I remember once having a discussion with two of my friends at a Denny's after performing in a show. Somehow, we got onto a more serious line of discussion regarding what we would do in a zombie apocalypse scenario.
A question somewhere along these lines was brought up, "If you knew you were infected and you were going to turn into a zombie, would you charge into a hoard of zombies and commit suicide to hold them off and help your 'team' escape?"
"Well, I'm a Christian, so I belive that suicide means..." at this, the friend speaking pointed down, insinuating damnation.
"Impossible," I thought quietly, "Do people really think this is what Christians believe? So uninformed..." I said nothing, of course, having no plan for how to say what I wanted to say.
Even these many years later I think of that conversation and how I could have responded to better my friend's wisdom. If charging into a hoard of zombies to save your friends is suicide, then didn't Jesus technically commit suicide? (These points are from the Christian perspective. If you disagree, feel free to imagine that I am telling a fictional story.) He chose to come to earth in full knowledge that he was going to be crucified. Should he not be condemned for commiting suicide? Instead, he is not only commended for "sinning" but exalted for his sacrifice. I don't think anyone would condemn Jesus for his actions because, after all, his death saved the souls of everyone there and everyone to come for eternity.
I have come to give two seperate words for the simple, everyday suicide we see in the newspaper and the kind of suicide that you would have commited had you charged into that zombie hoard. There is suicide and there is sacrifice; one is bad and one is good. The question is why? Why is one good and the other bad? What are the identifiable differences between the two? These are the questions that this essay will answer.
I would like to start off by saying that I do not believe that suicide is a one way ticket to hell. I believe that salvation is achieved through faith in Jesus Christ and that no action can interfere with that salvation.
That said, let us kick off this essay discussing how suicide is immoral. The reverse argument for suicide stands on logic such as, "It's their body and they can do what they want to do with it. It's their life, if they choose to reject it then they have a right to do so." I have no quarrel with this argument. It uses logic that is irrefutable. It is absolutely true that someone can do whatever they want with their body. But should they?
For those of you who read my first post, "Battle Against Modern Ideals", you will probably find this logic similar to the logic in that post. I put forth this question, "Is that person's body truly their own?" Think of what you are trying to justify when you put forth the path of reasoning "it's their body". To take one's own life is to exercise complete authority over one's own life. So when you say "it's their body" to justify suicide, you mean "it's their body" completely and totally.
Bottom line: the justification of suicide requires that the offender have absolute ownership of his/her life
"Is that person's body truly their own?" I argue that the answer is no. For some perspective on my judgment, let's observe how ownership is achieved in the usual world. There are several methods, but the one I want to put the spotlight on is creator and creation. When someone creates something, they get the created substance copyrighted to ensure that absolute ownership of the created material remains with the creator. The copyright does not extablish ownership; in other words, the creator's ownership of the creation was acheived by him creating it, not by getting a copyright. What I am getting at is that absolute ownership of an object belongs to that object's creator.
Bottom line: absolute ownership of an object lies with the object's creator
Allow me to ask you a trick question. "Did you create yourself?" "Um... no," you may awkwardly answer. Awkward as the answer may be, the answer is correct. You did not create yourself (obviously).
What I love about this little nugget of wisdom is that it does not depend on what you believe. You may believe that you were created by God, or Fate, or just a sperm uniting with an egg. Whatever you believe, it's irrelevant. You did not create yourself. You did not exist prior to your own existence, let alone existing to such an extent that you could create yourself or otherwise orchestrate your own creation. If ever you existed to such an extent, that would make you some sort of god. Having no knowledge now of ever having been a god makes you a very questionable sort of god, don't you think? I'm willing to bet that a god could don a human body, but to literally demote himself from god to human to the point that he forgets that he is a god and loses all of his god-like power? Sounds far fetched, if not impossible. Can a human forget their past at will?
So you did not create yourself. Therefore you do not have complete ownership of yourself. Suicide is an exercise of absolute authority; you are taking control of everything you are. You, however, do not have authority over everything you are. Therefore, when you commit suicide, you are exercising authority which you do not possess.
Think of it this way: your life is a gift. Is destroying it for your own pleasure honoring to its creator? Would you smash a trophy given you by a friend merely because it pleased you to do so? Or consider this footnote: your life is not a gift you get to keep forever. Instead, it is merely borrowed. Someday, you must return your body to its creator. When you die, your existence leaves your body and the fate of the creator's creation is back in the hands of the creator. Would you return his creation battered and mutilated? Unintentionally, no harm done. But intentionally? Rather disrespectful, don't you think?
