There has been much debate over the Christian views on suicide, with early Christians believing that
suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
is sinful and an act of
blasphemy
Blasphemy is a speech crime and religious crime usually defined as an utterance that shows contempt, disrespects or insults a deity, an object considered sacred or something considered inviolable. Some religions regard blasphemy as a religiou ...
. Modern Christians do not consider suicide an unforgivable sin (though still wrong and sinful) or something that prevents a believer who died by suicide from achieving
eternal life.
The rate of suicide among
Catholics
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
is consistently lower than among
Protestants
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
, with
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
suicide usually lower than both, except during times of persecution against Jews, for instance, during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. But religion is not the only factor in per capita suicide: Among Catholics in Italy, the suicide rate is twice as high in
Northern Italy
Northern Italy ( it, Italia settentrionale, it, Nord Italia, label=none, it, Alta Italia, label=none or just it, Nord, label=none) is a geographical and cultural region in the northern part of Italy. It consists of eight administrative regions ...
than in the southern parts. Hungary and Austria have majority Catholic populations but they are number 2 and number 5 in the list of countries that have the highest suicide rate. And in Ireland, the Catholic and Protestant populations have the same low rate of suicide. French sociologist
Émile Durkheim
David Émile Durkheim ( or ; 15 April 1858 – 15 November 1917) was a French sociologist. Durkheim formally established the academic discipline of sociology and is commonly cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science, al ...
wrote that the higher rate of Protestant suicide is likely due to the greater degree of "the spirit of free inquiry" in the various Protestant sects, whereas the Catholic church supplies its worshippers with a relatively unchanging system of faith, delivered by a hierarchy of authority.
Early Christianity
Suicide was common before Christianity, in the form of personal suicide, to avoid shame or suffering, and also in the form of institutional suicide, such as the intentional deaths of a king's servants, the forced deaths of convicted criminals, the willing suicides of widows, and euthanasia for the elderly and infirm.
The
Donatists
Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and th ...
, an early Christian sect, contained a fanatical group named the
Circumcellions who would attack strangers on the street and attain supposed martyrdom.
Early Christianity established a ban on suicide, greatly reducing its occurrence.
[
In the fifth century, ]Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berbers, Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia (Roman pr ...
wrote ''The City of God
''On the City of God Against the Pagans'' ( la, De civitate Dei contra paganos), often called ''The City of God'', is a book of Christian philosophy written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century AD. The book was in response ...
'', in it making Christianity's first overall condemnation of suicide. His biblical justification for this was the interpretation of the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill
Thou shalt not kill (LXX; ), You shall not murder (Hebrew: ; ') or You shall not kill (KJV), is a moral imperative included as one of the Ten Commandments in the Torah.
The imperative not to kill is in the context of ''unlawful'' killing resul ...
", as he sees the omission of "thy neighbor", which is included in " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor", to mean that the killing of oneself is not allowed either. The rest of his reasons were from Plato's ''Phaedo
''Phædo'' or ''Phaedo'' (; el, Φαίδων, ''Phaidōn'' ), also known to ancient readers as ''On The Soul'', is one of the best-known dialogues of Plato's middle period, along with the ''Republic'' and the ''Symposium.'' The philosophical ...
''.
In the sixth century AD, suicide became a secular crime and began to be viewed as sinful
In a religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered immoral, selfish, s ...
. In 1533, those who died by suicide while accused of a crime were denied a Christian burial
A Christian burial is the burial of a deceased person with specifically Christian rites; typically, in consecrated ground. Until recent times Christians generally objected to cremation because it interfered with the concept of the resurrection of ...
. In 1562, all suicides were punished in this way. In 1693, even attempted suicide
A suicide attempt is an attempt to die by suicide that results in survival. It may be referred to as a "failed" or "unsuccessful" suicide attempt, though these terms are discouraged by mental health professionals for implying that a suicide resu ...
became an ecclesiastical crime, which could be punished by excommunication
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
, with civil consequences following. In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
denounced suicide as an act against God and as a sin for which one could not repent
Repentance is reviewing one's actions and feeling contrition or regret for past wrongs, which is accompanied by commitment to and actual actions that show and prove a change for the better.
In modern times, it is generally seen as involving a co ...
. Civil and criminal laws were enacted to discourage suicide, and as well as degrading the body rather than permitting a normal burial, the property and possessions of both the person who died by suicide and of their family were confiscated.
Protestant views
—"If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol
Sheol ( ; he, ''Šəʾōl'', Tiberian: ''Šŏʾōl'') in the Hebrew Bible is a place of still darkness which lies after death. Although not well defined in the Tanakh, Sheol in this view was a subterranean underworld where the souls of the d ...
, you are there."—has often been discussed in the context of the fate
Destiny, sometimes referred to as fate (from Latin ''fatum'' "decree, prediction, destiny, fate"), is a predetermined course of events. It may be conceived as a predetermined future, whether in general or of an individual.
Fate
Although often ...
of those who die by suicide.
Modern Catholicism
According to the theology of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, death
Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
by suicide is a grave matter. The Church holds that one's life is the property of God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
, and to destroy that life is to wrongly assert dominion over God's creation, or to attack God remotely.[ In the past, the Catholic Church would not conduct funeral services for persons who killed themselves, and they could not be buried in a Catholic cemetery. However, the church lifted the prohibition on funerals for suicide victims in the 1980s.
In the 1990s, ]Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
approved the Catechism of the Catholic Church
The ''Catechism of the Catholic Church'' ( la, Catechismus Catholicae Ecclesiae; commonly called the ''Catechism'' or the ''CCC'') is a catechism promulgated for the Catholic Church by Pope John Paul II in 1992. It aims to summarize, in book for ...
, which acknowledged the role that mental illnesses may play in suicide. Regarding the effect of psychological disorders on a person's culpability, the Catechism states that:
Despite the fact that historical Catholic doctrine (possibly influenced by the Baltimore Catechism
''A Catechism of Christian Doctrine, Prepared and Enjoined by Order of the Third Council of Baltimore'', or simply the ''Baltimore Catechism'', was the national Catholic catechism for children in the United States, based on Robert Bellarmine's 161 ...
which was used until the 1960s) generally considered suicide to be an actual mortal sin
A mortal sin ( la, peccatum mortale), in Catholic theology, is a gravely sinful act which can lead to damnation if a person does not repent of the sin before death. A sin is considered to be "mortal" when its quality is such that it leads to ...
, the Catholic Church rejected this conclusion with the introduction of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which declared that:
The Catholic Church defines suicide very narrowly to avoid the extrapolation that Jesus's death was a type of suicide, brought about by his own choices, and to avoid the idea that Catholic martyr
A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
s choosing death is a valid form of suicide. Instead, Catholics give praise that Jesus resisted suicide throughout his trials, demonstrating that no degradation is so great that suicide can be justified. Martyrs are honored for the same reason.
See also
* Jewish views on suicide
Jewish views on suicide are mixed. In Orthodox Judaism, suicide is forbidden by Jewish law, and viewed as a sin. Non-Orthodox forms of Judaism may instead recognize the act as more akin to a death by a disease or disorder (except in cases of purpo ...
* Religious views on suicide
There are a variety of religious views on suicide.
Ancient Pagan religions
In general, the pagan world, both Roman and Greek, had a relaxed attitude towards suicide.
Dharmic religions Buddhism
In Buddhism, an individual's past acts are reco ...
* Samaritans (charity)
Samaritans is a registered charity aimed at providing emotional support to anyone in emotional distress, struggling to cope or at risk of suicide throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, often through its telephone helpline. ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Christian Views On Suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
Religion and suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...