Christian Perspectives on Euthanasia
Christian Perspectives
Roger Crook captures the Christian perspective on euthanasia by posing the question in terms of how we care for the dying.
What do we do for the person who is comatose with no hope of recovery
How do we care for the terminally ill person whose remaining days are increasingly agonisingly painful?
The Human being is not simply a biological entity but a person, in the image of God and Christ. Death marks the end of a personhood in this life.
Biblical teachings prohibit killing; the Sixth Commandment states ‘You shall not kill’ – both in terms of murder and involuntary manslaughter.
Life should not be violated, while the prohibition of killing seems to be a moral absolute of Christianity there are exceptions for warfare and self-defence.
There are examples in the Bible where the sacrifice of life is considered virtuous ‘Greater love has no man than this: That a man lay down his life for his friends’
The Bible does not prohibit all taking of life in all circumstances, although Christians have traditionally considered taking one’s own life to be wrong
Roman Catholic Perspectives
At the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, the Roman Catholic Church condemned crimes again life ‘such as any type of murder, genocide ,abortion, euthanasia or wilful suicide’
Life is sacred and a gift from God, ‘which they are called upon to preserve and make fruitful’
To take a life opposes God’s love for that person, and rejects the duty of a person to live life according to God’s plan.
In the same declaration, the Roman Catholic Church made it clear that it was wrong to ask someone for an assisted death, and that an individual cannot consent to such a death:
“For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offence against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity’
The kind of autonomy that John Stuart Mill argues for is rejected by the Roman Catholic Church.
We simply don’t have that freedom,
Roger Crook captures the Christian perspective on euthanasia by posing the question in terms of how we care for the dying.
What do we do for the person who is comatose with no hope of recovery
How do we care for the terminally ill person whose remaining days are increasingly agonisingly painful?
The Human being is not simply a biological entity but a person, in the image of God and Christ. Death marks the end of a personhood in this life.
Biblical teachings prohibit killing; the Sixth Commandment states ‘You shall not kill’ – both in terms of murder and involuntary manslaughter.
Life should not be violated, while the prohibition of killing seems to be a moral absolute of Christianity there are exceptions for warfare and self-defence.
There are examples in the Bible where the sacrifice of life is considered virtuous ‘Greater love has no man than this: That a man lay down his life for his friends’
The Bible does not prohibit all taking of life in all circumstances, although Christians have traditionally considered taking one’s own life to be wrong
Roman Catholic Perspectives
At the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, the Roman Catholic Church condemned crimes again life ‘such as any type of murder, genocide ,abortion, euthanasia or wilful suicide’
Life is sacred and a gift from God, ‘which they are called upon to preserve and make fruitful’
To take a life opposes God’s love for that person, and rejects the duty of a person to live life according to God’s plan.
In the same declaration, the Roman Catholic Church made it clear that it was wrong to ask someone for an assisted death, and that an individual cannot consent to such a death:
“For it is a question of the violation of the divine law, an offence against the dignity of the human person, a crime against life, and an attack on humanity’
The kind of autonomy that John Stuart Mill argues for is rejected by the Roman Catholic Church.
We simply don’t have that freedom,