Bonhoeffer - "The Right to Bodily Life" and "Suicide"

Review Questions

1. Why does the body have a right to have its life preserved? (154-156)

2. Why do the rights of the body point towards enjoyment (rather than, say, to a requirement of lifelong hard labor, as per Genesis 3)? (156-157)

4. B earlier spoke of ethics having to take the shape of concrete commands by God to us. Do you see claims about what God commands in his discussion here, or is he making a different kind of argument?

5. The issue of "euthanasia" prompts B to voice his general guideline. When is it permissible to destroy human life? And when is it not permissible? (159)

6. For B, the question of euthanasia (="good death") is "Is it permissible to destroy painlessly an innocent life which is no longer worth living?" Two kinds of "motive" are possible: concern for the sick, and concern for the healthy.

Does the welfare of the terminally sick ever justify hastening their death? (159- 160)

How strong does the argument in favor of euthanasia have to be? (see 159)

7. Does the welfare of the community ever justify putting diseased people to death? (161-164)

What argument has been made that such euthanasia is permissible?

Why is such an argument in error?

What is the true value of an individual with no apparent social value? How do we know?

As early as 1933, the Nazis were putting mental defectives in camps, and eventually liquidating them. What is wrong with the thinking behind such a policy, according to B?

Are there any circumstances in which the good of a whole community warrants killing diseased members?

8. According to B, human beings must retain freedom in the sense of having the power to terminate their existence. Why? (164-165)

9. Suicide even can express courage and nobility, according to the model established by ancient Greeks and Romans. In what way can asuicide be noble?

10. What does this nobility mean for how we humans evaluate suicide—when a man or woman kills him- or herself? (165-166)

Would you agree with B’s argument?

11. B sharply draws the distinction between the classical culture which glorifies the efforts of noble beings to justify their own existence, even through suicide; and Christian culture which denies that we can ever justify our existences, and indeed sees self-justification as "sin". Are the alternatives this stark, or is there a middle ground?

12. In what way does suicide deny God? (167)

13. What, in sum, is B’s position (his "general principle") regarding suicide? (168)

14. Is it inconsistent to say: "Man must not lay hands upon himself, even though he must sacrifice his life for others"? (168)

14. B finally takes up some exceptions to his general principle, arriving at a distinction between "direct self-destruction" and "surrendering of life into the hand of God". What is his distinction, and how is it supported by:

suicide in order to protect others

incurable disease

personal disappointments