This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. ...question of modern medical ethics. We have studied matters pertaining to the beginning of human life, questions having to do with artificial insemination, genetic engineering and abortion. We're going to now go to the other end of the spectrum, and study some issues pertaining to the ending of human life, in particular the questions of suicide and euthanasia. But first some introductory remarks. The Bible teaches us that life and death are under the sway of our sovereign God. Deuteronomy 32, 39, Matthew 10, 28, Jesus says, Fear not them who can destroy your body, but the one who can destroy body and soul and hell. Revelation 1, 18, we see further God's sovereignty over death when Jesus says, I am the first and the last and the living one. I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore and have the keys of death and of Hades. Jesus is the one who has sovereign control over death and Hades. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 55 and 56, moreover, that there is a certain sting to death. The sting of the death, of course, of death is found in the law because the law condemns us and brings us under curse. Although God has sway over, has sovereignty over death, from our standpoint, death is seen as a sting. Sin and the law bring about the condemnation which eventuates in our death. For the wages of sin is death, according to Romans 3.23. And death was introduced because sin was introduced through man's ultimate enemy, Satan himself. The ultimate enemy, Satan, then in one sense has something to do with the final enemy to be defeated, death. Jesus Christ came submitting to and defeating this last enemy of death. 1 John 3 tells us that Satan is powerful and has power with respect to death because of sin. Whoever sins is of the devil. But Hebrews 2.14 says that Satan simply has a secondary power of death, because he was defeated through death, the one who had the power of death. Christ, through his atoning death, really deprived Satan of the power of death that he wielded because of the sin of men. In Revelation 20, verse 10, we read that Satan himself will experience the second death. He will not escape that. And so life and death are under the sway of God. Death is a certain sting because of our sin and violation of the law. Jesus Christ came and through death made nothing Satan's power of death so that Satan now will finally experience the second death also. The final enemy to be defeated in the course of redemption will be death itself, according to 1 Corinthians 15. As we approach the question of the ending of life and death in this theological perspective, we must recognize that life is subordinate to the Creator and his ends, and that heartbeats, life in itself in a vitalistic or a purely vitalistic sense, heartbeats are not our ultimate value as Christians. Sometimes I hear Christians who, because of their involvement in the anti-abortion crusade today, speak as though life in itself was somehow sacrosanct, that life, if you will, pure heartbeats, just heartbeats themselves, have some kind of value. But as we study the question of death from a biblical standpoint, we must recognize that life is subordinate to the Creator and that this life, as subordinate to God, can be relinquished for the higher value of redemption or the kingdom of God. The quality of life is important, to be sure, and the quality of life should be defined in terms of redemption and the kingdom of God. And against that backdrop, there are times when we can subordinate our desire for life and the value of life to these other things. That is to say, we can willingly engage in death for the sake of God's kingdom, even as Christ willingly engaged in his own death for the sake of redemption and the defeat of Satan. So those remarks are necessary just to put everything in a theological perspective. Let's look then at the issue of suicide as one way of ending life. A number of pleas for suicide of a rather emotional and graphic nature can be found in the literature on the subject. I think here of Joseph Fletcher's book on modern medical ethics and his discussion of suicide where he appeals to the case of Swift. English author and satirist, who apparently went through a really terrible last couple of years, as I understand it, of his life, where he couldn't control his own bodily functions, was insane in such pain that he screamed for people to give him a knife so he could take his life. However, he was prevented from doing so, and Fletcher says, isn't this terrible? Why should the man have been forced to suffer when there was no medical way to take care of his ailments? The history of opinion on such a case is that the history of opinion on suicide can be briefly rehearsed. Suicide was widely endorsed in the ancient world. Plato said in cases of incurable disease, suicide should be acceptable. Seneca, the Stoic philosopher who lived, who was born probably in the same year as Christ, by the way, 4 B.C., and lived to 65 A.D. Seneca, the Stoic philosopher, said that suicide was a right corollary to man's autonomy over every aspect of his being. The slogan that he endorsed was that the door is open, meaning that a release from pain and evil were always available to him as a man, that he could endorse the option of suicide if life became too much for him. Quote, he says, against all the injuries of life, I have the refuge of death. If I can choose between a death of torture and one that is simple and easy, why should I not select the latter? As I choose the ship in which I sail and the house which I shall inhabit, so I will choose the death by which I leave life. And no matter more than in death should we act according to our desire. Why