So, I was still wondering about 1 Corinthians 3:17. Is it talking about suicide there? Or something else?

~Riella

Elanore.
the verses to check about the unpardonable sin is in Mark 3:22-30. I have understood this to mean that when someone attributes an action of the holy spirit to the devil, or one of his demons. This, according to the Lord in verse 29, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and unforgivable.

Berserker; the reason God forbad the people of israel from cutting or tattoing themselves was because that it was the practices of the religions of the surrounding tribes to tattoo, cut, and mutilate themselves. 1 Kings 18:28, Leviticus 19:28.

the verses to check about the unpardonable sin is in Mark 3:22-30. I have understood this to mean that when someone attributes an action of the holy spirit to the devil, or one of his demons. This, according to the Lord in verse 29, is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and unforgivable.

But it would have to be done purposely, right? Not by accident, or because the person was merely mistaken?

~Riella

Sorry that it's been taking me so long to reply to your posts lately, TBG. I've been a bit busy lately and it takes me a while to work out in my head what I want to say.

Yes you do: you don't want to serve God and partake in His mercy. You would rather "reign in Hell than in Heaven serve" (to borrow Milton's phrase) and therefore God says "fine, you can be separated from the love that you hate so much." That's Hell, my friend.

Again, nobody would want to go to “hell” if they felt that it was real and they knew the implications of eternal displeasure/suffering etc.

I’m sure you don’t want to go to the Islamic version of hell, even though you’ve rejected Allah and from his perspective, you have used your life in the worst possible way by serving and proclaiming a false idol.

I am not rejecting God personally. I am rejecting the image of God that his supposed followers have portrayed to me – one that is a tyrannical egomaniac who creates humans doomed to sin and forgives them only if they fulfill his ultimatum.

For example: Let’s say I have a friend named Theresa who is trying to set me up on a blind date with a girl named Gloria. Theresa describes Gloria to me in the most passionate way possible, but her strange description only leads me to think that Gloria doesn’t even exist. So I ignore Theresa.

Did I reject Gloria? No. I rejected Theresa’s description of Gloria. All Gloria would have to do is just show up and ask me out on a date in person.

I found this short animation recently that represents how I feel about this issue pretty accurately.

(mild foul language warning for the video)

Actually, I don't think that doing this is terribly helpful: we have to look at Jesus as one person who is both fully God and fully man. That's the implication of the Biblical teaching, and we simply have to go with it.

Exactly. Blatant logical impossibilities in scripture are written off by Christians as “divine mysteries”. From your perspective, you see no problem because you’d just claim that God is too complicated for us to ever understand. From my perspective, the situation is absurd because it is like God telling me that 1 + 1 = 35. Well, that’s just simply not true, based on the predetermined definitions of 1 and 35.

You mention contradiction: what contradiction? Remember that a contradiction means a place where we say that A=~A at the same time and in the same relationship.

Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If Jesus is both God and man, he can’t forsake himself.

Also, if Jesus is fully man, it would seem that he committed a seemingly infinite number of sins of omission during his lifetime. But he’s God, so anything he does (or doesn’t do) is by definition moral. In this situation, Jesus is a sinner if he's man and not if he's God. I don't see how one can claim that he's both.

Thus you are in a state of profound self-delusion.

And I think the same about you. But that’s beside the point.

The issue I have is that Romans 1 claims that nobody has any excuse not to believe in God, essentially saying, “Well, God exists. Duh. Everyone knows that, it’s obvious. End of argument.” Not everyone knows that God exists! I know that for a fact because I don’t know if God exists. If God does actually exist, then yes I am deluded, but I would have been deluded based on my faulty knowledge, not because I wanted to be deluded.

But again the question arises: by what standard do you judge the commands of God? We keep going in circles here: you insist that your autonomous standards must apply to God when in reality, it is God who judges you. If you are to apply a moral standard to God, it must be a standard derived from God Himself and His own character.

I judge God by the assumption that he is omnipresent, omnificent, and omnibenevolent (which most any Christian will say that he is). God certainly doesn’t appear to act omnipresent, omnificent, and omnibenevolent in many less-discussed parts of the Bible and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to call the actions of God in those passages into question. After all, I thought the whole point of God giving us free will was so that we could choose to serve him based on our own personal judgment, not serve him like zombies just because we should.

Which Catholic Church?

The Roman Catholic Church, with headquarters currently residing in Vatican City.

All orthodox Christians have 66 books that they agree on. Yeah, we can debate over the various apocryphal and pseudopigraphal writings, but the fact is that there's a canon common to all Christians, just as we have creeds common to all Christians.

I reject your insistence that we only focus on the 66 books that all orthodox Christians agree upon. Having the exact same set of books is essential if we’re going to establish a document that is inerrant.

