I recently watched the movie Seven Pounds directed by Gabriele Muccino ( the pursuit of happiness) that stars Actor Will Smith (Tim Thomas) who, at the beginning of the film, is involved in a terrible accident that kills his wife and six other people from the other vehicle that he hit. Blaming himself for the death of these seven people, he quits his job and devotes his life to finding seven other good people who are in need due to differing circumstances, and changing their life to overcome their life altering problem.
Towards the end of the movie, he has already helped five people by donating his lung to his brother, a bone marrow transplant to a young child, his house to family, and part of his liver to an elderly woman. As tim pretends to be an IRS collector in his pursuit to find the last two, he comes across Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson) who has a rare heart disease. As they learn more about each other, Tim learns that Emily will soon die if she does not have a heart transplant. Due to the type she is, and the rarity of it all, she has a 13 percent chance of receiving a heart. This is where the climax of the movie begins, Tim decides that he is going to kill himself so that she can have his heart in order for her to continue living. In the end, she lives with his heart and he completes his goal of saving seven people.
Now, was his actions in killing himself appropriate in his circumstance? Or in other words, according to the bible, would he be condemned for committing suicide in order to save Emily? One of the ten commandments states that ye shall not kill. Along with that, the bible states that there is no greater gift than that of laying down your life for a friend. So, will God condemn him for taking his life? I don't think God would condemn him for his actions because it is the principle in which he took his own life. I think commandments protect principles, not the other way around. I thought this movie had a great message and principle that we can apply to our own life.
Tim did, through what we call the repentance process, what few of us are willing to do when we cause injury to others. We are willing to feel sorrow, to apologize, and to promise we'll never do it again. We move on. Few actually choose to do restitution. He caused seven lives to be taken, and he directly caused seven lives to be given back.
ReplyDeleteAlso, if Tim is condemned for his actions, Christ would seemingly also be. Christ had the power to prevent his life from being taken (sort of) but he laid it down willingly (if he couldn't prevent it from happening it seemingly wouldn't be willingly also . . .). So Tim did something incredibly similar to what Christ did.
ReplyDeleteAlso, although the danger was more pending, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies also committed suicide (not completely). They did not prevent their lives from being taken.
The comparison of the people of Ammon and Moroni's people are so interesting. Ammon's people laid down their lives to keep the stains from their previous sins from coming on their heads, while Captain Moroni put to death anyone who would not fight for the country. Talk about two completely different approaches. It only furthers the point that no mentality is always right (well, very few).