This week, good old Grove Books Ltd has published an important title by Andrew Goddard called Right to Die? The ‘Assisted Dying’ Debate. It is very timely, given that the so-called Assisted Dying Bill is coming back for its third reading in the Commons on 20th June. I offer here some samples of the text, showing how it tackles the key issues underlying this debate, and how we might respond to it.
Andrew begins by exploring the terminology involved—since this is a key part of framing the debate, though many do not realise this. And the question is far from a new one.
The question of ending someone’s life prematurely by what is commonly called ‘assisted dying’ is far from being a new one in British life. The second question ever asked of a British sample by Gallup—the first opinion pollsters in the UK—was, ‘Do you consider that doctors should be given power to end the life of a person incurably ill?’ That was put to a sample of a thousand people back in 1937 and by over two to one (69% to 31%) the finding was that people agreed doctors should be given such power.
The contentious proposed legislation at that time was the Voluntary Euthanasia (Legislation) Bill which was defeated in the House of Lords. The Voluntary Euthanasia Legalization Society had been founded two years previously, ninety years ago, in 1935. In 2006 it changed its name to Dignity in Dying and, highlighting a central argument for its cause, took the strapline ‘Your Life, Your Choice.’ Interestingly, when that same poll question was asked in 2024 the level of support had reduced with only 59% agreeing that doctors should have such power and 41% disagreeing.
All this highlights the importance of the question of terminology, not least in relation to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024–2025, the current legislation before parliament, introduced as a Private Members’ Bill by Kim Leadbeater MP, following various past failures to change the law through both the UK and devolved parliaments.
Assisted Dying
The language of ‘assisted dying’ is increasingly the default terminology in much media and popular discussion. This clearly captures both that the focus is the desire for, or prospect of, the end of someone’s life (‘dying’) and that we are concerned with how those around the person dying or wishing to die should respond to them and their situation (‘assisted’). The difficulty for many with the language is that the phrase is vague both as to the nature of assistance and the cause of death. It is, however, each of these aspects which cause ethical and legal controversy:
- Is the nature of assistance being provided relatively uncontentious matters which are currently legal and common medical practice (eg making the person comfortable, providing pain relief, withdrawing treatments that are burdensome or ineffective) or something more?
- Is the dying by natural causes or by human actions intending to bring about the death?
For some, this language is a deceptive and dangerous euphemism, masking that what is being described is intentional killing and suicide. This unclarity is confirmed by a 2021 poll which showed that more than half of those asked understood the term ‘assisted dying’ to mean either ‘providing hospice-type care to people who are dying’ (10%) or ‘giving people who are dying the right to stop life-prolonging treatment’ (42%) rather than ‘providing people who have less than six months to live with lethal drugs to end their life’ (43%). Among those opposed to changes in the law are many who would describe what they do—for example providing palliative care—as assisting people to die. They therefore object to this terminology being used for intentional ending of life and to the suggestion that assistance is not currently being provided for those who are dying.
Andrew then goes on to explore language that has previously been used, including ‘assisted suicide’, ‘euthanasia’, and ‘eugenics’. Each of these terms and their use highly some key issues and motivation in this debate.
In the second chapter, Andrew engages with the first of the two major arguments put forward in favour of early termination of life: the individual’s personal autonomy. But that term originally had a different meaning, and its use often masks some complex issues around community and culture, conscience, and consent. Are we really isolated individuals who exercise fully-informed perfect autonomy as we make decisions?
One of the most common and seemingly powerful arguments that is regularly advanced in this debate is captured in the title of ‘a grassroots movement that campaigns for assisted dying reform’: My Death, My Decision…‘My Death, My Decision,’ like ‘Your Life, Your Choice,’ provides a memorable soundbite that sums up the argument based on individual autonomy.
What is Meant by Autonomy?
The word ‘autonomy’ derives, like ‘euthanasia,’ from two Greek words: autos meaning ‘self’ and nomos meaning ‘law.’ These were already combined in ancient Greek to produce autonomos and autonomia. Originally, ‘autonomy’ was a political or legal term which referred to a community of people being free to rule itself and determine its own laws, in contrast to being a colony. Similarly, today we might talk of the importance of preserving the autonomy of Ukraine.
