Question For CHRISTIAN Believers

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The following question can really only be effectively answered by a Christian as it pertains to Grace-Based Salvation.

If a saved person commits suicide, does he or she still go to Heaven?

I personally believe that Salvation in Christ is eternally secure(cannot be taken away unless God re-writes the rule book), but i have a friend who is Methodist who believes that suicide is unforgivable and damns the soul to hell. I believe the only unforgivable sin is to reject the gift of salvation.

Discuss, citing Bible verses if you can.
Otherwise, what are your thoughts?

Well, I think the real question ends up being whether the act of suicide is a rejection of the gift of salvation. There isn't any explicit scripture on the specific issue, rather all that can be inferred from are the passages regarding the works/faith relationship, and questions on what "accepting salvation" entails, even questions on sanity and whether one has to be insane to commit suicide.(It used to be common in, I think, Britain, to label anybody who committed suicide to be insane to avoid the family being punished for a member committing the moral crime of suicide)

Of course, one could also bring up issues on whether impermanent states after-death occur as well, as I know that Catholics and the more conservative universalists believe in a purgatory state in which people can still be saved after their death.

I am really unsure that there is a solid answer though. (Note: I recognize that this feedback may not be the most desirable, but I do think that it gets to your question somewhat well)

good point awsomelyglorious. I think that suicide could be committed out of extreme longing to be with God in His Kingdom. I think its perfectly reasonable to want to distance oneself from an earth that is ruled by demons, remember that God gave satan control of the earthly domain until Jesus comes back. The devil is not in hell, he is running around here starting sh*t. I believe that suicide is a sin nonetheless, but i believe that it is forgivable just as all other sin.

One cannot post here and expect only a selected group to answer. To one not religious the act of committing suicide to move to a promised close association with a deity is only purely the logical result of escaping the major trials and tribulations of being alive. Since religion, to one not religious, is transparent (if fairly universal) insanity suicide fits in exceedingly well with the general concept.

if you dont believe in the Christian idea of salvation, then you cant really state that a certain deed would cost someone their salvation.

If one is really a non-believer, then expressing a viewpoint on this question would automatically mean that you believe salvation is real.

That would be like an atheist showing people how to get closer to God.

One thing I know is that when it comes to the law and the understanding of salvation, we are held responsible for what we know. I am not God and I cannot judge a person's soul, but it makes sense to me that God would take into consideration mental conditions that would deprive a person of their ability to know, understand, and resist such an action. If someone does have diminished capacity--if they were ill--I think that's a VERY different matter than, say, being a suicide bomber.

I have no idea about what would or would not cause one to lose the possibility of salvation. I was merely indicating that someone who committed suicide to be closer to his or her concept of a deity probably believed in an afterlife and with the existence of a god. I consider this psychotic but it is only because it seems to me the whole supernatural concept is more or less beyond sanity. I am merely indicating my view of someone deluded, not any participation in the delusion.

No, one cannot say "a certain deed would cost salvation". Instead, one can engage an issue arguing from certain premises as to what seems rational within those premises. If one holds scripture as the set of truths for solving a puzzle, then anybody can actually act to solve that puzzle, period. Whether they regard the puzzle as about real or fake things.


No it doesn't. No more than expressing a view on the workings of the Jedi code means that one believes that Jedis are real. The fact of the matter is that people are capable of engaging in dialog that is based upon something acknowledged as fiction as if it were real. In fact, all sorts of debates treating fictional things as if they are real are common in various places.


Atheists exist in the closet in multiple locations, even in church leadership, so this paradoxical task likely does happen.

I think that an example that believers in this is their support on Judas, as he commited suicide, and the assumption that he will not be saved.

There is the issue of repention before dying, the question lies, wether someone does that when taking their own life, such has having a 'clean conscious' at the time of suicide, (from the belief that that is one of the requirements for salvation). I believe some christians would say that the ones who truely love God, would not commit suicide.

As well, one of the 10 commandments is "You shall not kill" and the idea that suicide being a violation of that commandment, and if you violated God's law, as the last thing you did, how can you repent if you are already dead?

That's an interesting point of view. It implies that whatever consciousness remains after death has no bearing on the judgment of God. That, in other words, the time of life is the only area when faith or consideration or personal judgment is effective. The ignorance over the existence of a life after death seems to be somehow crucial in determining a person's eternal fate. This seems, to me as living, something of a useful threat for the religious hierarchy to use to enforce frightened gullible people to conform to their domination.

UNLESS you take into account the state of mind of the person who commits suicide. Can he plead temporary insanity? What about a chemical imbalance in the brain causing deep depression? And I think we'd all agree that altruism is not necessarily suicide, even though it IS knowingly facing almost certain death.

