Euthanasia: A Christian View

Abstract

Abstract I have called this paper ‘Euthanasia: A Christian View’. I almost decided to be provocative and call it ‘Euthanasia: The Christian View’, because, so far as I can see, it is the direct application of the only injunctions of Christ (discussed in the preceding paper) that bear immediately on the subject of euthanasia. But I have refrained, because these injunctions, if so applied, lead to a view of the matter which is so contrary to what is generally thought to be the Christian view, that I should be taken to be merely perverse if I advocated it as the Christian view. I will therefore call it a Christian view—thereby amicably leaving a place among Christian views, beside that which I say is immediately derivable from Christ’s words, for the very different views which are commonly maintained by the representatives of the Christian Church. I shall, however, be bold enough to go on, in the latter part of the paper, to try to explain why the Church has, typically, advocated a view so much at variance with what I take to be the implication of Christ’s own teaching. We shall see that it is readily explained by the exigencies of the human situation, and in particular the situation of any human institution which, like the Church, assumes the task of teaching people how they ought to behave.