I just had an interesting discussion with my Catholic friend, “C.” The topic: What are the boundaries of suicide? In particular, when does acquiescence to harm, or deliberate participation in likely-death acts, become suicide?
We started on the question of abortion to save the life of the mother. And I asked — well, if it’s 100% sure that the mother will be killed by the pregnancy (assuming that this could be ascertained), is it suicide if the mother refuses to have an abortion, thus knowingly killing herself? C’s answer was twofold. First, he was sure that this act was not suicide. Second, he proposed the following general test — suicide is an act which has the primary purpose of ending one’s own life. Other acts may have the secondary effect of ending one’s life, but that’s a side effect of the main purpose, which is in this case having a baby.
To see if that distinction held up, we played with a few hypotheticals:
1. Kamikaze pilots, crashing their airplane into an enemy ship to try to sink the ship. Suicide? By C’s test, we think that this is not actually suicide — the primary purpose being to sink the enemy ship.
2. Hopeless stands against impossible odds (e.g., Thermopylae). C’s test places these groups in the non-suicide camp.
3. Most interestingly, Jesus himself. Jesus had the power to prevent His own death, but He allowed Himself to be slain. C’s test becomes complicated here. As C suggests, it is impossible to conceive of Jesus as a suicide. Jesus’s main purpose was not to die, but rather to overcome death. However, there is a counter-argument, which is that Jesus actually intended to die, and that that intent would lead to His death being counted as a suicide.
It’s an interesting question; particularly the third example. Now, we don’t have the same strongly anti-suicide culture and theology as Catholics — we believe that suicide is a sin, but the sinful nature of suicide is not emphasized (I think) to the degree that it is within the Cathlic church. Should we, as church members, view Christ’s death as a suicide? There are arguments that this makes sense; particularly since the scriptures make clear that Christ set forth with the express purpose of laying down His life, that He might take it up again.
And if Christ’s death is not to be considered a suicide, then is this because C’s proposed distinction is wrong? How can we distinguish between Christ’s acts and the acts of some other person who sets out to lay down his life? How do we define the boundaries of suicide?
Abinadi would be an interesting example to talk about. He strikes me as a sort of kamikaze prophet, absolutely determined to either set King Noah and his priests right or damn them to hell:
Danithew,
Another Book of Mormon example is the people of Ammon, who allowed themselves to be killed by their enemies rather than resist. Going out to meet the foe and then sitting calmly as he kills you with his sword — that’s a hard case to classify.
This is a sensitive topic for me, since my wife is still suffering the after-effects of her high school boyfriend’s shooting himself in front of her. More than 20 years later, she still will wake up screaming. I agree with “C” that the motivation for the action is the key. One distinction that I use is whether the motivation for the act is selfish/selfless. That covers both the death on the cross and the kamikazee pilots in that both are sacrifices for a greater good, however the person characterizes the greater good.
That said, it seems to me that there is a third motivation for the action besides the selfish and the selfless. That motivation is when a person’s mental state is such that there is no longer a responsibility for his or her actions. I have seen people who truly believe there is no other choice, and the distinction between the right and wrong of either taking their life or finding another solution simply does not exist. For those cases, I am glad I am not the judge. In the high school boyfriend’s case, things were going badly in school, and the note he left behind was little more than “Never mind that, look at ME”. From my perspective, it was one of those selfish acts, but was his depression that deep? We’ll never know.
The line between self-sacrifice (martyrdom) for a cause and suicide is pretty thin sometimes.
This kind of question arises in the debate about Islamist suicide bombers as well. Islamic texts absolutely forbid suicide. They state that the person who commits suicide will end up eternally and repetitively committing the same destuctive action against themselves in hell.
Here’s one representative hadith text (from the collection Sahih Bukhari) on the topic:
This idea that this text could be applied to suicide bombers brings interesting images to mind.
But the fact is that most Muslims do not view suicide bombing as suicide but rather as an act called istishad (a variant on the word shihadah which is used to connote martyrdom).
Personally I think that suicide is best distinguished by who performs the killing action. Abinadi did not light himself on fire. Jesus did not crucify himself. The Anti-Nephi-Lehis did not fall on their own swords but were killed at the hands of others. Even the individual who is hopelessly outnumbered and rushes the enemy (to his almost certain death) in my opinion is not committing suicide, as long as it is the enemy action that kills him. Perhaps each of these bears some small measure of responsibility for allowing themselves to fall into the hands of a vicious enemy — but the greater responsibility still lies with those who committed the killing act. To accuse them of suicide is to blame the victim and ignore the real perpetrator(s).
