Throughout my time studying the Catholic religion, i've heard much about suicide damning someone to hell, yet never knew if this was the exact truth. This past week in my city, a kid committed suicide, and i was brought back to pondering about his fate. I know suicide is taking away the most precious gift that God could present someone with, yet is it not true that God knows when and how your life will end? So if how and when you die is already known, why would you be sent to Hell if God knows that you will commit suicide? Is that not just a select few being sent to Hell for something they couldnt exactly control because it was already decided? I know i am most likely wrong but could someone clarify this subject for me please and help my understanding?
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Suicide = Damnation to Hell?
- Thread starter fafinal
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Filia Mariae
Senior Contributor
Hi Fafinal,
The Church does not teach that anyone is definitively in or going to hell. Suicide could be a mortal sin. It is a grave matter, but for it to be mortal the person would also have to have full knowledge of this and consciously choose to do it anyway of their own free will.
I personally have difficulty believing that anyone who would choose suicide can freely exercise their free will, considering the mental state they must be in.
Regardless, we should pray for those who have committed suicide, as well as their families left behind.
The Church does not teach that anyone is definitively in or going to hell. Suicide could be a mortal sin. It is a grave matter, but for it to be mortal the person would also have to have full knowledge of this and consciously choose to do it anyway of their own free will.
I personally have difficulty believing that anyone who would choose suicide can freely exercise their free will, considering the mental state they must be in.
Regardless, we should pray for those who have committed suicide, as well as their families left behind.
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Best said by the Catechism:
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.
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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This topic turned a lot of people away from the Church. I have heard innumerable stories where suicide victims were not allowed to have services, etc... due to this. It is good that this has been clarified and explained. Gotta get the word out. I told someone recently whose father had committed suicide over 40 years ago and for whom the Church had denied services to go back to a priest and ask him to hold a service, give a blessing and pray for the soul of her father. He did and it worked wonders for this person. It helped the dead father too, no doubt.
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Loki
Senior Veteran
Though Schopenhauer argued that suicide is acceptable in cases where life really does look that bleak, he's the only person (presumably) in a sane mind that I've ever known to pose this argument. I've dealt with some people in various stages of suicidal thought (from entertaining it, to planning it, etc.), and none of them were thinking rationally. I had a period myself, where I seriously contemplated killing myself, and looking back on it, I was not in a rational state of mind. At the core, it hits at accountability, but it is admittedly a grey area, because it is difficult to determine when someone is acting in a rational mind, or to define rational mind, for that matter.
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ps139
Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!
You also have to consider that the time to repent is NOW. And NOW for someone who commits suicide could be the millisecond before he or she actually dies. You never know what is going on in someone's mind. And what the others said about rational states of mind is true as well.
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ps139
Ab omni malo, libera nos, Domine!
God foreknowing something is different than God willing something. To use a human example, if I know Joe really well, and I see that someone has smashed up his car, before he even sees it, I know that he will get mad. I did not make him be mad though. It might be a bad example but I hope the main point comes across.fafinal said:
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This topic is always a tough one because actually we really don't know. It pretty much all depends upon God's mercy towards the victim. God, being as merciful as He is, I don't tend to think he would condemn someone to hell if there was something psychiatrically wrong with them, and they committed suicide. But on the other hand, if one knows full well that it's wrong, etc... then that would be a different case... But it's truly not something for us to judge, it's left up to God. 
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