Suicide

What is suicide?

• Suicide is the act of intentionally terminating one's own life.

Divine Command Theory

• In the past, the Catholic Church saw suicide as a great sin and would not bury suicides in the Church ground.
• Some Christians believe that all life is sacred, so only God can take it away. It is just as wrong to take your own life as it is to take the life of another.
• Other Christians would say that people who want to take their own lives are not in a rational frame of mind, and thus they should be treated with love and compassion in their time of need.
• 'The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away.'

What does the Bible say about suicide?

• There were seven suicides in the Bible, most notably the suicide of Judas Escariot, who betrayed Jesus to the Romans.
• Absolutely wrong
• St Augustine is generally credited with the earliest formal Christian prohibition of suicide.
• Relatively wrong

Alternatives to suicide

• Chad Varah (1911-2007) began to understand the problems facing the suicidal when he was taking a funeral as an assistant curate in 1935.
• His first church service was the funeral of a 14 year old girl who had committed suicide because she had begun to menstruate and feared she had a sexually transmitted disease.
• "Little girl, I didn't know you, but you have changed the rest of my life for good."
• Varah founded the Samaritians in 1953 in the crypt of his church, with the stated aim that it would be an organisation to "befriend the suicidal and despairing."