Fallible doesn't equal sinful

“Prophet...” asks Morbid Neko in reply to my post Love your enemies, “if God had wanted infallible people, why didn’t He make humans that way?”

What an interesting question. After some consideration I came to the conclusion that it is not what God wants. What God wants are not infallible people, but sinless people.

These concepts (fallibility and sinfulness) are not synonyms. When I miscalculate a difficult equation, I’m proving my fallibility, but I didn’t sin. It is not necessarily morally wrong to be bad at maths! God wanted people to grow, to develop, to learn. If they were infallible (in the sense that God is infallible) they would not have been able to do these things, as there would have been no room for growth.

Sometimes we fail because we are fallible, but that is part of the growth process. For example a child often falls when learning to walk. We do not scold it for falling. We encourage the child’s attempts at walking. In fact we actually praise it! Other times we fail because we are sinful. Such failures we consider morally wrong and these we usually do not encourage, nor praise.

So Morbid Neko, your question should rather be “if God had wanted sinless people, why didn’t He make humans that way?” And my answer to this question is, He did. It was Man, not God, that made himself sinful.

My virtuous suicide

“Please switch me off”, I said.

My partner was distraught at the idea. Our discussion happened over dinner in a restaurant.

“There is no quality of life and it also diminishes the quality of life of the loved-ones. Not to mention the extreme emotional and financial strain put on everyone. So, by all means, pull the plug!”

If ever I’m in a vegetative state, kept alive by machines, that is my wish. She, of course, was very shocked at my candid (and probably somewhat logically-cold) utterance.

Does this constitute as suicide and mortal sin? I don’t think so. Sin, is primarily selfishness. My wish to be “switched off” is primarily unselfish. I know the extreme strain, both emotionally and financially, caused by a terminally ill family member. Rather have them cherish the sweet memories of me, than stain their memories with suffering, toil, serious financial strain, and the like.

Furthermore, suicide, although easy to judge by the clergy, is not as straight forward at all. Firstly, people that commit suicide are usually not healthy – suffering from serious clinical depression. Chemically they are imbalanced, and do not think straight. Their actions are skewed by a mental illness, and I’m convinced that God, far more than man, will take this into account.

But my choice to have the “plug pulled” is a cognitive decision which I’m making now, while I’m in a healthy mental state. And this brings me to my second point. In Scripture there are at least two examples of people that committed suicides of sort, which we deduce from the contexts were not considered sins. The first is Samson who asked God to give him strength to kill some Philistines and himself:

“And Samson called unto the LORD, and said, O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house stood, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and of the other with his left. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life” (Jdg 16:28-30).

The other is the Passion of Jesus. Jesus knew very well that His return to Jerusalem would certain His death. In fact, it was His mission to die for humanity. Wasn’t this, in a sense, a suicide mission? Of course, not selfish suicide, but in fact, unselflish suicide. And I guess that is my point. Suicide, whether active or passive, can be a selfish and therefore sinful act, or unselfish and therefore a virtuous act. Obviously on a cosmic scale, as in the case of Jesus, it is much easier to discern whether it was selfish or unselfish. In our own lives it becomes much harder to distinguish the morality of suicide. But still, it doesn’t negate the possibility of unselfish suicide. I am of the opinion that my current clear-headed decision to have the machines switched of in case of a possible future situation of a vegetative state is primarily an unselfish act. I wish to spare my family grave continuous emotional and financial suffering.

Some might say that it is just masked selfishness – I just selfishly do not wish to be in a vegetative state. Which is true; I do not wish to be in a vegetative state with no quality of life. But me not wanting to be in a vegetative state doesn’t equal me being selfish. Selfishness means something done at the expense of someone else.

What's Myanmar's government hiding?

So what is happening in Myanmar? The country is devastated by the recent Cyclone Nargis. I find it suspicious that the militant government is downplaying outside assistance. There is no question that the country is in a pandemic crisis. What is Myanmar’s government hiding?

I posted something about Myanmar in September 2007. At that time it concerned the uprising of Buddhist monks and fighting for religious freedom (and lowered petrol prices). Now it's a fight for survival against natural disasters and a apathetic government.

With a world in ruin, I really need to count my blessings!

What government unites, let no man seperate...

I’m reading about the whole controversy regarding same sex marriages in California, at present.

I'm thinking out loud...

Should a country’s law govern marriages, in the sanctimonious sense, at all? Shouldn’t Church and State be separate?

Let people partner up contractually if they want to, in the form of civil unions and domestic partnerships (which are already possibilities in California). This then becomes a legal contract between two entities about sharing money, responsibilities, etc.

And then, if religious people want to make another contract with God – a sanctimonious covenant – let them do so within the confines of their religious persuasion. This shouldn’t be a matter of State, but a personal (religious) matter; a matter between a couple and their God.

Marriage in a legal sense and marriage in a sanctimonious sense are not the same, why should we try to get government to merge the two? America is a country rooted on the principle of separation between State and Religion. Keep it separate.

C. S. Lewis on Living in Global Uncertainty

"If we are going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things -- praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts -- not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They might break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds." C.S. Lewis

Lewis’ counsel is probably equally valuable regardless the danger, be it an atomic bomb, or a terrorist invasion, or outlandishly high violent crimes... They may break our bodies, but they need not dominate our minds.

The cloak of anti-terrorism

“The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the bill of rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak, of anti-communism.”

American Politician - Adlai Stevenson (February 5, 1900 – July 14, 1965).

In a Boston Legal episode, a character repeats this quote and says that “anti-communism” can easily be replaced with “anti-terrorism”. How shockingly true.

May America not forget this insight from her past.