So if something beyond the scope of the understanding of the believer occurs, such as delusional thoughts, confusion, clinical depression, or if the person believes his death benefits others more than his life OR giving his life is a self-sacrifice to save others--such as, say, holding a timed explosive he knows he can't defuse and can only get it a safe distance away from other people; or even taking a bullet for someone else in a violent situation--how can we then say that the person has committed a sin from which he cannot be saved? Had circumstances been otherwise, i.e. he'd been in his right mind, he'd have not killed himself.

The idea that suicide is a sin that, in death, you can't possibly repent from is a contradiction to the Biblical idea that all sins are forgiven through the blood of Christ. That includes ALL sins, past, present, and future. Something that is very important to consider is that Christians are still sinners and imperfect beings. So why we endeavor to avoid the traps of sin in our lives, we all ultimately fall. We learn our lessons, become stronger, turn away from the ways of yesterday, move forward, and fall again.

So how is it possible that we've repented from ALL our sins and begged forgiveness by the time we die? You're suggesting ALL sins must be accounted for prior to death. I'm saying there's no possible way. And if God commits all believing sinners to eternal punishment for unconfessed sins, then I'm very sure there will only be three residents in Heaven.

I was always taught that, by the same reasoning, that people who commit suicide are going to Hell. But if all sins are forgiven, this cannot be true. Two alternatives remain.

1. Someone who, by suicide, shows blatant disregard for the God-given sanctity of life AND displays the hopelessness and despair of an unbelieving, unrepentant sinner only proves that they never had any faith in Jesus nor any hope for this world. Through suicide, they have condemned themselves already to eternal separation from God.

2. Someone who, by suicide, shows a momentary lapse in faith that every believer has been guilty of at one time or another but nevertheless clings to their faith enters the Kingdom of Heaven free of the guilt of sin, though one might speculate without the full reward one might otherwise receive due to the severity of violating the sanctity of life.

I suspect only God can sort these out and we should not judge too quickly whether a person has sent himself to Hell from committing such a horrible act upon himself.

Now, suicide DOES violate the sanctity of life.

Genesis tells us God made man in His image, or His likeness. While other pagan religions may worship gods made from metal, wood, or stone, we only have ourselves and each other as a way to "see" God in this world. While man-made gods may be destroyed, they are objects with no real power in this world or the universe. Our "invisible" God, however, is real and works in the world through us, His creation. So for a person to kill himself, in effect, is also for him to kill God. That alone should make the believer reconsider whether taking his own life is worth it, let alone the fate of his soul. I think we are to please God in living; our death should result in liberating our souls from the physical world and the weight of sin on our physical lives. We should glorify God in our living, and we should also glorify Him in our dying. By "destroying" God (I'm using that term loosely here, I know you can't actually destroy God), you do not glorify God, but you shame Him and yourself. While that can be forgiven if you are a believer, I think it's a stupid and wasteful way to go.

But belief in an afterlife implies that life on Earth is merely a trivial very temporary time and dying is almost totally insignificant. Is one somehow permanently fixed in attitude and thought once one dies or do the dead have the mental flexibility we possess in life? An afterlife where one becomes sort of a mental robot of one's final dying state seems not a very attractive ideal. Are all those in the military automatically condemned because they are under orders to kill with little or no concept as to whether it was in defense or because of a botched military strategy? Is "following orders" acceptable to God as it is not to international law? Your lack of doubts in these ponderables seems rather shallow.

Sand: First let me thank you for actually asking REAL questions that actually show a large degree of reflection on the matter. I know you don't believe the way I do, and for those few of us on here, it's a breath of fresh air.

Your first question--I honestly can't say that I know for sure. PERSONALLY I think the dead DO have the same mental flexibility as in life. Now, I don't think we're given the same choice as to our ultimate destiny like we do in life. That is, we don't get to meet God and, oops, change our minds. I think the time for discovering God and building a personal relationship with God is something reserved for the living years and the main advantage death has over life is meeting our Creator vis-a-vis. Something I wonder about is the fate of unbelievers. Does the soul of an unbeliever long to be in the presence of God? Is the unrepentant soul content with eternal suffering? Can an unrepentant soul change his mind? If a condemned soul had the ability to change his heart/mind, how can we know for sure that he WOULD? I have other questions, too, along those same lines. My personal thoughts on this, subject to change, of course, are that someone who will not accept God under any circumstances in life probably couldn't accept God in death. I think beyond a certain point (don't ask me what that point is, I don't know) God will give the sinner over to the stubbornness of his own heart--a sort of spiritual "event horizon" beyond which there is no return without God's grace (can you humble yourself enough to ask God to heal a hardened heart?). I think God has the ability to "break" your heart if you ask, but for many this is a difficult thing to ask for. But I think it's possible that a person who is "fixed in thought" as you put it in such a manner as they hate God at the end of their lives will probably continue to do so throughout eternal punishment, never recognizing that it was their own sins that put them there. It's more convenient to blame God for evil than to accept sin as a result of your own doing. Make sense?

