Throughout pages of ancient historical texts and up to the modern era, the idea of a human taking their own life has been viewed in many different lights. For instance, the Japanese kamikaze warriors view suicide, when committed to retain honor or for the good of their people, as honorable and good. On the other hand, most Christians view suicide as an act against the authority of God, as disobedience towards His instructions – or sin. In this paper, I will observe philosopher David Hume’s argument that suicide, or the act of taking ones life is not necessarily wrong or sinful at all, and then I will expose his argument as being invalid. To do so, I will consult a couple sources explaining reasons for suicide being unjust. Also, I will consult works by authors of the Holy Bible such as John, Paul, and Jeremiah, along with others. Although Hume brings up interesting arguments that are very much against the majority of today’s society, and I for one am opposed to his method of thought. The act of taking your own life can never be justified, for in reality God reserved such authority to Himself.
Hume says that, “If suicide is criminal, it must be an infraction of our duty either (1) to God, (2) to our neighbour, or (3) to ourselves.” Furthermore, Hume claims that every action that occurs on earth, whether it occurs naturally or if man performs it, is under the sovereignty of God. He builds off of this by saying that even such an act of a man killing himself would be within the will of God, and would not disturb the various natural laws of our world given by God (Hume 21). Also, Hume discusses certain laws that govern the occurrences of the world around us. He claims that, “human life depends upon the general laws of matter and motion, and that you don’t encroach on God’s office when you disturb or alter these laws.” He goes on to equate a building falling on a man and killing him and that same man killing himself, and insists that just because one is more “animate” than the other doesn’t mean that the act of the man killing himself would impact the natural order of laws, nor would it be an act of “[intruding] into God’s affairs (Hume 24).”
Obviously Hume supports a view of suicide that permits it if the scenario were acceptable. He clearly is very focused on the individual instead of the bigger picture; so in light of this, let’s consider the selfishness of suicide. According to an Article by Dr. Andrew Corbett, suicide is “the ultimate act of selfishness.” His reasons for this conclusion are one, that committing suicide accomplishes nothing, but in reality leaves them exactly the way they were beforehand – and worse. Two, he says that even though some people contemplating suicide believe their doing so will make things better for those around, they end up just hurting their loved ones even more by following through. Third and last reason given by Dr. Corbett for suicide being a selfish act is that the pain caused by this selfish act “rarely heals,” and the affects of it will last (Corbett 1). Therefore, an individual’s reasons for committing suicide, such as grief, stress, or feeling unloved are, although serious issues, feelings and thoughts focused on oneself without observation of the thoughts and feelings of the others involved in those situations or of the ones you would be cutting to the heart if you would follow through with such an act.
Next, I will present a basic trail of thought laid out by an article titled “What Does the Bible Say About Suicide?” I chose Christian sources because I find them to be the most firm basis of ultimate truth and understanding of what is morally just and unjust. First in the argument, God has created everyone, and not only that, but he made everyone to be like him (Gen. 1:26-27). Also from Jeremiah 29:11 we see that God has a plan set out for everyone’s life before we even existed; it say, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” From this we also gather – from “to give you hope and a future” – that God has not only set a plan for where you’ve been and where you are, but for where you’re going. That means he knows the day you will die! Moreover, God did not create you to harm you, or he didn’t create you to die. He created you to have life! In the book of Romans Paul says, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. (6:23)” Here we see that death was not a creation of God, but a result of man’s disobedience to follow his instruction, for that’s what sin is – disobedience to God (Gen. 3). However, we also are reminded that God provided salvation from the death caused by our mistakes by giving us his son to be a perfect sacrifice for our sins, and who rose above them so that we could have the real, eternal life that God created us for. Moving on, John 10:10 says, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Here, Christ is preaching and saying that the devil (thief) has the desire to see everyone fall and give into his temptations, and we see that his ultimate goal for everyone is death both physical and spiritual. But we also observe again, how the moral compass of the universe – God has provided truth and a way to be claimed just and alive. Building off of this, God is the keeper of life. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own, you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” The part to focus on here is that “you were bought at a price.” This price was the life of Jesus Christ, the perfect Son of God, the keeper of life. Therefore, since the perfect God of all things loved us enough to give us life, who are we to take it ourselves outside of his plan for our lives which he intends to be life – not death (Christian Answers 1)?
First of all, suicide is not a disturbance or intrusion of God’s order, for it withstands any opposition, and His affairs have been set since before the beginning of time. It’s that committing suicide rejects God’s order and it opposes God’s affairs. God intends us to live out life loving Him and loving those around us, allowing Him to direct our paths while we look forward to the day He calls us home away from this earth we’re on. He gives us no leisure or privilege to make our going to His heaven any sooner than when He has prepared for us already. The Bible tells us that only He knows the hour when He will call believers to heaven, and again, He has not granted us the right to shorten our lives just so we can go to heaven sooner (Matthew 24:36). The time He grants us here on His earth is so short anyway – why would you desire its completion before you have observed all that God is capable of doing in that short amount of time? God gives and takes away, we are His stewards, this includes our bodies, which He tells us are our temples in and through which we serve Him. If He instructs us to be good stewards of what He grants us and if He has granted us our temples – which He also instructs us to keep purified and holy – then why/how could destroying or wasting it with suicide be in line with the orders God Himself has set forth in this world? It cannot be.
Works Cited:
- Hume, David. “FOUR ESSAYS Tragedy, The Standard of Taste, Suicide, The Immortality of the Soul.” Earlymoderntexts.com. Jonathan Bennett, July 2006. Web. 22 Oct. 2015.
- Andrew Corbett, Dr. “The Tragedy of Suicide.” The Tragedy of Suicide. Findingtruthmatters, 20 Oct. 2006. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
- “What Does the Bible Say About Suicide.” Http://christiananswers.net/q-dml/dml-y038.html. Christiananswers, 1997. Web. 10 Dec. 2015.
- No author for this one??
- The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments: NKJV, New King James Version. Nashville: Nelson Bibles, 2006. Print.