This is the kind of conversation I'd love to have in my Sunday School or EQ, but one that would never EVER be allowed because people would have conniption fits about even broaching the subject.
John Donne in Biathanatos, reeling from the death by suicide of a dear friend, and the Church's denial of interrement in tierra santa, essentially writes a defense of suicide. He reasons that since Jesus Christ was creator of this world, a literal first-born of Heavenly Father, and capable of discerning the future, then his death was voluntary--ergo a suicide. From a Catholic point of view with Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost all being one personage, that would mean that God created the universe and the earth as his own gallows. He created it so that he would be killed by it. Iron was created to form the nails, thorns were created to form his crown, lumber to form his cross, mankind to crucify him.
It's a really gnostic idea to see the world as an imperfect creation, as something that should be rejected. Suicide would be the ultimate rejection of life on Earth.
What I would say to my Sunday School class after the initial rejection of the idea and all the spittle has settled is, "we must realize however that these positions fail to mention that Jesus chose not to exercise his divine powers to prolong his life. Any other man in that position would've died just as he did. We cannot claim it was a suicide merely because he did not act as a deity. He lived his life as a man, to have done otherwise would have made his sacrifice irrelevant, because in order for it to redeem us, it had to have been done by someone who could then turn to us and say, "I did it. Now you try."
Didier Jaén has written:
A consequence of this doctrine is the idea that the world is thus utterly divorced from the truly divine. It is, in fact, a prison or a deception, and the way to salvation is complete rejection of everything created. The world is not a bridge to the divine but an almost impenetrable obstacle. Rejection is the cardinal virtue, and suicide becomes a symbolic act of rejection. Metafiction, too, with its exposition of the tricks of the trade, becomes a symbolic act of literary suicide: a symbolic death of the author, the character, the reader.
So The Princess Bride essentially chronicles the suicide of the characters, the audience, and Fred Savage. The Never-Ending Story does away with you too!
John Donne in Biathanatos, reeling from the death by suicide of a dear friend, and the Church's denial of interrement in tierra santa, essentially writes a defense of suicide. He reasons that since Jesus Christ was creator of this world, a literal first-born of Heavenly Father, and capable of discerning the future, then his death was voluntary--ergo a suicide. From a Catholic point of view with Jesus, God, and the Holy Ghost all being one personage, that would mean that God created the universe and the earth as his own gallows. He created it so that he would be killed by it. Iron was created to form the nails, thorns were created to form his crown, lumber to form his cross, mankind to crucify him.
It's a really gnostic idea to see the world as an imperfect creation, as something that should be rejected. Suicide would be the ultimate rejection of life on Earth.
What I would say to my Sunday School class after the initial rejection of the idea and all the spittle has settled is, "we must realize however that these positions fail to mention that Jesus chose not to exercise his divine powers to prolong his life. Any other man in that position would've died just as he did. We cannot claim it was a suicide merely because he did not act as a deity. He lived his life as a man, to have done otherwise would have made his sacrifice irrelevant, because in order for it to redeem us, it had to have been done by someone who could then turn to us and say, "I did it. Now you try."
Didier Jaén has written:
A consequence of this doctrine is the idea that the world is thus utterly divorced from the truly divine. It is, in fact, a prison or a deception, and the way to salvation is complete rejection of everything created. The world is not a bridge to the divine but an almost impenetrable obstacle. Rejection is the cardinal virtue, and suicide becomes a symbolic act of rejection. Metafiction, too, with its exposition of the tricks of the trade, becomes a symbolic act of literary suicide: a symbolic death of the author, the character, the reader.
So The Princess Bride essentially chronicles the suicide of the characters, the audience, and Fred Savage. The Never-Ending Story does away with you too!
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