As a protestant, your paradox is that you must accept that the Council of Nicaea was divinely inspired to create the infallible Bible was the same Council that saw it fit to include the Apocrypha.

Again, it is my perception that yes, they would go to hell. Remember Job? If he had taken his life and cursed God, would he have gone to heaven? I don't think so. Because you're suffering pain, and you perceive your life as useless, you can end it?

Yes, absolutely you can end your own life if you're suffering immeasurable, incurable, crippling pain.

And if your god is so sadistic that he would allow such a person to perish in fire for doing so, then I'm glad I abandoned him and his narcissism ages ago. Come back after you've got terminal stage IV pancreatic cancer and tell me about how you don't long for death because your god is using you for a higher purpose.

Suicide is definitely a mortal sin. In fact I can't think of any sin more mortal, in fact since it is killing oneself, i.e. the results are mortal. That is plain common sense, if nothing else. Does anyone need a whole Bible to confirm what is sheer common sense?

Actually no, considering the 6th commandment is explicitly in reference to murder and the associated "bloodguilt" of murder. Bloodguilt was an important concept to Judaic law and there are no historical evocations of it in reference to suicide. Only the Catholic Church later attempted to lump suicide in with this commandment using their own personal interpretation.

Come back after you've got terminal stage IV pancreatic cancer and tell me about how you don't long for death because your god is using you for a higher purpose.

Yes, you'll long for death - don't most people several times in their life? Just because you want something, doesn't mean it's yours for the taking. God gave us our bodies, and just as it is completely and utterly wrong for someone else to destroy them, it is wrong for us too.
But I could very well be wrong about this, and everything else I believe, for that matter. So could everyone else.

Is suicide wrong? Absolutely, no question. Is it a sign of hopelessness? Yes. But that simply means that one had a moment or period of weakness where they felt separated from God. Would Job have gone to Heaven if he had cursed God and died? No, because in doing that he would have rejected God. But I can see where someone could be despairing about their present circumstances and, in a moment of weakness, do a terrible thing.

It is my perception that killing oneself is the rejection of God - our actions speak as loudly as our words. I don't believe that anyone kills themselves without thinking about what they're doing and why they're doing it - and when they've thought about that, and then do it, that is because they have said in their hearts "God is not capable of taking care of me - my plan for myself is better than what the all knowing and all powerful God has in mind."

Though it's kind of hard for me to argue like this, when I'm having so many doubts myself.

I’m sure you don’t want to go to the Islamic version of hell, even though you’ve rejected Allah and from his perspective, you have used your life in the worst possible way by serving and proclaiming a false idol.

Unfortunately, you don't know Alllah's perspective. In Islamic theology, we really don't know what God is like: God is arbitrary and all-mericiful and therefore (really) people of the book (Christians and Jews) have as much of a chance of getting into heaven as anyone else.

I am not rejecting God personally. I am rejecting the image of God that his supposed followers have portrayed to me – one that is a tyrannical egomaniac who creates humans doomed to sin and forgives them only if they fulfill his ultimatum.

Here you go, judging God again. You cannot judge God except on God's own terms, which are the terms of His covenant. You have broken that covenant and therefore cannot expect mercy except at His good pleasure.

Exactly. Blatant logical impossibilities in scripture are written off by Christians as “divine mysteries”. From your perspective, you see no problem because you’d just claim that God is too complicated for us to ever understand. From my perspective, the situation is absurd because it is like God telling me that 1 + 1 = 35. Well, that’s just simply not true, based on the predetermined definitions of 1 and 35.

Where's the logical impossibility exactly?

Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” If Jesus is both God and man, he can’t forsake himself.

But he was, therefore it's possible. Here again you forget that there is an eternal distinction between the members of the Trinity---it is precisely from texts like this one that we get our doctrine of the Trinity.

Also, if Jesus is fully man, it would seem that he committed a seemingly infinite number of sins of omission during his lifetime. But he’s God, so anything he does (or doesn’t do) is by definition moral. In this situation, Jesus is a sinner if he's man and not if he's God. I don't see how one can claim that he's both.

He was a man who didn't sin: He was God who became man. There is nothing in the term "man" that entails "sinner." Yes, all men are sinners now, but Adam before the fall was not a sinner. Jesus is both God and man.

If God does actually exist, then yes I am deluded, but I would have been deluded based on my faulty knowledge, not because I wanted to be deluded.

Do you want God to exist? If you became convinced that He did, would you want to love and serve Him?

I judge God by the assumption that he is omnipresent, omnificent, and omnibenevolent (which most any Christian will say that he is).

Granted---judge God by His own standard, though, not by your own definitions.

After all, I thought the whole point of God giving us free will was so that we could choose to serve him based on our own personal judgment, not serve him like zombies just because we should.