You're right--being a "mental robot" is NOT very attractive at all. And I don't think that's what death is like at all. I don't think God would have given us any ability to act on our own volition if He didn't intend for us to use it. At the same time, God judges us based on the motives of the heart. Do we love each other because of some self-satisfying motive? Or do we love each other because we want to show our adoration for our Creator? When I say that I love my wife, for example, it's partially because I crave her companionship. But it's more so because God gave her to me to love. God has been very good to me in my life. Therefore, I want to show her, as best I can, the same love and attention I've been given. Same thing with my children. They are gifts from God. The best way I can thank God for them is to love them and care for them just has God has cared for me. Therefore, God is first in my thoughts--not myself, not my family, not my possessions, not my neighbors, not my friends. Paradoxically, putting God first always seems to put everything else (friends, family) ahead of my own self-interests, and somehow God uses those things I'm interested in to His own glory. Now, I'm not going to lie and say that I do this perfectly. But it does seem life doesn't go nearly as well for me if my mind isn't tuned that way (tuning is important to a musician), so I do make the choice every day to seek God's will. Not because I HAVE to, but because I WANT to. And I think that building up the habit of seeking God in everything one does (by choice, I might add) is, in a sense, living in a sort of Heaven-on-Earth. I'm not concerned about the afterlife and seeking after God when that time comes; I'm already there.

I think we maintain our will in the afterlife. The only thing we DON'T get a choice about is whether we believe in God, since living in His presence will make that incontrovertible. I also think that in death, the sin-nature is taken away and we return to a very similar existence as in the Garden of Eden. Abandoning our sinful human nature, we'll be incapable of sin. I can only guess what that will be like, but I have a feeling it means all questions we ever had or could have had will be answered and our new life will make better sense than this one.

The Bible encourages us, even through Jesus' own example, to be willing to lay down our lives to protect those we love, to include our countrymen and friends. The question becomes whether the aggressor is fighting a war as a means to achieve justice and to protect its citizens, or whether there is some more sinister motive. I don't think any nation in the contemporary era has faced more questioning of its motives than the United States. I'm not going to argue whether we're right or wrong here. All I can say is it seems to me that our leaders in recent years believed their actions were justified and carried out their actions with solemnity, fully understanding the consequences of those actions. The Iraqis may not be happy with a continued US presence in their country, but they are probably happier having ended the oppression of an unjust ruler.

You may disagree, but I don't really think that we acted in our interests alone. In a state of war, by the nature of war, you have opposing sides trying to defend each others' positions. There are two options: surrender, and death. The question a soldier must ask is whether what he is fighting for is worth dying for. And by furthering his cause, he must accept that he will have to defend himself. The Bible teaches "turn the other cheek." But "turning the other cheek" applied to war is about choosing your battles. We see that very often Jesus did NOT turn the other cheek but faced his attackers (in an idealogical sense). A soldier has the right and duty to defend the interests of those who sent him as well as to protect himself. When the situation is "kill or be killed," the soldier staring down the barrel of an enemy's gun really only has one choice: To be the first to shoot. Believing he has done the right thing at the time, all a soldier can do, then, is pray for the soul of the slain, pray that God give him the wisdom and fortitude to perform his duties free of guilt, and to forgive him if he's acted wrongly.

Killing on the battlefield does not qualify as murder. It is murder, the senseless and premeditated end of life for no just cause, that is forbidden. What we call "manslaughter" and "self-defense" are justified in the Bible, and remedies are given for each. "Manslaughter" is unintentional, but must be paid for in some way--but not with another life. "Self-defense" places the blame on the attacker, not the defender. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't avoid causing harm to others. It shouldn't encourage a "shoot first and ask questions later" or "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" mentality (as in the case of war). It just means that, in the case of an accident, that all has been done to prevent injury. It also means that, in the case of self-defense, that no other better option presented itself or all better options failed. Contemporary warfare in the Western world is oriented more towards targeted killing of those willing and capable of doing harm. Killing is unavoidable, but we do try to reach an understanding with our enemies to show that our reasons are (hopefully) just and our goals are to help, not to harm.

I can't go on about war without making it a political discussion. From what I've read in the Bible, a just war is Biblically supported. What the Bible does NOT seem to support is a religious war. "Spiritual warfare" seems to indicate the conflict between believers and the temptations of the unbelieving world. We ought to testify to those things we've witnessed ourselves, persuasively act to convince others to believe as we do by teaching them, and provide support for new converts. Forced conversion, I think we'd all agree, is wrong. The Bible puts no prohibition whatsoever on compassion.

