Suicide: the Unpardonable Sin?

QUESTION:

Is suicide the “unpardonable sin?”  If someone commits suicide… do they automatically go to Hell?

ANSWER:

Is suicide a sin?  Five to seven deaths may be considered suicides in the Bible. The biblical writers do not specifically state that such deaths are acts of sin. This probably is due to the fact suicide would be included under the law that forbids murder in the 10 Commandments. Some would be considered justifiable, such as that of Samson. He actually asked God to give him the strength to destroy the building he was in, an act that would kill the enemy as well as himself. 

Suicide was practiced as martyrdom by Christians during the Roman persecution. They would put themselves in situations where they knew they would be killed so they could die for the faith. Many of these believed martyrdom was a guarantee of entrance into heaven. 

Augustine was the first theologian to declare a distinction between suicide and martyrdom. He said suicide is an act of murdering oneself, a decision in direct opposition to God's will. Suicide, along with adultery and apostasy, came to be seen as unredeemable. Thomas Aquinas later classified suicide as a mortal sin that cannot be forgiven. Because of this, the Roman Catholic Church for many years refused to conduct funerals for people who took their own lives. In recent times, the Catholic Church has modified this view, stating that suicide is no longer viewed as a reason to deny a Catholic funeral, unless it would cause a public scandal. Protestant leaders Martin Luther and John Calvin did not declare suicide to be an unforgivable sin. 

The only sin the Bible declares to be unforgivable is that of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12:31-32). Bible scholars debate what this sin actually is. The basic meaning is that of denying the work of the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit is the person of the Trinity who convicts of sin and offers God's forgiveness for sin, to reject the work of the Holy Spirit is to reject forgiveness--by definition, the unpardonable sin (to refuse to be pardoned is unpardonable). A related sin is the "sin unto death" in 1 John 5:16-17. This is a reference to rejecting Jesus Christ and the salvation he alone provides. 

Suicide, for Christian doctrine has by and large held that suicide is morally wrong, despite the fact that no passage in Scripture unequivocally condemns suicide. Although the early church fathers opposed suicide, St. Augustine is generally credited with offering the first thoroughgoing justification of the Christian prohibition on suicide.  He saw the prohibition as a natural extension of the fifth commandment: 

The law, rightly interpreted, even prohibits suicide, where it says ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ This is proved especially by the omission of the word ‘thy neighbor’, which are inserted when false witness is forbidden in the commandment there is no limitation added nor exception made in favor of any one, and least of all in favor of him on whom the command is laid! (Augustine, book I, chapter 20) 

Suicide, Augustine determined, was an unrepentable sin. St. Thomas Aquinas later defended this prohibition on three grounds. (1) Suicide is contrary to natural self-love, whose aim is to preserve us. (2) Suicide injures the community of which an individual is a part. (3) Suicide violates our duty to God because God has given us life as a gift and in taking our lives we violate His right to determine the duration of our earthly existence (Aquinas 1271, part II, Q64, A5). This conclusion was codified in the medieval doctrine that suicide nullified human beings' relationship to God, for our control over our body was limited to us(possession, employment) where God retained dominium (dominion, authority). Law and popular practice in the Middle Ages sanctioned the desecration of the suicidal corpse, along with confiscation of property and denial of Christian burial. 

The Protestant Reformers, including Calvin, condemned suicide as roundly as did the established Church, but held out the possibility of God treating suicide mercifully and permitting repentance. Interest in moral questions concerning suicide was particularly strong in this period among England 's Protestants, notably the Puritans. Nonetheless, the traditional Christian view prevailed well into the late seventeenth century, where even an otherwise liberal thinker such as John Locke echoed earlier Thomistic arguments, claiming that though God bestowed upon us our natural personal liberty, that liberty does not include the liberty to destroy oneself (Locke 1690, ch. 2, para. 6).

Troy Borst

Christian Education Minister

If you have a question about Scripture, please email me at troy.borst@newbeginningscctampa.org