Explore the view that suicide is a violation of religious teaching. Justify your answer.

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Explore the view that suicide is a violation of religious teaching. Justify your answer. [15]

Nearly all religions across the world would believe that suicide is a sin against God and that it definitely violates religious teaching. In examining this view, a good place to start is the Christian view on the sanctity of life.

Christians believe that all are made in the image of God – imago dei – and that there is an inherent sanctity to human life. Killing is prohibited as part of the Decalogue, where it states, “do not kill.” This extends to killing yourself. Elsewhere in the Old Testament there are other verses that can be used to prove that suicide violates religious teaching, such as in Ecclesiastes 7:17 where it states, “be not foolish, why should you die before your time?” Further evidence can be found in the New Testament, where Jesus declares that we are, “worth much more than sparrows.” To a Christian, life is a precious gift and cannot be thrown away, especially by suicide.
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Church fathers have generally been against suicide and they believe that it is a violation of religious teaching. Augustine was one of the first to speak out against it in his book City of God. He wrote that, “to kill oneself is a homicide, and he is much guiltier of his own death.”

Aquinas, another church father, put forward three arguments on why he believes that suicide is contrary to religious teaching. Firstly, he said it went against natural law. Natural law would state that we should let life end the natural way that God intended ...

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