Karl Barth speaks a decisive No! to suicide in the Church Dogmatics III/4. In the last week, after the suicide of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain, there have been many positive and negative responses, so it is an appropriate time to discuss the ethics of suicide. Karl Barth argues that suicide is incompatible with Christian ethics by appealing to the sixth commandment of "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Barth believes that suicide is self-killing (or self-murder), and although there is no direct prohibition of suicide in the Bible, Barth believes that this commandment concludes that there is "no ground on which to justify or authorize it." Karl Barth's rejection of suicide falls under his broader ethical discussion of the "§55.2 The Protection of Life" and Barth admits that he is indebted to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and that he is making a similar argument as Bonhoeffer did on suicide in his book Ethics. 

Karl Barth's argument against suicide

In CD III/4, Karl Barth summarizes his argument against suicide: 

"We must start with the unequivocal fact that when self-destruction is the exercise of a supposed and usurped sovereignty of man over himself it is a frivolous, arbitrary and criminal violation of the commandment, and therefore self-murder. To deprive a man of his life is a matter for the One who gave it and not for the man himself. He who takes what does not belong to him, in this case only to throw it away, does not merely kill; he murders. There is no ground on which to justify or authorise this."[1] 

Karl Barth argues that it is God who gives life, and no person may end the gift of life, because it is God alone who determines the limits of the gift of life. A Christian ethic is therefore one that protects life, not one that ends life. Barth appeals to the well-known desire of Paul to depart this life in Phil 1:23 to demonstrate it is not a person's decision to end their own life. Barth says that no one is free to "take his own life. God can take it back. But so long as He does not do this, so long as man has it, it is given him only as an inalienable loan." And so Barth concludes by quoting John Calvin that suicide is never an acceptable choice: Barth writes, "Nostri non sumus sed Domini (Calvin) [trans. 'We are not our own masters, we belong to the Lord']. Self-destruction as the taking of one’s own life in this way is clearly self-murder." Barth concludes that we must wait patiently to see the end of our life like Simeon waited to see the birth of Jesus before he could die in peace (Luke 2:25-35). 

Is suicide an unforgivable sin? No!

Karl Barth's encouraging words in the following quotation is what inspired me to write this post. Barth says that suicide is not the unforgivable sin, that some have sometimes claimed. Barth argues that we are not defined in the eyes of God by our final moments, but our entire life that we lived. In Barth's theology of resurrection, he also explains that it is our entire life and all the moments within it that is resurrected, not just our final moment at the end of time. So Barth's following quotation is encouraging because suicide is such a tragic event of loss, and Barth's words remind us of all the life that was lived before this tragic end. So we have no reason to fear that those who have committed suicide are excluded from the grace of god. 

We must go on at once to say, however, that even suicide in this sense is not as such unforgivable sin. For there are many other ways of “taking” one’s own life which may be more foolish and wicked than suicide. We have also to remember the parallel case of criminal murder in relation to others. If there is forgiveness of sins at all, even for the latter sin, there is surely forgiveness for suicide. The opinion that it alone is unforgivable rests on the false view that the last will and act of man in time, because they are the last and take place as it were on the very threshold of eternity, are authoritatively and conclusively decisive for his eternal destiny and God’s verdict on him. But this cannot be said of any isolated will or act of man, and therefore not even of the last. God sees and weighs the whole of human life. He judges the heart. And He judges it according to His own righteousness which is that of mercy. He thus judges the content of the last hour in the context of the whole. Even a righteous man may be in the wrong at the last. Even the most sincere believer may be hurled on his death-bed into the most profound confusion and uncertainty, even though there be no suggestion of suicide. What would become of him if there were no forgiveness at this point? Yet if there is forgiveness for him, why not for the suicide? [2]

Barth rejects the error that suicide is unforgivable because the person has no chance to repent of their sin of suicide. Forgiveness does not depend any human action, but upon the mercy and grace of God alone, so it is a semi-Pelagian error to conclude anyone is outside of God's mercy because they have died before having a chance to repent. Barth appeals to Dietrich Bonhoeffer's right conclusion that many people die (if not all!) with unrepented sin, and Barth makes a brilliant appeal to Bonhoeffer by concluding that suicide may be viewed as the greatest act of repentance because it puts an end to all further sinning by that individual: 

