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MainBrain
Guest
Hypothetically speaking if a person commits suicide and leaves his wife and kid behind will she/he end up in hell?
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JimR-OCDS
Guest
That’s for God to judge.
Today the Church treats suicide in a different way than in times past. Often, a person who commits suicide is in a disordered mental state, often caused by depression, so they may not be culpable for committing suicide.
In all cases, we must pray for those souls.
Jim
Today the Church treats suicide in a different way than in times past. Often, a person who commits suicide is in a disordered mental state, often caused by depression, so they may not be culpable for committing suicide.
In all cases, we must pray for those souls.
Jim
C
cheezey
Guest
K
kristos
Guest
One thing God is extremely lavish with is uncertainty. The"beauty" of God and hell is that once you find out you’re going, you’re going.
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Ophelia23
Guest
As another has stated, that is for God to judge. We can not say definitvely if anybody is in Hell. Criteria for a sin to be mortal requires the sin to be of a grave nature, to have full knowledge of the gravity of the sin, and to willingly choose to commit the sin regardless. One could easily argue that a person’s mental capacity has the potential of removing any one of the above criteria. We simply don’t know.
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captainrick
Guest
That sums it up - I think that almost everyone committing suicide, or considering leaving a family behind in that way, is in a disordered mental state. But as it’s been said, God decides!
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MattofTexas
Guest
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church (emphasis added)
**If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please don’t do it. There is help out there! Try contacting the Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US (1-800-273-8255) or a similar service in your country. **
So as you can see from the above section of the CCC, suicide is a grave matter which means it can constitute mortal sin and thus be an offense that can destroy the sinner’s relationship with God and cause the person to choose Hell over Heaven. Yet, the Church also recognizes that not every suicide meets all the criteria of being mortal sin and thus does not despair of the salvation of those who take their own lives but she teaches us to pray for such people.
**If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please don’t do it. There is help out there! Try contacting the Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US (1-800-273-8255) or a similar service in your country. **
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Church_Militant
Guest
Good answer Matt!
I’ll post it again to be sure we all get a good look at where to find it for the future because I think it’s an important teaching to have at hand these days.
Suicide
2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.
2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.
I’ll post it again to be sure we all get a good look at where to find it for the future because I think it’s an important teaching to have at hand these days.
Suicide
2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.
2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.
2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.
Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.
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MainBrain
Guest
Your statement above that I highlighted stuck with me. I was thinking about it all last night and even this morning. It’s a profound, and true statement! Did you originate that statement about “God being extremely lavish with uncertainty”? Because it’s profound!
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MainBrain
Guest
Awesome information. Thank you.
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kristos
Guest
Yes it originated with me. It comes from personal experience and being around countless people who were either religious or consecrated. You’ll find lots of theories, lots of talk, lots of verbosity, Scott Hahn could possibly fill the world with books about God, but when all is said and done, how does God respond when i, you or anyone else call on him.
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MainBrain
Guest
It’s awesome that you made that up. Keep it!
Speaking of Scott Hahn, I just finished a book he wrote. He has a great mind and great spirit.Your saying reminds me of a dylan line “oh Jokerman you know what he wants. Oh, Jokerman you don’t show any response…”
Are you a Catholic Kristo? Nevermind. I just viewed your religion above your name.
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thistle
Guest
I don’t understand the why so many people ask such a question.
It would appear that those asking don’t stop to think that a person who commits suicide may already be in a state of mortal sin before the suicide which itself may or may not be a mortal sin.
It would appear that those asking don’t stop to think that a person who commits suicide may already be in a state of mortal sin before the suicide which itself may or may not be a mortal sin.
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kristos
Guest
I think people are asking the question assuming the person was mortal sin free™ before they off themselves. The law is clear, I rob a bank, beat up a random on the street, i go to jail. God likes a little bit of mystery. How God nonchalantly, absent-mindedly plays with the eternal destinies of people is something to behold.
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Mystical_Seeker
Guest
I think it promotes the idea that our destinies are determined by mathematical formulas. If you take sin type A and divide by the mean suffering over life, and add in some late realizations and sprinkle in some despair to taste, subtract a few Good Works, that’s too complicated. So we go for the simplistic thing → if you do A then B will happen.
One problem is that as a people we have discussed individual sins so much that we tend to forget sinfulness is more about the state of mind than particular acts. We think we can break down a topic into simpler subtopics, and somehow analyze each piece and get a Good Picture of the whole. That requires empathy, and by scripture we do not know the mind of God or how He thinks – so we cannot have a “whole picture” of how God views something. Trying to analyze it from the ground up and individual sins is simply our version of building a Tower of Babel.
MS
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SquallLeonheart
Guest
As mentioned before, only God knows and judges in the final moments. I used to argue with my Mom about the person who lived a wonderful pious kind life, helping others, but then dies while committing a horrible crime, or the person like Hitler who does evil all his life, but repents at the very last second. Which goes to Heaven? Both, one? No one will know until that time comes for us all. So all we can do is love they neighbor as ourselves and try our best to forgive others and ourselves.
Suicide is especially tough, and I have friends as well as family who have committed suicide. I pray for them and all those who have committed suicide, I pray that God may have mercy on their souls and that I may see them again in Heaven.
