufficient.

It is true that suicides result from mental illness more than anything, but all illness is rooted in sin. That's not to say that my annual cold is the result of "my" unrepentant sin, but that all illnesses have traceability to the Fall of humanity in the Garden. I think it's quite significant that the word often used in the New Testament for salvation is sozo (Gr.), which has as one of its chief definitions "healing." Salvation is healing, which means a real change brought on by repentance (Gr. metanoia -- a change of mind that affects behavior) and not a mere mental ascent. I can believe all I want mentally for something and not get it, or I can be active in getting it. I cannot be healed unless I choose to take medicine. But just choosing to take it and actually taking it are different things. So a suicidal person deciding on their last breath that it was a bad idea cannot make the active change. At such a point, it may still constitute an unrepentant sin, so the person can only be left to God's graces and not speculated on. We ought not absolve them of responsibility, but like Luther, understand the exigent circumstances that affect decisions and simply hope and pray for God's grace. 

Still, I have a big problem with suicide and my loved one's embrace of its legitimacy. For me...

Suicide is escapism and is not healing. Believing suicide is a valid option is un-Christian and closer to the heresy of Gnosticism and Platonism than it is a biblical worldview. 

Let me explain... 

Gnosticism was a philosophical belief that syncretized with Christianity in the first few centuries of the Church. It came in several forms, but endemic to all was the sense that this life was not our final life and the aim was to escape it into a better reality. It shares some semblance to Plato's analogy of the cave, whereby a candle's light casts a shadow on a cave's wall. The shadow is but an imperfect reflection of a truer reality. Gnostics sought a special knowledge of reality to which they endeavored to escape this imperfect life. This belief demanded a duality, whereby the soul escapes the body like a convict escaping a prison. In short, Gnosticism involved mental ascent to its theology so it could leave this world behind.

Modern Western and Protestant Christianity is, if you think about it, quite Gnostic. Most American Christians believe that when we die, we simply go to heaven forever. It sees escapism as a [if not the] goal of faith. We believe (mental ascent) so that when we die, we will go to heaven. It treats heaven as a singular place, rather than a disposition of being with God who is "out there" beyond our conceptions (i.e. in heaven or rather, the heavens). It ignores the fact that the New Testament says there will be a resurrection of our bodies, a new heavens and earth (i.e. the redemption of existing creation), and that in Genesis 1, God said of all He made that it was "good." God designed us to inhabit our bodies and live on the earth, though with Him. Salvation's fulfillment is a healing of creation and not a spiritual escapism. We are not destined to depart our bodies to just live in an ethereal plane with God. We are meant to be whole -- body and spirit. 

Suicide takes this escapism to the next level. Perhaps some people have a cessation view of death, that posits when we die, we cease to exist. But I think many people, and especially religious people, believe that the afterlife exists and if suicidal, their assumption is one of eternal relief. This view doesn't take into consideration of the consequences of this life and leaps to delusions that promote suicide as the ultimate escape.

My loved one definitely sees suicide as a viable escape and has to work hard to attach themselves to important things of this life. Without these anchors, this person might succumb to the Gnostic dichotomy and commit this irreversible act.

I have tried to empathize with this loved one and in my own dark times and I have begun to toy with purposeful suicidal thinking. I just can't wrap my mind around it. It's not that I fear death, though if I think about it I am discomforted. The unknown is scary, but in principle, it's not death that scares me, but it does ware uneasy for me because I do feel the pressure of time and the desire to have become sanctified and spiritually mature for entering into God's presence. Am I where I need to be? No.

The bottom line is that suicide -- even if believed beneficial to those left behind -- is selfish. It may be fed by doubts and depression that are completely external to the suicidal person. There are real pains and stressors at play and suicide and mental illness should not be taken lightly, patronized, or ignored. It shouldn't be stigmatized either. Yet, having understanding should never give suicide a pass, because there are [unknown from our vantage point] eternal consequences.

I cannot fathom the depths of despair that leads to suicidal ideation; however, I am not willing to concede permission. Suicide, especially for the Christian, is antithetical to God's plans for redeeming the physical along with the spiritual. Suicide just breaks my heart. A part of me is disheartened every time I hear of a successful suicide. It's not how it should be. How can we help those who feel helpless? I can only pray.