The relationship between Divine Sovereignty and human responsibility (I don't like the term "free will" for a number of reasons) is tricky and terribly complex---and I've beaten the subject to death in the past, so I'll refrain from commenting except to say that no one comes to God unless God has specifically called that person. It's not about what you do or what you choose, but about God's sovereign love for His covenant people.

The Roman Catholic Church, with headquarters currently residing in Vatican City.

Ah, the Church of Rome. Not a member---I'm a member of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. When I talk about the witness of the Church, this is what I am talking about.

As a protestant, your paradox is that you must accept that the Council of Nicaea was divinely inspired to create the infallible Bible was the same Council that saw it fit to include the Apocrypha.

Nicaea made no pronouncements regarding canon. The first council that established apocrypha as Scripture was Trent in 1463. Nicaea was convened to address the Arian controversy---and even then, it wasn't until first Constantinople, sixty years later, that the creed was finalized (minus Filioque).

I reject your insistence that we only focus on the 66 books that all orthodox Christians agree upon. Having the exact same set of books is essential if we’re going to establish a document that is inerrant.

But it is not essential: my debate with you is whether there is a truth to be known. If there is an infallible set of Scriptures, then the debate is relevant and interesting. If, however, there are no infallible Scriptures, then the debate over them is meaningless and uninteresting. The only way we can have a meaningful discussion on the matter is if we accept that Scripture is infallible.

It is my perception that killing oneself is the rejection of God - our actions speak as loudly as our words.

I understand this and I don't dispute it. What I'm trying to help you understand is that this is true of every sin.

TBG

But it would have to be done purposely, right? Not by accident, or because the person was merely mistaken?

Yes, I would think so. If someone sees the power of God, and knows it is the power of God, yet chooses to say it is the power of the devil for whatever reason, that would be unforgivable. It was implied that that was what the Pharisees were doing.

Yes, absolutely you can end your own life if you're suffering immeasurable, incurable, crippling pain.

Is that the only thing that really excuses suicide? That one is suffering immeasurable, incurable, crippling pain? Isn't that rather an argument for palliative care, for someone who is dying anyway, to do what can be done to ease the pain? For the pain to be alleviated as much as is possible, until the inevitable end? I've been in immeasurable, crippling pain, so that at the time I would have been glad for someone to quietly shoot me, to put me out of my misery. Yet, the pain wasn't incurable or irremediable. Therefore, I recovered, and am on the whole rather glad that since unlicensed access to a gun is illegal in this part of the world, that nobody saw fit to shoot me on that occasion.

What do you make of these WW2 suicides? None of the men involved were in pain physically that we know of. All already had bloodguilt of one kind or another. Which suicide do you think should be excused?

1. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who, being implicated in the July 20 1944 plot to kill Hitler, was ordered to take his own life, or else face a trial, execution and the disgrace and persecution of his family? He chose suicide.

2. Field Marshall Walther Model, who fought faithfully almost to the bitter end, on Hitler's orders when common sense at last weighed in, the final realisation what he was ordered to do was not only hopeless but completely dishonourable. On hearing a Goebbels speech, he said 'To think I fought for those b....'s'! Or something like that. Then telling his men to look after themselves, he went quietly into the forest and shot himself.

3. Hitler, himself, and others of his coterie, who thus evaded justice and the consequences of their decisions and actions?

I recovered, and am on the whole rather glad that ...nobody saw fit to shoot me on that occasion.

Me too!!!

(I have some further thoughts re suicide, but will wait until after Berserker has responded on this thread, so as not to tangent, but I just couldn't let this go unapplauded!)

I tend to think that standing before the Almighty and having to explain why you're there early would be punishment enough.

MOD NOTE: Also, so that all of us partaking in this discussion are on the same page with regards to the rules, there is under no circumstances at all to be any hint of anyone condoning suicide as a realistic approach to problems, real or theorized. I'm seeing people coming perilously close to doing so and I want to warn each of you that there are persons on this site, perhaps reading this right now, that have suffered with the problem before. I myself struggled with it during a dark time in my life, and I lost a well loved sister to it several years ago. It is fine to discuss this matter but as I said, do not push the concept that it is ok at all, ever. That is all.

[quote="But it would have to be done purposely, right? Not by accident, or because the person was merely mistaken?

I believe so. The pharasees made their accusation out of vengful envy, rather than being willing to see God's Spirit.

As TBG said, all sin is "rejecting God" in a way. Certainly, whenever we sin, at that moment, we are rejecting what God wants for us.

The "unforgivable" sin of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit has to be something even greater. It cannot be contained in a single thought or action; it has to be something to do with the state of the heart/soul as a whole. If we accept the Holy Spirit into our lives, there will be moments when we "do what we do not want to do", as Paul has stated--of course, at the moment we do them, we do want to do them, but that is a very surface desire, not one reflective of the true state of our heart/soul. But those surface desires can prevail for various lengths of moments at a time--and in some cases, a person may die (sometimes, by their own hand) during one of those moments. However, God looks at the true state of their heart/soul, and sees either one who has accepted the Holy Spirit (and are thus fully forgiven of all their sins), or one who has rejected--and thus blasphemed--the Holy Spirit.