should I endure the agonies of disease when I can emancipate myself from all my torment? Suicide is still, respected today in cultures such as the Japanese culture, for suicide demonstrates in that culture the value of mogokoro, or sincerity. Sincerity. There have been, nevertheless, very few apologists for suicide in Christian circles. Most of the apologists are like Stoic philosophers or Japanese thinkers and all the rest. Christian church, for the most part, has had a fairly consistent polemic against suicide. Two notable exceptions would be John Dunn and Thomas More. Psychology Today, in an article entitled, Our Failing Reverence for Life, we read that in 1976, an article, well, research was done leading up to an article in 1976, a man doing a survey of 50 years of literature, of articles on suicide, And it was discovered that where suicide was 50 years ago, half a century ago, uniformly presented in a disaffirmatory light, it is now today presented in pervasively a neutral light. There has been, for the most part, in the literature, in a way, a widespread acceptance of suicide. Maybe not an endorsement of it as a positive value, but the acceptance of it as not being positively evil. And in fact, in our own day, 25,000 people plus each year commit suicide. Now, we should recognize as we approach the question of suicide that there's a difference between selfish suicide and altruistic sacrifice. There's a difference between selfish suicide and altruistic sacrifice because some apologists for suicide look at cases of altruistic sacrifice of a person's own life And from that, conclude that suicide can be legitimated in a moral sense. The Bible does tell us we are to place other lives above our own. John 15, verse 13. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. First John 3, verses 16 to 18. Hereby know we love, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." We ought to lay down our lives for the brethren, and that's the greatest expression of love, that one give his life for another. The Bible also tells us that we should risk life for the sake of the kingdom of God. Some illustrations of that in Paul's writings, Philippians 2, verse 17. Paul says, Yes, and if I am offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy and rejoice with you all. Paul said that he was poured out, he was offered for the faith of his hearers. In Philippians 2, verses 29 and 30, Paul expands on this, Receive him therefore in the Lord, speaking of Epaphroditus, receive him therefore in the Lord with all joy, and hold such in honor, because for the work of Christ, he came nigh unto death, hazarding his life to supply that which was lacking in your service toward me." Epaphroditus brought this gift to Paul and served him, and he's commended here for being willing to hazard his own life for the sake of Paul's good. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 11, verses 23 to 28, makes it fairly evident that being an apostle was not the safest occupation or lifestyle that he could have chosen. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23. Are they ministers of Christ? They speak as one beside myself. I am more, in labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, in stripes above measure, in death's awe. Of the Jews five times received, I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep, in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren, in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those things that are without, there is that which presses upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. Paul recounts the sufferings of his apostleship, external, internal, those from the natural elements, those from human beings. Paul clearly suffered greatly and risked his life to be an apostle. So there are times when we can risk life for the sake of the kingdom of God. The principle that Paul lays down in reflecting on this in Philippians 1 20 is that he should glorify Christ whether in life or in death. And so we need to recognize from the outset that we cannot have an unrealistic attitude toward this question of death and involuntary submission to death that says that there's no circumstance under which you can voluntarily receive death. There are circumstances where we should place our lives above place the lives of others above ours in circumstances where we should hazard our lives for the sake of the kingdom of God. However, it's important to see that these are always cases of altruism, always cases of serving others, always cases of not thinking of yourself but thinking of the good of others. There's a difference between altruistic sacrifice then and suicide which is self-regarding, suicide which takes my own life for the sake of the quality of my life or my suffering or what have you. Let's consider some of the arguments that are often proposed to legitimate suicide. The first one states that a person should have a right over his own life. A right over his own life. Don't we in fact own our own lives? Don't we have a right to do with our lives what we wish? The attitude here in this argument is well expressed in the current Broadway play whose life is it anyway? The Christian has a fairly obvious answer to that. It's not your life, it's God's. Therefore, you don't have a right over your life. God has the right over your life, and you can only do what God says you can do with your life. Those who propose that we should have a right over our own life, it seems to me, in essence, reduce the Sixth Commandment to the Eighth Commandment. The Sixth Commandment says you shall not kill. But they say you should be allowed to kill in your own particular case because it is your life anyway. And thereby they demonstrate that what they understand