Abstract

LOUW, Daniël. Towards the aesthetics of self-termination (suicide). The spiritual interlude between death (shadow) and life (light). STJ [online]. 2020, vol.6, n.2, pp.313-342. ISSN 2413-9467.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17570/stj.2020.v6n2.a14.

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)¹.

Keywords : Self-termination; suicide; a theology of forsakenness; Soly Sombra; pastoral hermeneutics of apathetic self-termination; unhope (inespoir).

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