To be more direct, someone who is "following orders" is hardly condemnable. A believer who "follows orders" can only pray that God will give him the wisdom to discern between doing what is right and doing what is wrong. You have a choice, for instance, to support your country in which you live by going to war (if eligible for military service, of course), or to leave your country to seek haven elsewhere. A number of US citizens refused to go to Vietnam, and I think it was in large part due to public opinion that US involvement in Vietnam ceased. A better prayer, one I've prayed often, is that if my actions are not within God's will that God not allow me to succeed. Further, a believer is already justified through faith. Therefore, a believer need not have fear of the afterlife after a life in which the certainty of his actions are questionable. If a person feels he has done wrong in a time when he felt he had no other choice, as when following orders, all he need do is ask God's forgiveness if he feels led to do so.

Finally, faith in God SHOULD grant the believer a large degree of certainty. Sure, I have questions and doubts. We all do. But the questions and doubts are beyond the realm of what's REALLY important: The relationship of our souls to our Maker. It is also true that God does not call each of us to a common goal or course of action. As of this time, I do not see myself becoming a preacher--though the thought has crossed my mind from time to time, I'm just not the right person for the job. I NEVER imagined with my lack of ability that I'd become an instrumentalist in the size church I attend with the musical professionalism it possesses. Yet here I am, and my post carries with it a certain amount of worship leadership that the average choir member will never attain. My prayer in throwing my name in the hat was that if God had someone better in mind (and there WERE better qualified people) for the job that He not give me that position. God didn't stop me, and I've seem some wonderful changes in how we worship as a congregation during this time. Even more convincing for me is that I've witnessed these changes from the best seat in the house, the piano bench!

One might argue confirmation bias, of course. I can understand why. But the ways in which I've profoundly experienced God's presence in my life personally leave little room for doubt. I lack doubt because the questions that are REALLY important have already been answered. Anything else is, of course, open for debate. I'm sorry if it appears shallow. Insofar as Biblically-based doctrine/practice and diligent prayer provides answers, I can say that there is no reason to doubt. It's all a mystery, I think. The only way I can explain the mystery is that there are no words to explain it. It can only be revealed to you through your own personal experience, and the experience for me has been much more profound, much deeper I think than any depth of human contemplation.

How would/could anyone's belief in or disbelief of anything either effect or affect his or her ability to "state" (declare) anything at all?

In any case, salvation awaits those who endure to the end, and I would question the idea of suicide being evidence of any kind of endurance.

As mentioned before, though...if suicide occurs because someone is ill and unable to perceive properly at the time, that I suspect to be different. If we are to be held responsible for what we are capable of knowing and understanding, and the disruption to the brain is sufficient that we are not in control of our faculties, of fully thinking through our actions, and properly evaluate alternatives, then I have to think God would know where that dividing line is between a truly willful decision (such as the suicide bomber example) and one that the individual in question was not in control of because a physical malady was to blame (such as somebody experiencing serious mental illness).

I also think God can accurately judge a person's reasons for refusal at any other time in a definitive way that we cannot. I have the feeling that a person refusing because they were mistreated by Christians would be in a different situation than a person who refused because of true rebellion. I can't know any of this to be true, but I believe that the Christian must be extremely humble about salvation and realize that we do not know another's relationship to God as we know our own. I say this because it is one thing to share the Gospel message--but whenever we treat people as "the damned," it breeds contempt in us and that is not in keeping with how Christians should be. It ends up destroying us and then we wonder why we have become a byword among the nations.

I believe this is somehow of an explanation of wether suicides can be held responsable for their actions, however there are those who may be sane and commit suicide for avoiding pain or a conflict, etc.

And well, if Job have commited suicided, what would have been the outcome of that action?


For altruistic reasons? I suppose those would be recognized as exceptions to the rule. Ok, I could say that clinical depression and psychological issues are recognized by christians, probably not all, today, when it comes to wether they can be held responsable or not. The issue is that earlier times, such as biblical times, that would not have been the case.


You mean future sins are already forgiven? so that means that as a christian you can steal, you can kill, you can have extramarital sex and if you don't repent from ALL of them, you still can be saved? if that is so, then I don't see the point of Christianity to be honest. As the part of the point is to control people's behaviour, and which is better than stating that no clean counsious enters to heaven? The idea that some christians held about Christ dying for your sins is that your sins can be forgiven, rather than all your sins are forgiven, and that you have to repent with honesty, not just to avoid punishment.


The less they go to heaven the better.

The issue is that that makes people to be able to get away with some of their actions, and that would not be fair, for the ones who are actually clean, and for ones who have been somehow damaged by them, as I would have thought from that perspective, that you have to honestly, try to imitate Christ in everything, as a requirement for salvation.


If all sins are forgiven, then I can steal from you and I can hurt you, and get away with that and still be saved, no, that is not much of an idea of fairness. The idea of seeing people who have hurted me and never came in terms with me in paradise, is just unappealing, and not much of a sense of justice.

Really, if you break God's law, you have to face the consequences.


Hence, being considered a sin.