by the Sixth Commandment is that you should not kill or deprive somebody of something that is in their own possession. That is, you don't have sovereignty rights over the life of somebody else even as you don't have property rights over somebody else. However, in your particular case, you do own your own life and therefore the Sixth Commandment doesn't apply to your own life. Just as if I own a tree, then I have the right to cut it down if I want. And if I own my life, I have the right to cut it down. But I don't own your life and therefore I don't have the right to kill you. So the Sixth Commandment becomes but a particularization of the Eighth Commandment about property rights. And that clearly is not acceptable. because the Bible wouldn't give the 6th and the 8th commandment as summary expressions of our basic moral duties that you could reduce one to the other in that way. Life belongs to God, not to you, and that's why you can't take life in general. Others have argued for the legitimacy of suicide by pointing out that there are qualifications on the 6th commandment. The 6th commandment says, thou shalt not kill, but that's very general. Obviously there are exceptions, aren't there? we would be willing to say that you can kill in cases of self-defense, lawful war, or just punishment of a criminal. Now, the argument goes, since that law cannot be read as exception-less, there must be exceptions that are granted. And perhaps there are exceptions that we should grant which are not specifically mentioned in the Word of God. The problem with this, of course, is that 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17, tells that everything necessary to understand good work, to be perfectly equipped for every good work, has been supplied for us in the scriptures, and therefore we do not have the right to add qualifications to God's law, which God's law itself does not lay down. So it's true that the Sixth Commandment has exceptions, or qualifications, if you will. However, we do not have the right to add qualifications beyond that which the Bible itself specifies. Thus, the person who argues for suicide will have to show that that is an exception to the sixth commandment that is biblically legitimated. Another argument allegedly supporting suicide argues from the silence of scripture in condemning suicide. The argument goes, since the Bible does not ever condemn suicide or have a prohibition against it, that therefore the Bible may not be used to condemn it today, that the Bible is silent on the question. However, I don't believe that it's accurate to say that the Bible is really silent in this matter. Its silence is simply to be found, if anywhere, in its absence of an explicit prohibition of that illustration of the sixth commandment being violated. The Bible doesn't have a specific prohibition against suicide, but it certainly condemns it in the context where it's found. In the case of Abimelech, Judges 9, 56. In the case of Saul in 1 Chronicles 10, 13 and 14. In the case of Saul's armor-bearer, 1 Chronicles 10, verse 5. In the case of Ahithophel, 2 Samuel 17, 23. The case of Zimri, 1 Kings 16, 19, and finally in the case of Judas, Acts 1, 18, in every one of these cases the context is almost always condemnatory. The context is always set forth as something which is not to be favored, and consequently there is certainly no presumption that the Bible favors suicide or sees it in a neutral light. The Bible always presents it in an ugly and a condemnatory light. Okay, let's move to a fourth possible defense of suicide. This defense runs that people have the right of self-defense. If somebody tries to attack me, I can defend myself. And I should have the right of self-defense with respect to the quality of my life as well. That is, out of self-interest I can defend myself against an aggressor, if it's another human being, I should also be able to defend myself against an aggressor like disease or poverty or social shame or what have you. The fact that the aggressor is not a human being doesn't mean I shouldn't be able to defend myself. I realize it's a rather strange form of argument, but it is found in the literature. That is, out of self-interest I should take my own life. So very odd. kind of dialectical logic, isn't it? As a matter of fact, it's not self-interest, however. It's not self-defense. It's just plain selfish. A concern for one's lot in life becomes so absorbing that what we want to do is not protect really the quality of life. We simply want to prevent the downgrading of the quality of our life, and we defend our life by death, which I think is rather contradictory. Okay, so these are four arguments often found in the literature legitimating suicide, and none of them really hold much water. I don't think they're valid at all. Now let's turn to some arguments against suicide, but again, very poor arguments that can be used. The first argument against suicide is the vitalist argument against suicide. The vitalist says that heartbeats, life itself, the life process, has the highest ethical value. And so the vitalist is against all forms of suicide because that's the taking of life and that's the cardinal sin. But the vitalist is just wrong because the Bible tells us that altruistic sacrifice is a legitimate option in some cases. And altruistic sacrifice shows that personal life cannot be idolized as the absolute sumum bonum of human existence. Well, other arguments against suicide would include, for instance, the natural law argument against suicide. Certain Roman Catholics argue that it's contrary to natural law, the natural law of self-preservation, the instinctive drive people have to preserve their own lives. Well, again, we have to hear what we say about