In the eighteenth century, Kant applied the term philosophically to principles which he classed as autonomous if they could be rationally based and accepted by all. These principles contrasted with non-universal principles which were reliant on the authority of some more limited authority such as the church (and so a heteronomous law, derived from other than the self).
The modern understanding so important in debates about the end of life is quite different from either of these and only emerged in the latter half of the last century. It spoke not of autonomous communities or principles but autonomous individuals and it exalted individual autonomy or independence as a human good. There is, within this relatively recent usage of ‘autonomy,’ a wide range of understandings.
Dr Onora O’Neill, who has written extensively on autonomy, helpfully distinguishes between what she calls:
- a minimalist view which equates autonomy simply with the ability to make a choice (or ‘decision,’ to use the terminology of the earlier slogan), and
- non-minimalist views which require any choice to also pass one or more tests. These tests might include there needing to be an informed or a reasoned choice and there is considerable debate as to what criteria should apply for an individual’s choice to be properly autonomous, and how that is to be judged.
These different understandings of autonomy are rarely adequately explored in popular debate but are important in relation to decisions at the end of life. More minimalist accounts of autonomy will lead to a greater acceptance of people’s desire for their life to be brought to an end while non-minimalist understandings will result in much greater legal constraints being applied.
One of the key issues in thinking about autonomy is the importance of and nature of consent on the part of the individual. But that is never an issue divorced from wider concerns.
The simple fact that, at the time, it was ‘my decision’ is always less than the whole story. In a world where we are increasingly aware of forms of abuse and coercion and control (of the elderly and sick and of women) that have often gone unnoticed or unreported for long periods of time in institutions and families it is not unreasonable to point out that the ideal autonomous individual is often a long way from the lived reality.
Currently some of the most effective arguments for a change in the law are stories of the denial of the wishes of those who say they have given clear and consistent consent to be enabled to bring their life to an end. These are not the only stories that need to be considered. Alison Davis described how, as a result of her severe disability,
in 1985 when I was at my lowest ebb ever, I made the decision that I no longer wanted to live. At that time, doctors believed that my life expectancy was very short.
The next ten years she described as ‘the most difficult period of my life’ with ‘a settled wish’ to die leading her to attempt suicide several times in 1985–1990. In 1995, a life-changing trip to a charitable project for disabled children in India led her to tell her carer, for the first time in a decade, ‘Do you know, I think I want to live.’ In 2012, a year before she died, she wrote,
In retrospect I realize that had euthanasia or ‘assisted suicide’ been legal when I was so desperate I would have missed what turned out to be the best years of my life. And no one would ever have known that the future held such good times, and that the doctors were wrong in thinking I didn’t have long to live. This is one of the major problems with allowing suffering people the ‘choice’ of an assisted death—it assumes that life could never get any better. Yet mine did, even in spite of continuing and worsening severe pain and suffering.
In her case, the rejection by friends, medics and wider society through the law, of her consent expressed through a decade-long consistent settled conviction that she wished to die was something for which she was subsequently immensely grateful.
A second major argument often put forward is that of compassion—that in the face of suffering, the compassionate thing to do is to help to terminate a person’s life. But that assumes that we can, somehow, objectively measure suffering, and that we can have perfect knowledge about the imminence of death, neither of which is true. Andrew explores this, and the implications of changing the law, before coming to the question of the role of God’s church in this debate.
One of the most persuasive arguments for legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia is an appeal to compassion. It hopefully goes without saying that the church needs to show compassion in all that it says and does and cannot simply oppose proposed changes to the law. This is why palliateive care has been a key part of Christian response to this issue. At its heart is the conviction, in the words of Paul Ramsey, that ‘attending and companying with the patient in his dying is, in fact, the oldest medical ethics there is.’ Among the concerning elements of the proposed legislation is that the already under-resourced area of palliative care will suffer further and that hospices will even be required to participate in the provision of voluntary assisted dying services.
