Caroline asked:

I am going R.E. course work at school and I can't find much information on my third piece. The
question is:

"For a Christian to die for his/ her beliefs does not make sense. It is better to live for them."

Do you agree? Give reasons for your answer, showing that you have looked at both points of view.

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I don't think there is any particular 'information' that can help you. It is your own reasoning that is
called for. There are various ways in which things "make sense" or do not. The everyday way in
which things "make sense" accords with common sense. The philosophical way in which things
"make sense" is logical. The Christian way in which things "make sense" is 'theological' — i.e. it
presupposes God, an absolute value. Your question does not distinguish between these three, but
you need to. Therefore, from a common sense point of view:

It does not make sense to die for your beliefs because then you are no longer around to be active on
their behalf. If you die for your beliefs, you lessen them, because they have one less supporter,
therefore, it does not make sense to die for them and in fact you should try not to die for them, but to
live for them and make them live for you.

On the other hand, it makes sense to die for your beliefs sometimes, or people may not believe that
this belief is serious or to be taken seriously. For instance, you may die for what you believe to show
how seriously you hold it, and also how worthwhile such a belief must be if you are willing to die for it.
Or you might die for someone else — i.e. in trying to save their life — because you believe that you
can't live without them. From a logical point of view:

Beliefs which necessitate your dying on their behalf are self-contradictory, because while you believe
x or y in order to live for it, to believe it "unto death" eradicates the very source of belief, which is
oneself. The belief cannot live without you. Therefore the true believer will live for what they believe
and live up to it.

On the other hand, it is not necessarily self-contradictory. If it is a matter of life and death, you may
need to choose death in order to show how your belief works; for instance, if I believe in the 'right to
die', in euthanasia, I do not die for my belief as such, but for the human right which it upholds, this
makes my death right according to what I believe. Or I could die for a good cause, like the progress of
mankind, because I would know, then, that my death, helped that progress, like the doctor who
caught the virus his research helped to find a cure for. From a theological point of view: The question
points to the central paradox of Christianity, that: "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,
it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." (Jn. 12: 24). This is essentially your answer.

For a Christian to die and for a non-Christian to die are not the same thing. In general terms it is the
same, but existentially (which is what counts from the Christian point of view) it is not. For a Christian
to die and for a non-Christian to die are not the same thing because the Christian is assured of life
after death. You need to make this distinction. For the Christian, therefore, "death" does not mean
what it means ordinarily, either in common sense or logic. Death means "death to sin", that is, death
to all those things in this life which lead the soul to perdition. In this way, for the Christian, to die, is a
good thing, it brings virtue and thereby, the everlasting life of the soul. What, therefore, is ordinarily
called 'death', for the Christian, is a departure from the bodily state and an entry into the promised life
to come. For the Christian, to live for your beliefs, is to die. This is the paradox of which the Cross is
the symbol. But "to die" in the foregoing proposition does not refer to an 'event' as a terminus of what
is called "life". Life, in the Christian idea is only life if it is loving, that is, self-sacrificing and up-building
in virtue; otherwise it is merely a form of death which though it looks like life, is not and leads to
everlasting death at the end of it. To say, therefore, that for the Christian to live for her beliefs is to
die, means that it is to die to sin and death, but dying to these means living for that to which — or to
Whom — your beliefs point, that is, God. If you copy some of this for your essay be sure to cite your
source or you may be plagiarising, which they are strict on in schools over here.

Matthew Del Nevo

www.sicetnon.com

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