So, one of the things I worry about (and yes, I know that worry is a sin) is what to believe about people who commit suicide. My problem arises from two points. First, I was suicidal up until 27. I can date it exactly because my suicidal tendencies ended with an attempt that came so close that as I was passing out on the emergency room table I overheard the doctor say that it was very uncertain whether I would live and I remember panicking as unconsciousness came on, knowing that I didn't really want to die, and praying to God to let me live. When I woke up in the hospital bed the next day, I thanked God for answering my prayer, and from then on suicide was no longer an option. I "scared myself straight", so to speak. That isn't to say I don't still get depressed - I do, because that's part of my makeup and almost certainly a brain chemistry thing caused by genetics from both sides of the family. But no matter how bad it gets, suicide has been ruled out as a choice forever. I mean this truly when I say, "Lucky me." I wonder how many people succeed at what I tried who also didn't really want it to work?
Which leads to my second issue around the topic. I wonder the most about a best friend of mine who succeeded leaving us all in a most angry and horrific way a few years ago. He, too, was plagued by depression most of his life, but rejected medication (well, prescription medication, anyway - he self-medicated a lot) because it made him "think wrong". Before you get some picture of a barely functioning nutcase, let me just say my friend was brilliant, a mentor to me and to many others, someone admired by all who knew him, who was accomplished in all he tried, not just at work but also mountain and rock climbing, making things with his hands, painting, writing...you name it, not only could he do it, he excelled at it. And then, after a stupid fight with his wife, he ended it all in a really hateful, hurtful way.
I remember at the time going through so many emotions. Grief, of course. And anger close behind. And more grief. And more anger. But most of all, I was surprised. Because if he could choose to end his life, why should we mere normals drag ourselves into another day? I mean, I looked up to him about almost everything, and now I've had to reassess all that.
But in terms of my faith, the most worrying to me is the fact that he was a committed, uncompromising atheist. A complete and total unbeliever, and proud of it. Which, compounded with the suicide, means most Christians see him as would G.K. Chesterton (the following which I quoted not long after the event, in anger).
Under the lengthening shadow of Ibsen, an argument arose whether it was not a very nice thing to murder one's self. Grave moderns told us that we must not even say "poor fellow," of a man who had blown his brains out, since he was an enviable person, and had only blown them out because of their exceptional excellence. Mr. William Archer even suggested that in the golden age there would be penny-in-the-slot machines, by which a man could kill himself for a penny. In all this I found myself utterly hostile to many who called themselves liberal and humane. Not only is suicide a sin, it is the sin. It is the ultimate and absolute evil, the refusal to take an interest in existence; the refusal to take the oath of loyalty to life. The man who kills a man, kills a man. The man who kills himself, kills all men; as far as he is concerned he wipes out the world. His act is worse (symbolically considered) than any rape or dynamite outrage. For it destroys all buildings: it insults all women. The thief is satisfied with diamonds; but the suicide is not: that is his crime. He cannot be bribed, even by the blazing stones of the Celestial City. The thief compliments the things he steals, if not the owner of them. But the suicide insults everything on earth by not stealing it. He defiles every flower by refusing to live for its sake. There is not a tiny creature in the cosmos at whom his death is not a sneer. When a man hangs himself on a tree, the leaves might fall off in anger and the birds fly away in fury: for each has received a personal affront. Of course there may be pathetic emotional excuses for the act. There often are for rape, and there almost always are for dynamite. But if it comes to clear ideas and the intelligent meaning of things, then there is much more rational and philosophic truth in the burial at the cross-roads and the stake driven through the body, than in Mr. Archer's suicidal automatic machines. There is a meaning in burying the suicide apart. The man's crime is different from other crimes -- for it makes even crimes impossible.
- G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
So does he deserve to roast in hell for all eternity for the mistake of a moment? Before you jump to answer "Yes!", remember that there but for the grace of God go I, and I should also tell you that during my period of wandering one of my arguments against Christianity was what I called my "calculus" or "limit approaching zero" doubt, which covers this very issue, and can be expressed as follows:
"Humanity is only here for 'three score years and ten'. In that time we grow from an incomprehending infant to a rebellious adolescent to an adult wrestling with life to old age. Or our life may be stopped anywhere along that way by accident, injury, disease or intent. In that short time span, and in our very limited brains, we are supposed to comprehend eternity, and then make the right choice concerning it, and if we don't, then we will spend all of eternity in perdition."
The reason I call this the "limit approaching zero" problem is that if you divide the number of years we have to make that choice (especially the number of years we have to make that choice in a comprehending, that is, adult, manner) and divide it by the number of years that choice will affect, i.e., eternity, the limit truly does approach zero. Or as I used to sum it up, "you have no time in which to make the decision on how to spend all time".
To this day, his wife believes he is really surprised to find there is an afterlife and wishing he hadn't done it. He was usually such a loving, caring, giving, thoughtful and funny person that I, too, believe it was a literally a mad (in both senses of the word) act, a flash of anger for which he would now repent (if not to God, at least to his wife) if he could. But he can't.
So I don't know how to put this to rest. My religion says he is damned eternally, and yet I do not want that for the friend I knew, who could be so gentle and loving and caring and funny. I always thought that maybe, over time, he would mellow and soften and begin to see the error of his ways, but he stopped that possibility from happening. So now he is gone, and I worry as to where and pray for his soul. May God have mercy on him.
Comments appreciated.
