INSISTED SUICIDE
Is Self-Destruction A Good Idea? Fr Frank's Rants
Scotland has just rejected legislation for assisted dying, i.e. suicide. In England the Lords are still debating it. Which raises the question: is self-killing spiritual or morally permissible? ‘Yes’, the Stoic thinkers answered. However dire your troubles, remember: ‘The exit door is open’. Still, they rejected suicide for banal reasons, like teenagers disappointed in love. Further, they believed the virtuous man’s soul would not die forever but join the divine, universal reason encircling the cosmos. Death was not the end. You lived on, although not in personal terms.
Seneca epitomised indifference to suicide by reminding his friend Lucilius in terse Latin that ‘cotidie morimur’ – we die a little bit every day. The march towards death begins when you emerge from your mother’s womb. Every passing day brings the final one a bit closer Suicide isn’t such a big deal then? Note that Seneca was nearly 70 when he severed his veins, bleeding to death. Not his own choice – was so commanded by Emperor Nero. The exit door the philosopher did not push open by his own volition.
The theological stance on suicide is epitomised by St Thomas Aquinas in the glorious, massive Summa. No ambiguity there, suicide is – forgive Latin again - ‘crimen maximus’ the greatest crime or sin. Absolutely wrong for three reasons: a crime against yourself, against God and against the community. Why a crime against yourself? Because there is a self-love that every creature naturally owes to himself. (How could you love your neighbour as yourself if that wasn’t true?) Why against the community? Because by self-destructing you rob your family, friends and society of a valuable member. Against God? He is the Creator of all life and is the only one who has a right to dispose of it. QED?
Not quite. What if you were a worthless, useless individual, a burden to yourself and others, there would be no loss to society if you self-destructed. (Maybe a gain. The late philosopher Mary Warnock even spoke of ‘a duty to die’.) Self-love? Fine in general but don’t wars suggest that self-love can often be overridden? As to crime against the Divinity, there is no command against suicide in the Bible. Besides, in a godless society like the contemporary West, how can that injunction be takes seriously? St Thomas wrote for the Middle Ages, times have changed. (Quoting St Thomas on Just War to a journalist after the al-Quds Day on Sunday gained me a few lines in the Daily Telegraph but I got no subsequent vituperation. A sign that the great Saint is thought ‘irrelevant’ today!)
John Donne, poet and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, penned a learned essay ‘’Biathanatos’, in which he, as a Christian, defends self-killing. He correctly points out that the lowest character in the Gospels, Judas, the Apostle who betrayed Christ, killed himself – an implicit condemnation? Alas, Donne overdid it in suggesting that Jesus, in accepting the Cross, meant to commit suicide. Just silly, methinks. Like his other suggestion that Samson, the great Hebrew hero, did the same in shaking the pillars of the temple of the idol Dagon in Gaza (!) and so perishing, along with his enemies. (Samson’s chosen death can be interpreted in better ways.) Donne had contemplated suicide as a youth. A subconscious justification, perhaps.
Two years ago, I held a placard outside Parliament, protesting against the proposed assisted dying legislation – I prefer ‘insisted’ to ‘assisted’. (Why do they keep insisting for it?) I have a personal concern here: my nice Italian grandnephew Kariya took his own life last year, aged 31. The loss and pain to his family were infinite and still endures, reminding me that you should not dismiss one of St Thomas’ arguments against suicide too glibly. Oh, I too thought about it when young. For a mixture of metaphysical and passionate reasons. Jolly glad I didn’t do it!
The Church traditionally refused to bury suicides in holy grounds but it still prayed for their souls. Why? Because only God, who knows the most intimate secrets of the human heart, can pass judgment.
Revd Frank Julian Gelli