all natural law arguments. Are we talking about a statistical norm? Clearly, we go against the statistical norm in the normal process of nature, at many points in our life and we feel that it's quite alright. I've yet to see anybody argue against air conditioners because they were contrary to nature. Moreover, this drive for self-preservation is not instinctive in some people clearly, because there are some people who are willing to take their lives. So one might say that if natural law can be used at all, for those individuals the most natural thing is to take their life. Well, a final argument that I think is really a poor argument against suicide, but nevertheless can be countenanced, the argument set forth by Norman Geisler in his book on ethics, in which he says that suicide is irrational. Irrational because it's an act of the living which destroys one's life. It's a living act which destroys one's living. And that makes it irrational. It is a reasoned act, he says, which destroys reason. He goes on to say, it is irrational because it lacks a true rationale. It should be noted here that Geisler is really aping the argumentation of Jean-Paul Sartre, who said similar things about suicide. But the argument, whether with Sartre's stature or Geisler's clever wording, the argument is simply not a good one. An act of the living which destroys one's life, I mean, the fact that it's an act of the living that puts an end to living doesn't make it irrational any more than somebody can climb up the ladder and then throw the ladder away. That doesn't make it an irrational act. There might very well be good reasons for throwing a ladder away once you've used it. There might very well be reasons, therefore, in theory, for using your life to destroy your life. And to say that this act lacks a true rationale is simply to overlook the many, many prima facie plausible rationales for suicide. So there are very poor arguments given in favor of suicide. There's at least three very poor arguments given against suicide. What argument can we suggest as an alternative that would be much better? Well, this is very simplistic, I realize, but when all is said and done, I just don't see how you can defeat it. The argument I want to present is from Exodus 20, verse 13. Exodus 20, verse 13 says, Thou shalt not kill. And the word used for kill here, ratzak, means to slay, or actually to shatter. One must not shatter another person's life. One must not slay a life. And I want you to notice the omission in the expression of that law of a direct object. It does not say, thou shalt not kill another, or thou shalt not kill thy neighbor. It says thou shalt not kill, period. You can compare that to the ninth commandment. The ninth commandment says thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. In the Sixth Commandment, there's no direct object specified, and that's not definitive, but it certainly argues a high presumption that suicide is simply a matter of self-murder. And since murder is forbidden in the law, suicide as self-murder would be forbidden in the law. You'll notice that scripture elsewhere is quite interested in necessary moral qualifications in its instructions. In Exodus 21, 12 to 14, we see an example of that interest in qualifications because the distinction is drawn between accidental homicide and premeditated homicide. Scripture is interested in these qualifications so that we don't treat all cases of murder alike, and yet scripture does not draw any qualifications about suicide. So the first line of argument against suicide would be the sixth commandment, suicide is self-murder. The second line of argumentation would be the obligation of self-love. Notice that in Matthew 22, verse 39, Jesus says that among the two great commandments laid upon man was the commandment to love his neighbor as himself. You are to love your neighbor as yourself. Well, that commandment, you see, teaches not simply that you're to love your neighbor, but also that you're to love yourself. Indeed, love yourself so that there's a standard or a model or an ideal of how well you should love your neighbor as well. Just imagine this kind of absurd counter-example. What if somebody were to say, well, I'm only supposed to love my neighbor as much as I love myself, and I hate myself, so I can hate my neighbor and kill him. That clearly would be a deleterious argument. It would be contrary to the purpose of Jesus' words. Jesus is indicating you to be doing good to your neighbor because you're supposed to love your neighbor as yourself. And by logical implication, that means you're supposed to do good for yourself and love yourself. If you're not to kill your neighbor, then you're under obligation not to kill yourself. Therefore, I conclude, in the context of all these rather poor arguments, that there's a straightforward, simple, but definitive argument in the Bible against suicide. Suicide violates the sixth commandment, since the Bible gives us no qualifications on that form of murder, and suicide violates the obligation of self-love as taught in the great commandment. We can ask ourselves a further question, now that we know that suicide is immoral, that suicide is condemned by the Bible. Should suicide be punished by the state? Somebody says, well, kind of strange, isn't it? How can you punish somebody who's dead? Well, the question takes two forms. Is there a punishment that would be appropriate after a person successfully commits suicide? And then secondly, should you punish somebody who unsuccessfully attempts to commit suicide? Well, I believe that you should. I believe that suicide is a punishable crime. In the first place, let's take the example of somebody who tries to punish himself but does not. That would