It is certainly no coincidence that Christians from the start have played a central role in the hospice movement. But we also need to recognize the limits in any appeal to compassion as explained over forty years ago by Oliver O’Donovan in his discussion of ethics at the start of life and his warning about the dangers in medicine of ‘the exclusive importance of compassion among the virtues’:
Compassion is the virtue of being moved to action by the sight of suffering—that is to say, by the infringement of passive freedoms. It is a virtue that circumvents thought, since it prompts us immediately to action. It is a virtue that presupposes that an answer has already been found to the question ‘What needs to be done?,’ a virtue of motivation rather than reasoning. As such it is the appropriate virtue for a liberal revolution, which requires no independent thinking about the object of morality, only a very strong motivation to its practice.
…At the heart of the Christian gospel is a conviction that in Christ we know God to be the God who has suffered and approached death as one of us, for all of us. God is the God who is therefore with us in our own suffering and our own dying. We therefore do not need ultimately to fear suffering and death. We can instead, in the face of them, entrust ourselves to God rather than seek to reassert our supposedly autonomous self in order to ‘play God’ by destroying ourselves. In the wonderful opening words of the Heidelberg Catechism:
Q What is your only comfort in life and in death?
A That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Saviour, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
This is a really excellent booklet, and it should equip both individuals and churches to engage with the issues, understand what is involved and at stake, and be equipped to take action. You can order it from the Grove Books website, £4.95 post-free in the UK, or purchase a PDF ebooklet.
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Another excellent analysis from Andrew Goddard. The other thing from the churches point of view is having made their decision- are they prepared to meet their maker?
Atheists wouldn’t care of course.
Thank you, Andrew, for this excellent piece; I truly appreciate your work.
If this legislation passes, those of us who minister in congregations will be called upon to conduct the funerals of people who have taken the route afforded by the legislation. I suspect that our collective pastoral gifts will be tested, also bearing in mind that some relatives of the deceased may have profoundly disagreed with their loved-one’s course of action, as may we as ministers/priests.
I imagine, too, that we will also be called to be present before, at, or just after at the time of death. And, at an even deeper level, we may be present with a family member—a spouse or child—who takes this course of action. And if the legislation does not pass, accompany them on their final journey to another country with the possible implications in Criminal Law that may entail.
And on a practical note! I read line by line the earlier draft Bill, but have not gone through the Bill presently before Parliament. A major caution if it has not been addressed: Life Assurance Policies may not pay out in the event of the suicide of the policy-holder.
Life Assurance is an ironic phrase in such circumstances.
Another point is that in these times of contested wills, any named beneficiary who ‘assisted’ the dying may not benefit.
As a former lawyer dealing with some wills and probate it is seen that death can bring out the worst in people, families, over inheritance.
Look if you want to die, jump off a cliff. There are other easy ways which can be done at home, but I’m not going to specify them. And if you are genuinely too infirm even to do those, accept that you are a tiny minority of a tiny minority and stop trying to make changes to the law that, in a State-funded healthcare system, will inevitably have a negative impact on others. Society is not all about you.
the problem is you may not actually die if you jump off a cliff!
and you may not die after taking medication
The Spirit would not prompt anyone to say “Look if you want to die, jump off a cliff.”
Are you wilfully misunderstanding my point, which was (of course) that extreme cases make for bad law?
Presumably the book looks at how it is working out in countries that already have such legislation. In Canada armed forces veterans struggling with PTSD have been reminded of this option. These persons obviously want to live better, not die. The best reply is “After you, Doctor.”
Some years ago I joined the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child (SPUC). They have been running an equally vigorous campaign against assisted suicide for some years, and it is well organised, because they already knew their enemy and the tactics used based on their battle against abortion.
A few thoughts:
I once heard a sermon from Giles Fraser that touched on this. He worried, quite compellingly, that too much of the assisted dying argument was really a reflection of the rest of us having an unhealthy queasiness about death and just wanted to cleanly sweep it out of sight. Christians therefore have a role in the discussion about being able to face the reality of our mortality, and what it means to die (not just be dead), head on.