What it really comes down to, I figure, is that the only unforgivable sin is... well, being a non-Christian.

I'd prefer that any disincentives to suicide remain. It is not easy at all to talk someone so despairing of life out of such drastic action. Suicide being wrong, that it puts someone's immortal soul in peril, would be a strong disincentive I would have thought.

I don't think that "suicide is a sin and puts your immortal soul in peril" is a good disincentive. It's a despair-oriented disincentive, and the suicidal person is already in such a state of despair that trying to counter that with more despair is not likely to work, and perhaps even have adverse effects.

I'd say that hope-oriented disincentives would work better. Look at why suicide is sinful not from a Law-based perspective, but from a Love-based perspective (like Jesus wants us to do of all morality): there are many people who would be absolutely heartbroken if one committed suicide, in all sorts of ways. And God Himself would be heartbroken: he weeps for and seeks to comfort the despairing, and also really, really wants the despairing person to be part of His plan to redeem souls. (After all, people who were suicidal and recover with God's grace tend to have great testimonials! Not that this specifically needs to be said to the suicidal person, mind you: the simple analogy of Jesus using a colt that no one else used (Luke 19) might be better to start allowing the person to see how he/she can be helpful to God.)

That said, I'm no suicide prevention expert, so ultimately, the best course for someone who is considering suicide is to at some point refer them to someone who is, and in the interim to not leave them alone and do your best to let them know you care.

Edit:

So, I was still wondering about 1 Corinthians 3:17. Is it talking about suicide there? Or something else?

My Bible notes that the "you" in this verse is plural, so Paul is referring to the Church being the one that houses God's Spirit, and anyone who destroys the Church will be destroyed.

What do you make of these WW2 suicides? None of the men involved were in pain physically that we know of. All already had bloodguilt of one kind or another. Which suicide do you think should be excused?

1. Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, who, being implicated in the July 20 1944 plot to kill Hitler, was ordered to take his own life, or else face a trial, execution and the disgrace and persecution of his family? He chose suicide.

2. Field Marshall Walther Model, who fought faithfully almost to the bitter end, on Hitler's orders when common sense at last weighed in, the final realisation what he was ordered to do was not only hopeless but completely dishonourable. On hearing a Goebbels speech, he said 'To think I fought for those b....'s'! Or something like that. Then telling his men to look after themselves, he went quietly into the forest and shot himself.

3. Hitler, himself, and others of his coterie, who thus evaded justice and the consequences of their decisions and actions?

Rommel's- he committed suicide to protect his family. Hitler was ordering horrendous reprisals against anyone involved in the plot; if Rommel had refused they would have ended up dead or in a concentration camp.

OTOH, it took him long enough to admit the full evil of the Nazi regime.

I'd have to agree with you, Graymouser, especially as Rommel was ordered to do what he did, and so those who ordered him to do it, meanwhile threatening his family, must also bear some responsibility.

I tend to think that standing before the Almighty and having to explain why you're there early would be punishment enough.

Fair point. It would also be some comfort to know that there is no real escape from justice for those who have unrepentantly committed great crimes.

That said, I'm no suicide prevention expert, so ultimately, the best course for someone who is considering suicide is to at some point refer them to someone who is, and in the interim to not leave them alone and do your best to let them know you care.

The trouble is, neither am I a suicide prevention expert. But being placed in a situation where I must talk someone out of suicide, I can only do the best I can at the time. Such as by not leaving them alone, and by using any argument I can that will deter them. Yes, positive arguments might be better. But I can't tell obvious lies that they will see through, like 'many people will be heartbroken', to a shy person with a small family and social network. I also agree that seeking medical help would be better, preferably with the consent of the person affected.

What it really comes down to, I figure, is that the only unforgivable sin is... well, being a non-Christian.

Sorry, I can't agree. I do not consider it an unforgiveable sin for people to be Jewish or to be Islamic, Hindu or anything else, even though I disagree with their point of view. They may be unforgiven as yet, but they are not unforgiveable. After all, I disagree with some Christians as well, and it is also great whenever anyone agrees with me. I might hope Non-Christians become Christian, and maybe Non-Christians would eventually become Christians in their own good time. It might be simple ignorance of what Jesus did for them. In some parts of the world, it is considered an offence to tell Non-Christians about Jesus, to try to convert people to Christianity, to distribute bibles or to even say that there is a God.

Again, for each and every one in the world, it is between the individual and God to judge whether they are unforgiveable, even if they have as yet not been forgiven.