NationStates Jolt Archive

I always hear people say that those who commit suicide automatically goto hell. For me thats a hard pill to swallow. I can think of several instances of things that might be considered suicide, but i hardly think they would goto hell.

For instance, there is a man in a war, a grenade is thrown in a trench, he jumps on it to save his buddies, though he knows it will be his own life. Now thats not the typical depressed pulling a gun out type of suicide, but i think that does illustrate half of my point.

As for those that are depressed and kill themselves in that way, I don't know if they would goto hell either. I mean obviously they are not in the right mind, so why would God judge as if they were?

So, if anybody of faith can give me some help on this topic, it would be greatly appreciated. I have tried to find some scripture, but to no avail.

It's because Catholic morality came from Aquinas and Aquinas used a lot of Aristotle in his work.

Aristotlean Virtue Theory (which I think is the origin of the Seven Deadly sins but I'm not sure on this point) says that rather than judge individual actions we should cultivate a noble personality and then we will know what the right thing to do is. It also speaks of the pinacle of virtue being Eudaimonia (true Happiness with a capital H) and holds that achieving Eudaimonia is the true goal of life.

Virtue Theory is generally against suicide because it is thought of as an action derived from cowardice (a vice), not virtue, it also deprives a person of the chance to achieve Eudaimonia.

Post in the other thread, this one is just a copy.