Abstract
To end one’s life (suicide) creates a lot of questions concerning the identity and eventual emotional and spiritual condition of the person. Within a more religious context, the intriguing question surfaces: When a committed believer commits suicide, will such a person still go to heaven? The ethical dilemma evolves around questions regarding right (good/liberation) and wrong (evil/damnation), heaven or hell. Instead of a moral approach, the article opts for an aesthetic approach within the framework of a tragic hermeneutics of self-termination. Instead of applying the notions of “suicide” or “self-killing,” the concept of self-termination is proposed. A theology of dereliction is designed to explain the basic assumption: In a Christian spiritual assessment of “suicide,” the question is not about the how of death and dying but on the being quality of the sufferer. In his forsakenness, the suffocating Christ reframed the ugliness of death into the beauty of dying and termination: Resurrection hope! Several portraits are described from the viewpoint of literature, philosophical and poetic reflections regarding the complexity of the phenomenon of self-termination and its connection to the existential disposition of dreadful anguish; i.e., the ontic and tragic disposition of apathetic unhope (inespoir).
Highlights
A dream became true – HospiVisionAndré De La Porte is dead
Within a more religious context, the intriguing question surfaces: When a committed believer commits suicide, will such a person still go to heaven? The ethical dilemma evolves around questions regarding right and wrong, heaven or hell
Instead of a moral approach, the article opts for an aesthetic approach within the framework of a tragic hermeneutics of self-termination
Summary
André De La Porte (my friend, doctoral student and co-researcher in the struggle to establish pastoral care as “soul care”) is dead. In a nutshell: “Hospivision is a compassionate friend who can comfort and counsel you, your family and caregivers as you undertake your journey through illness” (HospiVision Online 2020) André dedicated his life, all of his spiritual energy, in pursuing and achieving the following pastoral, ministerial, and life goal: “At HospiVision we assist people to regain as much of their humanity and dignity and integrity as possible, despite their health struggles. HospiVision does this by providing spiritual, emotional, social, and physical care to patients in hospital, while at the same time empowering people through skills development His life and professional career displayed the paracletic dimension of cura animarum: The comfort and support of suffering. That will be the experience which today you call death” (Marcel 1965:153)
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