The suicidal religion of autonomy

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In John Christopher’s 1967 science fiction teen classic The tripodsheroes Will and Fritz have just destroyed the ‘Masters’, an alien race that has taken over Earth, when they encounter some of their hapless slaves. These are people controlled by electronic ‘caps’ embedded in their brains.

One of them rises from the fallen body of his alien overlord and declares to his fellow slaves: “The Masters are no more. Therefore, our lives no longer have a purpose. Brothers, let us go to the place of happy liberation.” This, of course, refers to a euthanasia center that the Masters had carefully arranged.

Although I must have read this at least thirty-five years ago, it came to mind when I first heard advocates of assisted suicide complain that some people are against assisted suicide for ‘religious reasons’. This takes it exactly in the opposite direction, as if it were to say that some people do not believe in kosher food for religious reasons, or in a pilgrimage to Mecca; for these are of course things that are believed in by a particular religion, for reasons specific to that religion, which are obviously not shared by all others.

The requirement to be given permission to commit suicide, and to be given help to do so, is also a special belief of a particular religion. The religion in question is humanism, and the particular belief concerns ‘autonomy’.

The similarity with the Tripods The scene is this: for the humanist, autonomy is a master to be served. In the ability to make choices that maximize pleasure lies the entire purpose of human life. And when it turns out that that master, the all-powerful lord of autonomous choice, is no longer there, life is considered to have no purpose anymore. Suicide is the only thing that can happen.

Now it may seem strange to speak of being addicted to autonomy; Isn’t autonomy about freedom, the opposite of slavery? Yet it is part of the genius of Christianity to realize that the opposite is actually the case. Sin – autonomy from God – thinks it gains freedom, but in fact finds slavery. The attempt to escape the rule of God brings no more freedom than an airplane escaping from its wings or a fish escaping from the water. Those who have made autonomy their core ethical principle fail to notice that it liberates them into a brave new world of happiness and fulfillment. On the contrary, they find that it locks them into a way of thinking that is increasingly dehumanizing and destructive.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the case of assisted suicide. The rhythm of the argument from those campaigning for it is autonomy, autonomy, autonomy. It is the quasi-religious belief in autonomy that drives the campaign for it, and it is not difficult to see why.

The admiration for our personal autonomy, the belief that our individual choices are the meaning and purpose of our lives, encounters an impossible problem with the approach of death. The illusion (because that is what it is) of autonomy can be maintained for a while by medical treatment that relieves symptoms and postpones the end of life. But eventually the time will come when reality breaks through. Death is the ultimate denial of autonomy; it is something that comes bee us, and which our will is completely unable to withstand. The approach of death is therefore a horrible thing for humanism, not only because of its utter hopelessness (a humanist funeral is one of the most somber occasions one can experience), but because it is an inescapable rebuke to the entire humanist project.

Once death has come so close that its inevitability can no longer be ignored, the master who has served the humanist all his life suddenly appears to have disappeared. Hence the complaint from advocates of assisted suicide that the dying currently “don’t have any good choices.” This is less a statement of reality (it is, in fact, completely untrue) than a lament for a departed deity. The human being without further ability to choose has no further value or purpose in humanistic religion. The choices are no more. That is why our lives no longer have a purpose.

Except one. There remains one possible choice, one way to refuse to bow to the irresistible power of death. It is to make a choice from the moment of death itself, an exercise of the will. As King Saul falls on his sword so that the Philistines would not overtake him, so it seeks to avoid the shame of defeat by death by being the cause of death; whereby to the last, even after it has ceased to have any plausibility, I have maintained the belief that I am the captain of my ship, that I am the captain of my soul. By pulling the trigger myself (or pressing the button on the ‘medical device’, to use the term in the Leadbeater Bill), I will maintain the belief in autonomy to the end. Let us go to the place of happy deliverance. Before death can stifle my ability to choose, I will ultimately cheat it by choosing it myself.

That is why assisted suicide is such an article of faith for humanists. It’s why Dignity in Dying has spent huge amounts of money on tube ads “If I can’t stay, let me choose how I go.” That’s why Humanists UK says UK law should provide for this ‘the choice to face the end of life with dignity and autonomy’. Note the total identification of those last two; dignity and autonomy are indistinguishable in humanistic religion.

And it explains the motivation behind those pushing for a change in the law. They are almost universally explicit or functional humanists. And it explains why, almost universally, those who are not against it. It’s not that they’re against it for ‘religious reasons’; it’s just that they don’t share the one particular religious reason driving it.

So the question is: why should the law of the United Kingdom be shaped by this one religious view? Particularly one that is so fundamentally self-centered and so fundamentally bleak? Which ones cannot see any value or meaning in humanity other than what we can generate through our own choices? And whose devotees are so enthralled by their master that they choose death over the prospect of living without him?

Fortunately, Britain was founded on a much better foundation, and still stands constitutionally. One that understands that human life is not an individualistic project of self-creation, but a precious gift from the God of infinite holiness and perfect goodness. Who showed us His image, and entered our world to save us from our self-destructive attempts at autonomy, and elevate us to unimaginable future glory. And therefore that human life is not an accident from which we must salvage some value by our own self-affirmation in the face of the brutal facts of reality, but it is a precious gift that we must receive from our conception and cherish for as long as it lasts. And so as we approach the end, we do not find our lives stripped of meaning, but rather that their true eternal meaning and purpose are properly brought into focus.

The issue of assisted suicide therefore leaves us with the question of whether we want to replace that foundation with another foundation, born of another religion, which demands suicide precisely because of its shriveled view of what human life really is. The issue is not whether Parliament should reject assisted suicide on religious grounds. Rather, the question is whether it should accept this when one and only one religion demands it, in the service of its own esoteric and destructive god of human autonomy.

Rev. Dr. Matthew Roberts is Minister of Trinity Church York and former Moderator of the Synod of the International Presbyterian Church.