Suicide bombers and kamikaze pilots are in a different category because they deploy the weapons that are being used themselves themselves (and others). That is a fairly critical element in determining whether an act counts as suicide or not. One could also point out that the suicide bomber or kamikaze pilot fully intends to die, is determined to die as a part of the action being taken.
I think I misspelled an important word in my previous comment. The Arabic word should probably be transliterated as istishhad rather than istishad.
Your distinction is an interesting one, Danithew. I suppose that you’re arguing that one is not committing suicide if the intentional act of another intervenes. But what about ‘suicide by cop’? Clearly suicide, if you ask me, but its the cops who do the killing.
Ultimately, I think the Catholic distinction makes the most sense. Its suicide if you will your death.
Thus, I would say that technically even kamikazes aren’t suicides, since after they crashed the plane into the ship if they somehow managed to live through it they would not have to account themselves as having failed.
Where this becomes complicated is that suicide bombers, kamikazes, and a to a certain extent most martyrs, seem to have an element of longing for or embracing death.
Do religious texts redefine the word “suicide” so that it doesn’t match what’s in the dictionary, i.e. “the act or an instance of intentionally killing oneself”? I think that’s why we’re all confused. Rather, let’s make a distinction between “forgivable suicides” and “unforgivable suicides” so we’re all on the same page here.
So then what if the alternative to suicide is an experience worse than death or that otherwise renders your life meaningless? Like if the only way to get rid of the constant pain is to dull your sense with morphine for the rest of your life? If as in this case you aren’t really alive anyway, is it technically possible to kill yourself?
A. Greenwood, I think the suicide-by-cop example you provide is an excellent counter-example for my argument that the person who ultimately utilizes the weapon is responsible. I wouldn’t necessarily abandon the parameters I set up above … but maybe just concede there is the rare exception.
What you are saying about kamikaze pilots would also apply to suicide bombers. Sometimes they pull the cord and the explosive mechanism fails to function. The irony in these situations is that the person is not welcomed back by the organization that deployed them and on the other side Israeli prison awaits (assuming the Israelis find out and capture the person). There are at least a few stories of this happening. I’m not aware of any stories about kamikaze pilots who survived their attacks on warships … but there are probably a few stories out there of this happening. All I can say is that if a suicide bomber or kamikaze pilot doesn’t die as a result of their normally lethal actions, they certainly cannot be accused of suicide.
There’s another particular example that is of interest in this sort of discussion. There is that heroic soldier who jumps on top of a grenade to shield his buddies from the blast. I wouldn’t call that suicide because I don’t believe the person wanted to die or planned to die. So obviously, as A. Greenwood points out, the person’s intention and motivation for putting himself/herself in harms way needs to play a role in how the action is assessed.
> One distinction that I use is whether the motivation for the act is selfish/selfless. That covers
> both the death on the cross and the kamikazee pilots in that both are sacrifices for a greater
> good, however the person characterizes the greater good.
That’s an interesting distinction, and I think there’s a great deal of truth to it. But I think it runs into problems when dealing with cases such as someone committing suicide because they think their family will be better off without them (via insurance payment, for example.) The motivation may be selfless, but I don’t think that alone justifies it. (And I’m not saying that you do, either — you just put selfless/selfish forward as one distinction that could be made, not the only distinction.)
I think only someone who’s never had a depressed or suicidal thought could casually divide suicidal acts into two categories of selfish and selfless. Shouldn’t people who commit suicide be given the benefit of the doubt that they were under the influence of a mental illness, or at the very least temporarily irrational? Wouldn’t that be more comforting to the family members of someone who commits suicide than debate about what suicidal acts are selfless and which are selfish?
No, Kaimi, we do not believe that suicide is a sin. That is an old and harmful misunderstanding. We believe that great pain is involved and we had better be very careful before we label someone who commits suicide a sinner.
The idea that suicide is a sin originates with the ancient church, when many of its members were committing suicide, and leaving their money to their families, instead of the church.
The book ,Where is Our Hope for Peace, compiled by Jaynann Payne, is an excellent reference for this topic.
I could just smack you up the side of the head right now. You poo-poo stupid head.