On Martyrdom, Suicide, and Christian Bioethics

Abstract

Christ has fashioned a remedy for the human condition out of mortality, making death the paradoxical means of salvation. Thus, the early Church saw martyrdom as the best kind of death, epitomized in the story of St. Ignatius of Antioch. He saw his death in Christ to be a birth into eternal life. Yet martyrdom and suicide can be conflated under crafty definitions and novel terminology, leading inevitably to calls to soften prohibitions against physician-assisted suicide. Whereas martyrdom locates death within the Christian lived experience of the Paschal mystery, suicide transfers the sovereignty of God over life and death to the individual, necessarily denying the goodness of creation in the process. I point to a liturgical foundation for bioethics as a better starting point for understanding martyrdom and suicide. Entering Christ’s sacrifice, Christians receive divine life and new vision to locate suffering, death, and health care within the Christian salvation narrative. Summary: Confusing martyrdom and suicide locates ethics outside the Church by bending language around the 5th commandment. St. Ignatius of Antioch's martyrdom clarifies the role of the Christian bioethicist to situate health care in the Church's life-giving liturgical experience.