From what I have been told about the Christian view of suicide, suicides go to Hell because they took a life and did not have a chance to ask for forgiveness. But what if someone initiates a suicide in a method that is a slow death, then has a change of heart and asks for forgiveness before he dies? If someone overdoses on Tylenol, then ‘sees the light’, takes Jesus into their heart and prays for forgiveness, then dies, shouldn’t they go to Heaven?
How about a more prolonged scenario - someone slits their wrists, but is rescued and has the arteries stitched up - then days or weeks later, after realizing their mistake and praying for forgiveness, the damaged arteries tear and they bleed to death?
Well, my Church usually holds that you must hurt sombody else “do unto others…” before you have a mortal sin. Now, some suicides DO grievously hurt others in their life. For other folks (mortally ill, in pain), their suicide is a relief to others. Many others, after having commited the act, but before death- DO repent.
In any case, even if one did commit an unrepentant mortal sin, one is given the chance to repent again, in that “other place”. Most do.
I thought it was not much that they took a life (like murder) but that they took the gift God gave them and threw it back in his face. More the sin of ingratitude. Don’t some people consider despair a sin for similar reasons?
But, no I don’t see why you couldn’t repent, make whatever effort you were capable of to retain God’s gift, and make it into heaven. (I mean if I believed any of this.)
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life
No exclusions there for people that kill themselves.
From Romans
That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
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For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
Salvation is through grace alone, you cannot be good enough to earn your way into heaven, and you can’t be bad enough to lose it.
Suicide may be a sin, and you may not have time to ask for forgiveness, but God forgives you anyway.
So if no one goes to hell, what is the point of Jesus’s teachings? Why did he say it was better to cut off your own hand, or pluck out your own eye, than end up sending yourself to hell? Surely your eye or hand can’t negate what comes out of your mouth nor what is in your heart, right?
You can’t believe in Jesus and not keep his commandments. You can’t believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord and do evil works. A house divided against itself can not stand.
Suicide is sinful on two counts: as violence against God’s creations (like homicide), and as rebellion against God’s plan (like heresy).
Dante was a good Catholic. He put the Wood of Suicides in the Second Round of the Seventh Circle of Hell. This implied that it was a worse sin than murder, but not as bad as heresy. If you change your mind before you die, you can be forgiven, but you still have to do some penance in Purgatory.
Many Protestant sects preach the doctrine of salvation “by grace alone, through faith alone”. If you have faith, God may decide to save you, regardless of whether or not you deserve it. They usually fudge it by saying that if you would commit the sin of suicide, then you must not have had any faith.
More liberal sects say that it’s all a personal matter between you and God, and nobody else is qualified to speculate about the final Judgement.
God knows your heart and your intentions. So if you try to kill yourself and see the light ( so to speak ) before you actually die, then you are forgiven once you ask him to save you…That is his promise
Suppose one is born mute and otherwise unable to communicate (happens all the time). Seems like one could not then confess one’s belief and therefore according to your quote is doomed to hell no matter what is in one’s heart.
Doesn’t seem right that someone unable to fulfill the requirements through no fault of his own should be consigned to eternal damnation.
It is catholisism(sp?(I don’t know for sure, don’t quote me)) that believes that if you sin before you die, you go to hell. Some christian denominations do too, but most don’t. Mine doesn’t.
Joff, as a Catholic, I can tell you that if you recieve the Last Rites you will go to Heaven. If, at the point of death there is no priest handy and you detest your sins, you will go to heaven.
If death is so sudden that you don’t have the opportunity to recant your sins, you go to Purgatory.
True, if you really believe you will try to do what is right, but we are imperfect, and will screw up from time to time. Thats where Gods forgiveness comes in. If you had to live a perfect life from the moment you were saved, till the moment you died, no one would go to heaven. As a christian, I do make mistakes, I do sin ocasionally, but I am forgiven.
