Is Suicide Unforgivable?

sermon by Manfred Schreyer

Several years ago I was approaching a neighbor to purchase his farm. The couple was an older couple and had lived in the community for a long time. He was about ready to retire, he had worked hard all of his life and both individuals were wonderful people.

Before I decided to purchase the property, I asked them to give me a tour of the over 80-acre estate. I knew that I had to pay a lot more for the farm then the average price, because it was a very delightful desirable place with a beautiful waterfall in one of the woods.

As we were talking about the property both recited many stories of their past, their family experiences and the things that happened on the farm. We literally talked for hours.

But every time I mentioned the waterfall in the back I noticed that both changed the subject. They just did not want to talk about it! And as I asked them to take a walk with me to the back woods they both explained: Our son, while he was in his twenties, hung himself by the waterfall. Both of them sat silent for a long time and I was stunned. The issue of suicide is a very touchy subject in our society and especially for Christians.

Will a Christian who commits suicide go to heaven?

Suicide has been discussed as long as humanity exists.

Early Greek Philosophers argued that marking an end to ones life is the human’s intrinsic right and that to place death after all is done is a noble cause.

Within the church we really have never come to a conclusion of our understanding of such act . . . and that leaves many of those who are left behind like the couple I met in the question. Those who have left a loved one are unable to express their question even to the clergy or the church, because for the most part the church denounces suicide.

The first statement by the church of suicide being a grave sin and all those who commit that sin will go to hell appears in about the sixth century after a significant group of Christians (Donatists and Circumcellions) decide to jump off cliffs or burning themselves because they believe that there is a greater award in the afterlife.

Make no mistakes, both groups were heretics and were declared so later, but ever since then the church has taken the firm position that suicide is a grave sin.

It takes much of her understanding from Ex 20:13 "You shall not murder"

Later the famous theologian Thomas Aquinas argued that the confession of sin must be prior of dying and therefore suicide is the most fatal sins of all.

As I was sitting with the couple I was scared about the possible question they had for me: "Will our son reach eternal life" . I had known both of them as very committed Christians . . .

And as I was sitting there I remembered on of my best friends in Germany who had left his two children and his wife just after I immigrated to the USA. He had simply walked into a small pond and ended his life.

I remembered the stories people told me of the farm west of me, where someone had committed suicide . . . some time ago and I remembered that East of me in a small house someone had taken his life also several years ago.

If we are honest, I think we recognize that we all have been in touch with someone who has taken his or her life.

We rationalize what motivates a person to take his or her life and we now distinguish between the (a) suicide to end ones life ("with dignity") when one has a disease that is painful and not curable or (b) the suicide where "everything has become too much to bear"

Allow me to say this: Dignity is a human invention . . . it is the play of holding up to the model person people expect us to be . . . The wonderful Greek Orthodox writer Frederica Mathewes -Green said it best: "There was nothing dignifying about Jesus’ death . . ."

So, a death to please others for the sake of pleasing the human mind serves No cause . . . not even for oneself.

But what about the other case. As Thomas Aquinas states that we cannot repent of the sin of suicide, I believe that Thomas Aquinas misunderstood salvation.

If we believe that we are saved by the Grace of God, and not by works (Eph. 2:8-9) then the argument of Thomas becomes null and void.

Secondly if the argument of Thomas would hold true, what happens to the sins that we commit and do not know of? John 10:18 says:

Otherwise we would have to repent constantly . . . for every action we take . . . and we would be back under the law.

Thirdly will God accept us not for the condition we are in?

I am really talking about a condition where we have no influence over. I am talking about a state of mind that has taken hold of us and where we have no power to escape.

So allow me to differentiate of suicide by self-determination. The act of self determination is the human choice not to live under the Holy Spirit. In fact to live by self determination is to live and to be an atheist.

But the biblical story read to you before suggests that a demon is getting ready to destroy him by fire or by water. The man is pleading Jesus for help and Jesus removes the demon from the boy.

The boy was unable to plead for help or removable of the thoughts.

Matthew 8:28-34 explains how Jesus helped another demon possessed man and I bet that he would have committed suicide if Jesus would have never entered the scene.

Suicide is not an heroic act! God is in tears about this painful act. Life is a gift from God. It is plastered with responsibilities toward others and we have no right to take our life by self determination! But there are those cases where the world (the evil one is the ruler) has manifested himself into our being . . . he indoctrinated us that we are not whole with God and that life is not worth living . . . this evil one told those who left us a lie and they believed him . . .

God will have mercy upon those who were taken advantage of in a moment of human weakness, provided they had given their life to Christ.