Suicide is especially tough, and I have friends as well as family who have committed suicide. I pray for them and all those who have committed suicide, I pray that God may have mercy on their souls and that I may see them again in Heaven.
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kristos
Guest
Very good. But how do you claim that God is good, perfect even, and perfectly just? And perfectly just according to whom? Let’s say Stalin repented seconds before he died and he is saved, next person did good all their life, but ends up dying after having sex with an escort, and goes to eternal agony? Therefore what you are saying is that we’re clueless about everything and that God is good according to his standard of goodness and just according to his own standards of justice, that may or may not have anyhting to do with human conception of justice and goodness? So God is like a violent daddy who beats up his son mercilessly but yet claims he loves his son dearly according to his own peculiar vision of what love is. We’re forced to love God or be miserable eternally, but God is good, perfect and love. I see. God is good, but dissenters are treated in a way that makes Gulag seem like a day at the beach.
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Mystical_Seeker
Guest
I’ll break this up a little for reaction:
For example, statistically you can’t really say what He needs to wipe out an entire city. Does He spare it with one good person in it, 50 good people, many good people but some rotten apples, etc.? Apparently these things have been negotiable with God in the past. We think, “well there should be a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way.” And we are correct. The Wrong Way is to presume that under any set of written static laws, (the law of sin and death before which there was no sin) we can justify ourselves. Consequently, it is also wrong to presume that we can judge from observable behavior, that someone including ourselves, will be damned by that same law.
God’s justice system makes no sense by any standards of human intelligence. He tells us that our thoughts are not His and vice-versa, and yet we still presume to know His mind.
Here’s one shapshot of God’s so-called “justice system.” Here’s why people with evil and good tendencies alike can thrive or not in the world upon which we wish to impose our own designs:
Matt 5:44-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
So God’s justice sytem is He gives His loving gifts to the righteous and unrighteous alike.
That’s why God first gave us Jesus to fulfill the law. He came to do what the law could not do. (Ref Rom 8)
Too much for human minds. Except the mind of Christ, who was made flesh to come show us how to be perfect humans. We are already divine and loved madly by God, even when we do terrible things to each other like even daddies who beat their babies I figure God sees both as His precious creatures. But that’s just my projection to explain why God doesn’t come strike the guy dead or something. But it works for me, because if we presuppose that God loves us, then our struggle isn’t with trying to impress God so He’ll love us. I don’t know how easy it is for us to impress the One who made the whole universe anyway, so it’s a Good Thing I don’t have to. I just have to learn to love His Son and to love neighbors as ourselves – even enemies. When we can do that we can enjoy much peace.
MS
Exactly. According to whom? Frankly if we were to use standards we believe and rate God’s behavior by whether He gives out the kind of justice we would expect from a Good God, we would not give Him very high ratings.
For example, statistically you can’t really say what He needs to wipe out an entire city. Does He spare it with one good person in it, 50 good people, many good people but some rotten apples, etc.? Apparently these things have been negotiable with God in the past. We think, “well there should be a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ way.” And we are correct. The Wrong Way is to presume that under any set of written static laws, (the law of sin and death before which there was no sin) we can justify ourselves. Consequently, it is also wrong to presume that we can judge from observable behavior, that someone including ourselves, will be damned by that same law.
God’s justice system makes no sense by any standards of human intelligence. He tells us that our thoughts are not His and vice-versa, and yet we still presume to know His mind.
Here’s one shapshot of God’s so-called “justice system.” Here’s why people with evil and good tendencies alike can thrive or not in the world upon which we wish to impose our own designs:
Matt 5:44-48
“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."
So God’s justice sytem is He gives His loving gifts to the righteous and unrighteous alike.
Yes.
You make a good point. It doesn’t look good when judged from our standards. That’s why God’s laws were so confusing. Seemed like He was measuring our love by how well we followed them, but He was allowed to break all the rules and yet He actually is love?
That’s why God first gave us Jesus to fulfill the law. He came to do what the law could not do. (Ref Rom 8)
Too much for human minds. Except the mind of Christ, who was made flesh to come show us how to be perfect humans. We are already divine and loved madly by God, even when we do terrible things to each other like even daddies who beat their babies I figure God sees both as His precious creatures. But that’s just my projection to explain why God doesn’t come strike the guy dead or something. But it works for me, because if we presuppose that God loves us, then our struggle isn’t with trying to impress God so He’ll love us. I don’t know how easy it is for us to impress the One who made the whole universe anyway, so it’s a Good Thing I don’t have to. I just have to learn to love His Son and to love neighbors as ourselves – even enemies. When we can do that we can enjoy much peace.
MS
R
ready
Guest
If the person died in despair and un-reconciled to God, then he/she would go to hell. Only God knows the state of a suicide’s soul at the moment of death. God bless you.
S
SquallLeonheart
Guest
On this eve of 9/11, one thing I am absolutely certain of, is that all of those that jumped to their deaths in the twin towers, they are all with the angels in Heaven. I pray for all those taken that day.
In that horrible, unimaginable day, they knew they were going to die, and the only thing they had control of was how it happened, to jump or to wait/burn/suffocate. May God bless their souls and have mercy.
In that horrible, unimaginable day, they knew they were going to die, and the only thing they had control of was how it happened, to jump or to wait/burn/suffocate. May God bless their souls and have mercy.
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