be like any other assault on a human life and should be treated in the same way as you would treat my attempt to kill you when it's an unsuccessful attempt. And even when the attempt is successful, I believe that there is public value in punishing suicide. And one of the ways that you can punish suicide is by removing rights of inheritance. when the inheritance comes from a person who took his own life. By removing the right of inheritance, you also, if that's enshrined in law, would present a deterrent, remove a motivation, one of the primary motivations for a person who commits suicide. If you say that... Some people will say, my life's not worth anything, I might as well have my life insurance policy be collected by my wife. If the law states that she can't collect it if you commit suicide, then hopefully that will offer some minimal but nevertheless real deterrent to the act of suicide. And besides, it always operates as an example to others that this society so views the sanctity of human life that men will not get away even with suicide. So my conclusion then is that the Bible condemns suicide as both a sin, under all circumstances, and a crime. and should be treated as such. Any response? What would you do if someone tried to commit suicide and failed? The same thing that you would do if somebody tried to kill another person and failed. Well, now you see I've been ambiguous on that just because I think there's some question on that. Whether you should take assault and punish only in terms of the actual damage done, so that, let's say, if I shot you in the shoulder and there was a certain damage that came from that, I would have to make monetary compensation for it. I would obviously have to take care of your health bills and then pay a fine compensating me. And then the man who tries to commit suicide would have to make restitution for that effort as well. Obviously, the restitution is not made to himself, though. It had to be made to the state. That may be it, or it may well be that you should judge assault in terms of the intent of the assailant. If the assailant's effort is simply to maim you so that he can take your money, That's one thing, but if it's clear that his use of force was an effort to kill you, then his life should be taken. And I'm just not sure how to interpret the law of God in terms of an unsuccessful attempt. But all I'm saying is, whatever that is, the same should be meted out to the person who does it to himself. Do you have a better suggestion? Are you going to take up the question of a currency killing in connection with a suicide, or a request of a wounded man to be put out of the military? Yes, I see mercy killing as a form of euthanasia and that's the next topic here. Well, I suppose you would have to punish threats of suicide in the same way that you'd punish threats of murder. No more and no less. And so again, we were forced back to do our homework. You see, we usually think of the simple cases where there is definite damage done and the damage is commensurate with the intent. But I have thought for a long time now and haven't come to anything that I want to present publicly as a definitive answer about the question of, what if I decide to shoot you? And I'm malicious. I mean, I want to. It's premeditated. I want you to die. And it so happens, though, that I'm a terrible shot. And so I shoot at you, but no damage is done at all. In fact, imagine that I shoot you with a silent bullet and it passes beyond you so far that when it finally does lodge in something or drop to the ground, you don't hear it. You don't hear the bullet whiz by your ear or something like that. However, somebody else sees me in a crowd having taken aim and done that. Now, no damage was done to you at all, not even psychological damage. You weren't even fearful for a moment's time. So the question is, what should be the punishment in that case, where there's premeditation and the intent to do bodily harm, but no success whatsoever in doing it? So, not having an answer to that question, I can't really answer even further, what should we do in cases of threats of bodily harm? That isn't to say the Bible doesn't answer those questions, please understand. I'm just talking about my own failure to finish the research to answer the question. Well, I will say this as an ethicist, though, and a logician, that whatever the answer is to that question, it should be applied to when you make a threat against your own life or an effort to bring bodily harm, well, to bring death to yourself as well. Well, let's go on to the question of euthanasia now, having seen that suicide is condemned in the Bible. And we begin by consideration of the term and the practice of euthanasia. Euthanasia, literally in Greek, means good death. you, meaning good, and thanatos, meaning death. Good death. And originally, euthanasia was applied to the practice of giving medical comfort to somebody and easing them into their death. Easing them into their death. Not promoting their death, accelerating their death, or precipitating their death, but simply easing them into death. Now, in that original sense, the Bible not only allows for but commends euthanasia. In Proverbs 31, verse 6, for instance. Proverbs 31, verse 6. Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto the bitter in soul. Strong drink should be given to those who are ready to perish to ease their misery and their plight at that time. And so euthanasia, good death, meaning dying under less painful circumstances is, as a matter of fact, commended in the Bible. However, euthanasia has, through the centuries, come today to be applied to what we call mercy killing, which is really a form of accelerating death, rather than simply making the death of a person less miserable. Mercy killing. In fact, mercy killing is being practiced in our day, Babies that are born with Down syndrome are in some circumstances not being fed, not giving nourishment, so they starve to death. That is something practiced in some hospitals. Other forms of mercy killing would be a person who is on a respirator and can't stand the fact that he'll never be able to play baseball again or something, taking his own life, having the machine unplugged, taking somebody who has become senile and has a great deal of pain, relieving them from their misery, by injecting a lethal drug, taking a comatose patient who allegedly shows no hope of revival and unplugging life support mechanisms to that comatose person, or, in the illustration that was asked in a previous question, say a pilot who has been downed in a plane and is being burned to death and can't free himself from the plane, asking that somebody shoot through the flames to kill him so he won't have to at least die in this miserable fashion. So euthanasia is practiced and there are many forms, many illustrations of it today. As we consider the practice of euthanasia, let's remember that there are necessary distinctions to be drawn. We really have to draw some distinctions here. In the first place, there's a distinction to be drawn between voluntary euthanasia and involuntary euthanasia. Voluntary euthanasia really amounts to assisted suicide. Voluntary euthanasia would be, for instance, my being on an iron lung and I can't stand the social ostracism that is brought. I can't stand not being able to use my body. And so I ask you to inject the drug or to unplug the machine. That would be a case of voluntary euthanasia. Involuntary euthanasia would be a case of putting an old person out of his misery, even though the person has expressed no interest in being put out of his misery, or eliminating somebody who has become a financial drain to the family. That person is not voluntary, has not volunteered to have that done, and yet it is done to them. Another distinction that's important is the distinction between a terminal and a non-terminal patient who engages in either voluntary or involuntary euthanasia. There are some patients who have been told that they are in the process of dying and it's just a matter of time and there's a lot of misery, for instance, that they'll endure between the present and when they finally pass on. And so in that terminal case, they wish to die. And then there are cases that are not terminal. A person, say, being on a life support mechanism where they can be conscious and be fed and their life will be taken care of and they'll live out another 30 years, perhaps, if all things go well. That's not a terminal case, but sometimes people in that circumstance still choose to die and sometimes are involuntarily led to die. Another distinction would be the distinction between ordinary methods of euthanasia or ordinary ways of dying and extraordinary ways of dying. Extraordinary there's a distinction between ordinary methods of saving a life and extraordinary methods of saving a life. Let's say a person is brought into a hospital, and ordinarily there would not be anything you can do to save his life, but you take the outside chance and you apply some heroic measure, some extraordinary measure, maybe some new medical technique to try to save the person's life. Somebody might take one position on ordinary methods, that they must always be used, but extraordinary heroic efforts are not called for. And another person might say that all efforts, ordinary and extraordinary, are required. So that's a distinction to keep in mind. And then finally, we need to see that there's a distinction between permitting death and precipitating death. Permitting death is more passive, obviously, and might be called mercy dying, where in a situation where I'm going to die, I don't go to the doctor, don't get on the kidney dialysis machine, don't take my medication, and just permit myself, permit my body to go through the process of dying. That might be called passive euthanasia or mercy dying over against precipitating my death or somebody's death through an active agent, for instance, injecting a drug, a lethal drug into my system or unplugging injecting that drug into somebody else's system or unplugging the life support mechanism of another person, and that would be considered mercy killing. Hastening death through the pursuit of detrimental treatment. The difference between... Some people argue, by the way, that that's really a shoddy distinction, that it's only introduced as an ad hoc rescuing device for certain conservative opinions of euthanasia. However, I believe that there's a good reason behind the distinction and that it is rule-governed. Permitting death is hastening one's death by not pursuing a blessed treatment. For instance, I don't take my medication and eventually die after a few days, whereas precipitating death is hastening death by pursuing detrimental treatment. The one is not pursuing, the other is pursuing. The one is not pursuing something blessed, the other is pursuing something detrimental. So let's remember those distinctions as we think through the issue and discuss it. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary euthanasia, cases that are terminal and non-terminal, efforts that are ordinary and extraordinary, and then euthanasia which amounts to permitting death, mercy dying, and than cases which precipitate death, which are mercy killing. Do you have any questions at this juncture in the lecture? Anything you'd like to clarify? Well, then what I'd like to do is to immediately take up various initial objections to euthanasia. Various initial objections to euthanasia. Ones which, by the way, I think are not very helpful for the Christian to use. Sadly enough, I'm going to be giving you here, what is it, three, six different arguments and all of them are somewhat of an embarrassment because they don't really hold much validity. The first argument says that we shouldn't engage in euthanasia because death should be left to nature. Death should be left to nature. But the fact of the matter is that we condemn taking such a risk. We condemn non-involvement in matters pertaining to nature, we condemn neglect of our responsibilities and such fatalism in other circumstances. The question is, why should we leave death to nature if we believe in tampering with nature and other circumstances? Well, somebody might, this is a second form, a second initial objection to euthanasia, somebody might argue that euthanasia amounts to tampering with providence, though. It's one thing to say leaving it to nature doesn't make a lot of sense, but isn't God the author of life and death? Shouldn't we leave it to God to decide when we will die? Well, that's a two-edged sword. It probably proves far more than the critic wants it to prove. For if the time of one's death should be left solely in the hands of God's providence, then this argument could be applied to lengthening life as well as shortening life. If somebody says that it's wrong for us to put a premature end to one's life, it could be retorted, and Joseph Fletcher has retorted, that it's equally as wrong to use medical technology to extend a person's life, because that too is tampering with what is supposedly only within the providential prerogatives of God. A third form of argumentation appeals against the fallibility of the physicians. The physician says, well, there doesn't seem to be any hope that Karen Ann Quinlan can survive apart from the life support mechanism, and there's no hope that she'll ever regain consciousness and be anything more than a vegetable. But as a matter of fact, when she was taken off of the life support mechanism, she continued to live, and for your information, is still alive today. And so the physicians are truly fallible. So there are certain embarrassing cases like that that can be cited. But nevertheless, this doesn't make a very good principled or categorical argument against euthanasia, because such a line of approach, saying that physicians are fallible and therefore we shouldn't follow their advice, would apply across the board in all medical opinions. The argument proves too much, proves we shouldn't ever trust our physicians because they're always fallible. But if you're willing to trust your physicians when it comes to, say, open heart surgery, why shouldn't you be willing to trust the same physician when he says, this patient doesn't show any hope of recovery? The fact that they make mistakes doesn't prove that they should never be listened to. It just means that they should be more careful and not make mistakes. The argument doesn't prove what it's intended to prove. Sometimes Christians, this is a fourth line of argument against euthanasia, say that we should never forget the possibility of miracles. We should never take somebody's life because there's always the possibility of a miracle or a miracle drug being invented next week that might deliver us from this problem. Well, Deuteronomy 29.29 tells us that the secret things belong to the Lord our God. We are not to make our decisions on the basis of the possibility of miraculous deliverance. We are rather to follow the revealed law of God and to apply it. The possibility of miracles is not a good argument, therefore, against the pursuit of euthanasia. Matthew 4, verse 7, Jesus says, we are not to test the Lord our God. Can you imagine Jesus standing on the pinnacle of the temple and reasoning, well, it would be perfectly all right to jump off, because there's always the possibility of a miracle. No, that would have been putting the Lord as God to a test, and it's forbidden. So this line of thought really is contrary to Scripture, despite how pious as it may sound to many people. There are plenty of reductive ad absurdums possible if we're going to appeal to miracles. Let's say a doctor tells me that I have to have some kind of open heart surgery if my life is going to be salvaged, if I'm not going to die in just a few months. And I decide I'm going to go ahead with the operation. No, I decide I'm not going to go ahead with the operation because there's always the possibility that I might be miraculously healed through the prayers of God's people. or I decide I'm not going to go to work today because there's always the possibility of some miracle that heaven will turn up under my porch or some kind of treasure from heaven will be there. No, you don't appeal to the possibility of miracles when you're making a decision about daily affairs. Another line of argument says that we shouldn't allow euthanasia because if we do it will destroy confidence in the medical profession. You can imagine that as you listen to your doctor's advice as it pertains to your life and death, you might never be sure whether he's been unduly influenced by your family to recommend your death, whether he's really done his homework. And as the doctor comes into your hospital room to treat you, you might never know whether he's going to be injecting a lethal poison into your body. So if we allow for euthanasia, doctors will lose their credibility and we'll lose confidence in the medical profession. Well, it's true that certain abuses of euthanasia might very well lead us not to trust the medical profession. But that no more proves that euthanasia is itself wrong than the fact that many politicians today are engaged in an abuse of power and prerogative, and