Christian Theology/Heaven

If a Person Commits Suicide, can they go to Heaven

I had to answer this question in a college paper we were assigned in a theology class back in 1993' and I finally got a long sought after answer

Note: I apologize If you are struggling over the suicide of a loved one, but maybe my story can bring you some relief.

I was 43 at that time and I’m 71 now, but I’ve thought back on this Theology class and this particular assignment many times since. I think about it every time I learn someone has committed suicide because as a Christian I wholeheartedly believe in the afterlife. I believe what scripture teaches that soon after we die we will face judgement before God. No one escapes His judgement whether they are believers, or not. And the scriptures also say that the worst thing God can say to you is, “depart from me. I never knew you.” Where you have to depart to, leaves me shaking.

Our class assignment was to write a compare/contrast paper based on the writing of three well known theologians we’d been studying who I have long ago forgotten, because this assignment was very personal for me. My father had killed himself 13 years earlier, but he had died as a believer. So I had been silently struggling with the question of whether or not God had granted him grace when he stood before Him?’ I had pondered where his soul was, but until I took this class, I had never come up with an answer that completely satisfied me.

Our professor was a middle aged Christian man and this was a Quaker university, although Quaker beliefs were not taught in this or any other class. I imagine some students may have even been atheists or agnostics at this time in their young lives. Religious affiliation wasn’t and still isn’t a prerequisite to attend college there.

On the day our papers were turned in, the professor opened up a class discussion on the topic and soon I found myself sharing my own angst about my father’s death with this small classroom of much younger students. I have never regretted this as my admission became the turning point in our discussion. I had made the discussion real and others suddenly seemed to grasp the significance of the topic.

I’ll never forget what the professor said to me.

He began with, “do you believe your father was sane when he took his life?” I answered truthfully that ‘no, he chose to drink himself to death on Christmas Eve because he was feeling sorry for himself and he knew he was in very bad health. In fact, we learned later that his doctor had warned him that one more drinking binge would kill him — that’s why we believe he deliberately killed himself.’ The professor replied, “Ah ha, so he wasn’t thinking clearly. So would you agree he was ‘sick in the head’ on that evening? I answered, yes. which made his reply memorable as he now turned his attention back to the entire class and said…

“If someone is sick, as her father clearly was, do you believe God would turn His face away from them and sentence them to hell? Is that the God you believe in?” Most heads nodded back and forth, including my own because I ‘d never thought of it this way, and now I had my answer. I’m sure I smiled because I was finally relieved of the awful dilemma I’d been carrying around for all those years. Just because my father had succumbed to a bad time in his life, a time of overwhelming sadness and loneliness, that caused him to give up on life and any future he may have had didn’t mean that God would automatically send him to hell.

I recall this whenever I hear of someone killing themselves.

When we’re all left to shake our heads as we wonder Why, I no longer see a tortured soul going to hell due to their last horrible decision here on earth. Instead I picture them crying pitifully before a loving Father who understands and has always known them better than anyone else. I see Him comforting them in His loving arms and welcoming them to His realm of total love and eternal peace.

So what about you? What do you believe, and why?

Thank you for reading and thoughtful writing everyone.