My own views are quite strong on this topic. In 2019 I got to see a lot of end of life care up close (care homes, hospices, home care, and hospitals) – my father and all four grandparents passed away in a 10 month period from various cancers and dementia. A lot of this debate is wrapped up in fear – fear of being alone, fear of pain, fear of neglect. Hence you get a common desire for people to die in their home with their family. But this can move the patient away from the most effective pain management regimes. That’s why hospices kindof look like hospitals (they definitely have nurses, doctors and hospital beds) but in lots of ways aren’t (they allow drinking for example). The fears we have don’t need to control us, and we have the ability to deal with the concerns. What worries me is that we think we have identified a problem – the actual practice of pain management isn’t always good enough for example – but the solution is to simply kill off the awkward patient rather than deal with the problem.
Good points here.
Thank you AJB, well said.
Back in 2010, there was a Public Health policy in the NHS, to have a ‘good death’. This manifested into DNR’s and the Liverpool Care Pathway where decisions were primarily made by health professionals. It takes little thought to see that happening again through any ‘assisted dying’ legislative policy. There is a necessary distinction to be made between, ‘easing the passing’ and what is being pushed as ‘assisted dying’.
Yes… I think that if we funded hospices properly and the, already extensive, pain management path some of the pressure would be alleviated.
Some of the national level of care for the vulnerable elderly is appalling. That doesn’t help to increase any sense of self -worth. That’s the other part if the equation…. “what do I have to live for?”
‘We therefore do not need ultimately to fear suffering and death.’
Nice words, but what does that actually mean? ‘Ultimately’? Anyone who has gasped for breath knows full well what fear is. Let’s not pretend Christians dont fear suffering, because suffering is NOT good. Jesus clearly feared his own upcoming suffering. One could argue he cut his own prolonged suffering, as he had the authority to do so over his own body. The soldiers were surprised he had already died.
We may not be supposed to fear death, but many do. That’s the reality. And the reality is that many who end up wanting to die ‘early’ are only living due to human intervention with modern medicine. It is debateable whether that is always a good thing.
To die, and go we know not where; to lie in cold obstruction and to rot… ’tis too horrible! The weariest and most loathed worldly life that age, ache, penury and imprisonment can lay on nature, is a paradise to what we fear of death – Shakespeare.
Many interesting insights here.
I suppose it depends on one’s views of what Life or Death is.
For everyone death is but a beginning even if one does believe it an ending
Quite a lot of people imagine that a departed loved one
is looking down on them urging them on to masteries.
I appreciate that pastorally this has many ramifications for pastoral care
And each will have to determine the wisest course beforehand;
and how one preaches on this most fundamental of all the issues;
in the meantime to prepare their folks to meet wth God.
I am minded of St. Paul wish to die,
and if anyone had a life of prolonged suffering it was he.
Phil.1 vs 23 – 26. Our times are in His hands.
I fear that like abortion end of life assistants will prevail
and will only make our society coarser.
It seems to me much like “a covenant with death”
The taboo is suicide. If ‘assisted dying’ is imposed, it is murder (both Christians and atheists would agree on this). The historical Christian position on suicide is eternal damnation. Why do contemporary Christians dodge that conversation?
Probably because we all know people who have committed suicide or have had a suicide in their family and we do not want to add to their grief and we want to hope for God’s mercy in such a horrible situation,
But your observations are on point.
Such (well meaning) hesitation to “speak truth in love” is not absent in Christian discussions about sexuality and abortion.
Even St Paul didn’t want to talk about some sexual conduct found among the Corinthians (1 Cor 5.1-2). Hesitation in the face of great shame and pain is no bad thing in itself.
This is a sensitive and insightful essay on the subject, appearing on the website of the Christian Medical Fellowship:
https://archive.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=1365
Until the 20th Century suicide individuals would not be given Christians funeral rites (or buried in consecrated grounds). Orthodox, Catholic and Anglicans all agreed on this point. The taboo was extensive and given it’s heterodox support, presumably not based on trivial scriptural insights.
What happened in the 20th Century?