we lose confidence in government. That doesn't mean we're going to throw over the government, just because politicians have shown us how unreliable they can be as a lot of men. The final initial objection against euthanasia that I don't believe is a telling one, appeals to the social slide into tyrannical eugenics that will come about if we allow for euthanasia at all. We are told that ulterior motives can easily lead to subtle pressures on a patient or on medical practitioners to pursue a merciful, quote-unquote, a merciful killing when in fact it's for ulterior motives, not really because the person's in pain, not really because they're beyond recovery, but because, for instance, the state can expropriate the wealth of the person or the heirs want the person dead. Any of these, any number of reasons might lead to ill motivation for the use of euthanasia. And that could step by step by step lead us or make a slide into a tyrannical situation in our culture. Well, that's true. An abuse might lead to that. But again, abuse does not condemn proper use. This is something of a circumstantial argument. It might have the following consequence, therefore don't do it. Well, after all, we could say that sending people into space might lead to their death, and therefore we never should do it. Or I could say leaving my motel room to come down here to lecture today might lead to my death. I might get hit by a car, so I never should do it. Obviously, the circumstantial possibilities of abuse do not legitimately argue against all proper uses and safeguards of a procedure. So euthanasia is not properly condemned by any of these approaches. Yes? That's true in the abstract, but if you live in a society like ours, and you know the situation is such that it's fairly obvious what direction things are going in, isn't there a legitimate I'm thinking, for instance, about the Equal Rights Amendment. As it stands, it's pretty harmless, but in context, it's pretty dangerous. When you actually read it, it doesn't seem to be saying anything of the sort. The analogy of the Equal Rights Amendment, I think, is a fairly sound one. I don't mean to dispute altogether what you're saying. However, it seems to me I'm against the Equal Rights Amendment, but it's not purely out of consideration of how I know people are going to use it. I think, in other words, it's not just predicted consequences. What I would argue against the Equal Rights Amendment is that there's no reason for it unless you mean more than what the words say. That as it stands, you can have what the Equal Rights Amendment claims, and therefore there's no need to enshrine it in law. And therefore there's no reason to add a law unless you really mean more than what it says. And so I would condemn the motivation right here and now, and not just the projected consequences. So I don't see it as exactly parallel, but you are right that in one sense you could be tempting the Lord and asking for miraculous deliverance. Here, I'll give you an example. Let's say I've eaten so many burritos that if I eat one more burrito, I'm gonna die. Okay? So then I say, but now look, this one more burrito, there's nothing wrong with eating burritos. Can you condemn eating burritos? No, you can't condemn eating burritos. So I eat the burrito and I die. Well, that would clearly be wrong. In context, I'm asking for God to miraculously deliver me from the pain of my overeating if I go ahead with the one burrito. And it might be that an analysis of our culture would be, let's say that there's only five righteous people in all the world that we can find. And all the rest are money hungry and don't care about human life and all that. And then the possibility of voting for euthanasia comes up. Somebody might say, well, in principle, the fact that it might be abused isn't good enough reason. I am going to come to what I think are good enough reasons to condemn it, but that wouldn't in itself keep us from it. And somebody said, well, no, in this circumstance, it should, because we're asking God really for a miraculous deliverance in this context. And so. I want to agree with you in principle, but I want to add to that that definitely a difficult thing to specify what those conditions are and to verify that we are now living in them. And so somebody could rebut that by saying, you have to weigh the for sure benefits over against the potential dangers. And the potential dangers are vague right now, especially when good people are around who can write laws to help restrain that. And the benefits would be very definite and immediate in the case of all these suffering people in old people's homes and all the rest. Now, as it turns out, I'm totally against euthanasia and I'm against even euthanasia. Well, I'm not. I should qualify that. I'll tell you under what circumstances passive euthanasia is all right. But I'm against active euthanasia. And even in the case of a comatose patient believes the living will. So I don't want to end this lecture by giving any false impression. that by attacking certain arguments that I'm going to leave it at that. I just don't think that we're standing on good ground when we use these objections that I've been talking about. In our next lecture, we'll come back and continue to discuss this, and I will promise to give you some extended remarks on brain death, because I think that is where the current issue really is coming to a head. This recording has been released into the public domain by the Bonson Institute. Duplication, sharing and distribution is encouraged. For more information about the life and ministry of Dr. Greg L. Bonson, visit our website, www.bonsoninstitute.com, where we aim to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.