And even the Christian argument that suicide is an act which does not permit any future repentance is vulnerable to the reply that there are others who die in unrepented sin. Indeed, the suicide might sincerely believe that he is achieving the supreme and most costly and effective act of repentance by his self-extinction. D. Bonhoeffer (p. 113) is right: “It is not the baseness of motive that makes suicide objectionable. One can remain alive out of base motives and end life out of noble.” [3]

The suicide of Judas

Karl Barth admitted that suicide is not explicitly prohibited in the Holy Scriptures, and it is a theological conclusion that it is unethical. Barth says that we have three primary examples of suicide in Bible for our consideration, and Barth discusses all three, but I will limit this discussion to Judas alone for the same of brevity, and also because Judas committed suicide by hanging, which was the same way that Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain committed suicide. (I recommend reading the entire paragraph subsection: "§55.2 The Protection of Life" in CD III/4). Barth writes:

We have alluded to the remarkable fact that in the Bible suicide is nowhere explicitly forbidden. This is a painful fact to all who have tried to understand and apply the Bible moralistically. It offers us something far better, however, by presenting us with three great cases of suicide in Saul, the first king of Israel (1 Sam. 31:4f. . . .), Ahithophel, who as David’s adviser went over to Absalom (2 Sam. 17:23), and Judas, who betrayed Jesus (Mt. 27:5, Ac. 1:16f, 25; . . .) [4]

Perhaps Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus, is the most famous suicide in history and his death is laden with culture myths today, and has spawned all kinds of fascinating discussions in church history, such as the Gnostic Gospel of Judas that describes Judas as the pinnacle disciple. Judas killed himself by hanging (as I previously mentioned), and sometimes this final act of Judas is seen as the act that ultimately separated him from the Apostles, and generated the myth that suicide is a unforgivable sin. In the following quote, Barth explains that Judas' final act of suicide was not an unforgivable sin as such, but was a consistent end to this great sinner who was a sinner from the very beginning of his time with Jesus. Barth writes:

Finally, there is Judas, who in relation to Jesus commits the single but decisive error of being ready to follow Jesus but of still holding back, of wanting to be fundamentally sovereign himself as well. Hence it is possible and even necessary that Jesus should be sold by him for thirty pieces of silver. Hence it is possible and necessary that he should be the first to set the stone rolling, i.e., the whole train of events which leads Jesus first to the Sanhedrin, then to Pilate, and finally to Golgotha. In the act of self-glorification in face of God’s free grace as shown in Jesus, Judas becomes the great sinner of the New Testament. In this self-glorification he can bring himself to perdition. His suicide is the logical end of his way. [5]

Karl Barth denied that he was a universalist, but he believed that there was hope for even Judas. If anyone is in danger of judgment, it is Judas, but Barth reminds us that the betrayal of Judas was also committed by the prince of the apostles, Simon Peter himself! Peter's denial of Jesus is in many ways worse than Judas' betray, and Peter received mercy, grace and forgiveness. Barth concludes that we have hope for even Judas. 

Even Judas as described in the text is in no sense the personification of wickedness that some have tried to make him. Did not Jesus also choose and call him as an apostle? Is the act of his betrayal really more serious than the threefold denial of Peter? To translate παραδοῦναι as “betray” is to evoke, both technically and in particular morally, ideas which do not correspond to what he really did. Nor do we fail to find in Judas sincere repentance, an open confession of sin and an attempt to make amends. The shadow which lies over these three figures is that of the divine and not a human judgment [6]

Conclusion

Karl Barth's argument is that suicide is self-murder, and therefore it is not an ethical option for anyone. However, Barth doesn't have the final word on it, and is opposed by other theologians such as Barth's friend Hans Küng who argued that suicide is acceptable in some cases. Ethics are difficult, and that is especially true in the case of suicide. 

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, you are not alone. Please contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by phone at 1-800-273-8255, on twitter at @800273TALK, or on facebook.

Sources:

1. Karl Barth. Church Dogmatics, The Doctrine of Creation Vol III/4. trans. G. W. Bromiley, T. F. Torrance, Edinburgh: T&T Clark 2004. Print. pp. 404–405

2. Ibid. Barth. p. 405.

3. Ibid. Barth. p. 406.

4. Ibid. Barth. p. 408.

5. Ibid. Barth. p. 409.

6. Ibid. Barth. p. 408.