“The historical Christian position on suicide is eternal damnation. ”
….a historical taboo but biblically insupportable ?
Given the consensus(?) of the taboo over a very long period of time, it seems likely there was some scriptural support for it.
I suspect it is simply assumed that no genuine Christian woujld commit suicide. I am unsure whether that is true but, if you think it likely that there is scriptural support for this view, feel free to state it. Incidentally the written laws of Moses do not prescribe any penalty for people who attempt suicide and fail, nor the families of suicides. (I dispute that the Mosaic commands against murder apply to suicide.)
Not scriptural but ““anyone who kills himself is certainly a murderer” (Augustine, City of God, 1.17). Plus Judas.
Which would be murder without the opportunity of repentance – meaning a direct route to hell (also alluded to in the 17th Century classic The Pilgrim’s Progress)
And this was presumably a very convincing idea given it’s culture-wide acceptance until the 20th Century.
I don’t disagree that everybody now views suicide as a ‘tragic occurrence’.
It is not unknown for Augustine of Hippo to talk nonsense; witness his use of one verse ripped out of context (Luke 14:23) to justify the use of force by the church despite the fact that Jesus said if they don’t heed the gospel in a place, simply shake the dust off your feet and move on.
Twice now you have asserted that there are non-trival scriptural arguments that suicide implies unbelief/damnation, but failed to give those arguments. What are they?
There is a culture-wide taboo on suicide. That’s the reality on the ground. Atheists are denied full bodily autonomy. There is no right to self-deletion. The Samaritans and every other well-meaning group will try and talk a suicidal person out of it. The assumption that suicide is a bad thing must have come from somewhere. In other cultures (Japan) it can be ‘honourable’ in certain circumstances.
Given that the CofE only lifted the ban on full Christian funerals for suicides in 2017 it is fair to say that the taboo comes from Christianity.
Christians should either own their culture/history or denounce it. But what is actually happening is that they defer to humanist values on this issue and act like the culture-wide taboo sprung from nowhere.
And you, Joe, should derive that view from scripture or stop saying “It follows” without saying how – four times now. Can you?
Indeed there was some kind of consensus. But how wide and it can’t be established… and there’s nothing but a vague “theology ” behind it. People were sometimes refused burial in “holy ground “.
I don’t think the few suicides in scripture, that James helpfully pins down, make a clear view. I’m convinced that some Christians do this. It’s not really possible to know exactly (if at all) what the driving force was. I’d suggest a base approach of generosity is appropriate…leaving all judgement with God… “the Judge of all the earth “…as he is for all mankind.
The theology could not have been vague if people were refused burial.
A deduction based on some basic principles that dying with unrepentant mortal sin brings damnation. Who knows if someone has repented? Only God. The French parish priest St Jean Vianney counselled a grieving woman whose husband had committed suicide, throwing himself off a bridge. He told her he had received a revelation from God that her husband had made an act of repentance at the last moment. Was Vianney correct? Nobody knows – but it mattered to the widow.
The Bible tells of three suicides: Saul, Ahithophel and Judas. None of them died under God’s blessing. That’s an interesting data point, I think.
James, what do you think? 2 Samuel 1:23 seems to me to be a good epitaph. If God allowed it in Scripture perhaps for all his faults Saul is among the living.
Arent Christians already justified before God, and therefore righteous in his sight? Sins are no longer remembered, but blotted out.
Or do you refute that?
PC1 – spot on. I confess that I don’t understand the comment by James at all; on the face of it, it looks like superstitious pagan nonsense. If one insists on the terminology ‘mortal sin’, the Holy Writ tells us that there is exactly one ‘mortal sin’ (John 3:17), which is failure (or rather refusal) to believe in Christ and trust Him as redeemer. (Hebrews 6:4 would indicate – at least to me – that God reaches out to – and in some sense enlightens – all, but some, fully conscious of what they are rejecting, reject it).
John 3:16 tells us that those who believe in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. So I’m having difficulties with the terminology ‘act of repentance’, which seems a strange way of putting ‘come to believe in Him’.