Principle declaration: suicid is immoral because it is an exercise of authority which its participant does not possess
I think I should clarify something about what I just said, about returning one's body to its creator mutilated. I do not believe it is a sin to practice in dangerous sports which frequently inflict injury on you. If your creator obviously created you as a sports person, then you ought to do sports. Your friend would likely think nothing of a serious mutilation, reparable or irreparable, inflicted on the bike he gave you, given that it happened while you were having fun riding the bike. I think not wearing a helmet, etc., is being extraordinarily careless but other than that I have nothing against sports which are taxing on the body.
Now that that is out of the way, let's discuss sacrifice. How is sacrifice right while suicide is wrong? To gain a clear, measurable contrast let's compare sacrifice to the same principle by which suicide is declared immoral; the principle I declared one paragraph up. Suicide is declared immoral under the principle that no one has that level of ownership of his/her life.
How does sacrifice compare with this principle? At first glance, sacrifice is compared and found wanting as much as suicide. Sacrifice is still the act of taking one's own life, isn't it? That is a violation of the principle, is it not? Picture the zombie scenario again, where the survivor charges into a hoard of zombies to hold them off long enough for his friends to escape.
Some of you may question, "Technically, the zombies took the man's life. His action doesn't even fall close to an act of suicide!" This line of reasoning is flawed for this reason: if someone jumps in front of a bus, do we say that the bus killed them? We might, but not to the point that we no longer consider it to be an act of suicide. That would be foolish! It was the persons intent to kill themself. It was they who knowingly, by force of will, set into motion an event that resulted in their death. In essence, they "started it", and are therefore responsible for the outcome. So our zombie scenario is an act of suicide because the person knowingly, by force of will, set into motion an event that caused his death.
Bottom line: to knowingly, by force of will, set into motion an event that causes death is to be responsible for that death
There are other circumstances to consider about this zombie scenario, circumstances that also have to do with the principle. Imagine what would happen if the survivor did not charge into the zombie hoard. Assume that it is guarunteed that without the survivor holding them off, the zombies would finish everyone. Now, the man can save everyone in his group; by not committing suicide, he is condemning each and every one of them. He is condemning each and every one of them by not committing suicide.
Sounds harsh? Harsh as it is, it's true. Remember the bottom line above this paragraph. The bus may have killed that person, but it was that person who jumped in front of the bus. They knowingly, by force of will, caused their death. It's the same for the zombie survivor. Assume that he knows of the group's doom. To not kill himself would be to knowingly, by force of will, cause the death of his team. Though to an indirect extent, he did indeed kill them.
Compare this to the principle. Does he have the authority to condemn them? Did he create anyone on his team? Even if one of them in the team was his child, he did not "create" his child, he merely engaged in a natural process that caused the creation of the child. He does not have absolute authority over the life of anyone there, therefore when given the choice to save or condemn them, he does not have the authority required to condemn them justifiably. He must do what he can to save them or he will be condemning them and simultaneously exercising authority over them which he does not have.
Bottom line: either option in a sacrificial scenario is an exercise of authority which you do not possess.
When a scenario like this presents itself, you are at an impass. If you save them, you kill yourself. If you save yourself, you kill them (assume that somehow you would live). Violation of the principle of authority is inevitable. From here, you must focus not on the "right" choice, per se, but the "best" choice (which is by any standard the "right" choice anyway). The best choice, then, is the selfless choice; to put the needs of others before your own. That's why sacrifice is fully justified. It puts the needs of others before your own needs. Suicide, on the other hand, puts your own desires over your own needs and probably the desires of others (including your creator, depending on what you believe).
Bottom line: sacrifice is in the right because it is selfless as opposed to selfish
I was thinking of adding an extensive addition here spelling out as many distinctions as I could find between sacrifice and suicide. However, I often forget that I am writing a blog, not a book ;) and therefore leave the discerning into your, hopefully capable hands.
As a final note, I must lament that fact that this will probably not help anyone who is suicidal, since someone so frail does not need to be impersonally told "this is wrong" as much as they simply need a hand to hold or a counselor. For those of you who are suicidal and who did make it through this blog, I commend you for enduring my incredibly raw assault of your actions. I encourage you, then, to find your resources and find rest from the cruel, relentless forces of depression!