For those of us who believe in Him, all our sins, past present and future are nailed to the cross and we bear them no more (in the sense that we are assured of the final victory, in Him).
O/T here but readers may recall a very lively debate on this blog about the Algerian boxer who went on to win the gold medal for women’s boxing in the Olympics. Several of us averred that the athlete concerned was probably biologically male and should not be competing as a woman and we were roundly condemned for saying so. Now Worls Boxing is requring all athletes to submit to a chromosome test before being allowed to compete, and it has been revealed that the athlete had a chromosome test in 2023 which showed an XY male karyotype – pretty much as many suspected.
Yes indeed. I saw that in the news this week.
Remind me of the thread, James. It may be worth our quoting briefly (with attribution) some of our opponents.
It is the August 6th 2024 thread here, shortly after Imane Khelif won the Olympic gold medal in the women’s welterweight boxing category. And here is a link I posted on the thread:
https://x.com/Slatzism/status/1819427537740558848
Some contributors to the thread defended Khelif even after I posted that link, which states that Khelif had tested XY for genotype (i.e. male) in 2023 by one of the boxing authorities (the IBA). Disgracefully, the IOC did not follow this up; rather, doubt was cast on the IBA and the tests.
What has just happened is that a more influential boxing authority, World Boxing, announced that chromosome testing was to be mandatory, after which Khelif withdrew from their upcoming tournament. The Algerian boxing authorities have now claimed that “immeasurable psychological damage” has been done by World Boxing naming Khelif as withdrawing from their tournament following the announcement of the new policy. What about the physical damage done by Khelif to other boxers at the 2024 Olympics? Angela Carini of Italy was forced to withdraw within seconds against Khelif.
Full details of the 2023 test could not have been made public without breaching Khelif’s medical confidentiality. Khelif was free to waive confidentiality but didn’t. Khelif also withdrew an appeal against prior disqualification from the 2023 IBA tournament before the appeal reached the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which would have investigated those test results and possibly sought further testing.
It is obvious what will happen now. Khelif will retire into the obscurity he deserves and chromosome testing willl become routine. The invertebrates at the IOC will say it is a good thing, but they will not take away Khelif’s gold medal because that would mean acknowledging that they were wrong. One day it will be shouted from the rooftops.
Let me add that I dislike boxing as a ‘sport’ because sport is meant to enhance your health, whereas boxing can cause irreparable brain and head injury. I don’t like it for men and I hate it for women, for whom the idea of disfiguring their faces should be horrible.
The men-pretending-to-be-women scam in sports continues in America, with bizarre university attempts to get round it (having two first places in races etc, one for ‘transwomen’, the other for real women), and the anti-science LGBTQ brigade doubling down on their evasion of the truth.
It’s obvious that men and women are physically different. I have never heard of a ‘transman’ seeking to compete in men’s sports.
Sport is meant to enhance your health? Ever visited a sports injury clinic at the weekend…?
Or, more soberingly and pertinently, read David Frith’s book on how many retired cricketers commit suicide? I corresponded with Frith about this and neither of us is certain of the reason. It’s worse than in other sports.
That observation on cricket is a little disturbing. I wonder why that is. Every sportsman knows his playing life is limited, but cricketers go on a few years longer than first class footballers and others. Perhaps some cricketers don’t manage a switch of interests an activities in life at 30 but play till their powers fail? Having to give up a game which has been your life must be heavy blow. The jumper Jonathan Edwards seems to have lost his faith when he stopped competing and his life suddenly changed.
I say ‘sportsman’ because my impression is that suicide is much more a male recourse to crises in life than it is a female one. Women seem to have depression much more than men but they have a greater degree of openness and sympathy with each other, while male loneliness and emotional containment may contribute more to suicidal thoughts.
Quite a lot of retired cyclists have committed suicide. Or take poor Bradley Wiggins’ current saga. Something about worshipping false idols may fit into the narrative somewhere …
If life is a good, and a person commits suicide because it is not experienced as good, then the termination of that theoretical good – which sooner or later must happen anyway – is merely the act of depriving oneself of a good. That is consequence enough, surely?
‘Damnation’ is a loaded term, conjuring up flames of eternal torment. It should not be used lightly or casually, if at all. In my opinion God will judge the person who commits suicide on the basis of what he did while living, i.e. on the same basis as others, not condemn him to ‘damnation’ because in desperation he broke a taboo.
I disapprove of the Bill because it makes the State, and doctors, complicit in the act. Thus far I agree with Anton. If one wishes to commit suicide, one should do it ‘autonomously’, not turn it into a Health Service offering or campaign for it as some kind of right (because certain sufferers feel they do not have sufficient autonomy, or courage, and the State should assist them).
The most relevant part of the Bible is the book of Job. He regretted he was ever born and desperately wanted to die. Nonetheless, his attitude at the beginning was, “Shall we receive good from God, and not receive evil?” He suffers volubly. Almost all theological comfort is found to be inadequate, if not nauseous. But even at the highest pitch of suffering he does not end his own life. The one comfort he clings to is that in the resurrection he will see his Redeemer, and then he will understand, then he will be comforted.
For Job, one thing was indubitable: God was totally in control, because he was almighty. That his suffering was evil and unmerited posed problems for the belief that God was in control, and good, problems that the book brings to the fore from the start.
His hard-hearted wife counselled “Curse God and die” – all but telling him to commit suicide – but he didn’t. He rejected that way out.
The issue has reared its head in our present godless generation because committing suicide is tantamount to saying that there is no God, or if there is, he is not in control, or not good. The Church should insist that he is.
Steven – Good points re Job; your last para especially seems to put things in context.
I nursed my mother through dementia for the last 5yrs of her life, a challenging experience; and sometimes wonder what those last 5 years meant to her. Five years before she died she was seriously ill, it would have been easy to let her slip away by not feeding her properly, but we fed her a little soup and gradually she recovered, although mentally things became increasingly fraught. It felt wrong then, and feels wrong now, not to have done all we could for her, even knowing with hindsight what she & we were about to go through. The Bill seems to want to allow people to feel justified (in facilitating early termination) because the law allows it, but (like abortion) where does that go longer term? I can see why it makes sense to secularists.
I struggle to put any sensible theological thoughts together, but find your last para about God being in control is as close as I can get to summing up my ‘gut instinct’ (derived from over 70 years of trying as best I can to follow Christ).
Over those last 5 years we kept saying that seeing God in the detail (which we so often did) meant we could trust him for the bigger picture, which has now (25 yrs later) become a standard saying in our lives, as we ourselves are now in our 80’s and carers for our adult disabled daughter.
Such faithfulness is very precious in God’s sight. And how good that you are not having to look back and think, “I could have done more.” I sometimes have such thoughts, and I regret that the doctor, in my absence, saw fit to put my father on what was in effect the Liverpool Care Pathway, so that by the time I arrived he was comotose and I could not say goodbye. The LCP was itself a kind of assisted dying, only administered at a more advanced stage and without the person’s knowledge or necessarily wanting it. The morphine took consciousness away.
“Assisted dying” is either suicide or murder. Nobody supports murder.
We have the technology to allow people to self-terminate in painless and effective way (so they don’t have to jump in front of a train or off a cliff). But as a society we do everything we can to stop people from self-terminating.
Why should atheists give a hoot about Job?
With suicide we live in a kind of theocracy where an inherited ‘religious’ idea is dominant (suicide is a bad thing) but Christians simultaneously try and downplay the religious aspect of that moral position. Shouldn’t we be more confident in saying why suicide is wrong/sinful?
I think you can’t discuss this question without reference to medical science. The efforts to keep life going at whatever cost to the individual have meant that suffering is often prolonged. People need to be given greater support in choosing not to accept some treatments. And to be more positive in asking not to be resuscitated when to do so would simply prolong the inevitable.
It’s all a find line but at present I think the line is drawn too far in favour of prolonging life at whatever cost rather than finding ways to support a good peaceful death – which is what euthanasia really is – when the end is inevitable
Not what is happening in many cases in Canada, where people are encouraged to commit suicide to save on health care.