comes to the day-to-day conflict. Because of this, God can always outflank the
opposition such that the victory in the end is the one thing guaranteed. In the
end, the forces of evil will be overthrown and destroyed. God will be victorious.
His followers will enter into God's eternal rest.
But Boyd's satanic solution is simply implausible. Such an answer doesn't
resolve anything, for several reasons-even if we grant the inspiration of the Bible
and existence of evil angelic beings, which I dispute. It doesn't matter whether
the pain and sufferings of animals are due to Adam and Eve, or to Satan and his
hosts. It's the same problem moved back in time. A. Richard Kingston states this
problem as well as anyone: "[If] God entrusted to fallible angelic beings such
absolute control over creation that it was within their power to `brutalize' the
animal kingdom for all time, then he cannot be exonerated from all culpability
for what allegedly happened. Must we not go further and say that such action
would indicate either incompetence or the fact that the sufferings of the lower
creatures are unimportant in the eyes of the Creator?"41 Wennberg agrees that to
have a genuine theodicy utilizing a satanic angelic rebellion, it must answer an
important question: "Why did God allow Satan to do it? ... Indeed, granting that
there was an angelic fall, why did God not immediately nullify the consequences
of that fall or restrain the activity of these rebellious forces so there would be no
physical evil and no animal pain? It is that question that needs to be asked and
then answered in order to have a genuine theodicy."42
Let me forcefully illustrate this question with an analogy. What would we say
if a father did not stop a pack of wolves from running through the open doors of
his house when he had the means to stop them, knowing frill well that his
children and pets inside would be mauled and even killed by them? What could
possibly justify this inaction when it's considered his parental responsibility to
protect his children and pets by stopping the wolves dead in their tracks,
immediately? What could possibly justify a loving father to allow these wolves
to attack his children and his pets? Would anything justify his initial inaction?
Then let's say he picks up a shotgun and runs upstairs and downstairs killing
them one by one. When the smoke clears he finds that his cat and dog are dead
along with four out of six children, one of whom will be crippled for life. Is there
any reason for praising the father for rescuing these two children when he could
have stopped the wolves initially? In the end, I don't think there is a reasonable
answer to this question, even granting the existence of Satan and his minions,
unless Boyd does not believe in an omnipotent God, which actually concedes the
whole argument.
I want you to imagine an actual cosmic war for a second. If we are in one,
then I think a good God, as commander-in-chief with unlimited resources, would
(1) provide more evidence that we are in such a war; (2) give his combat troops
better communication about his war strategy; and (3) provide them with better
armor, better weapons, and better medical treatment when harmed than he has
done. There is simply too much carnage. Too many innocents suffer through
natural disasters, predation, and from the evil choices of "the enemy" for me to
consider our leader in this supposed cosmic war an all-good, all-knowing,
allpowerful God. In addition, there is every reason to think the whole notion of
Satan, or the devil, is reflective of an ancient superstitious and barbaric people
who were looking for an answer to why undeserved suffering takes place on a
massive scale.43
OPTION THREE
A third option is to say that animals have no souls, cannot think, and therefore
feel little or no pain. Rene Descartes, known as the father of modern philosophy,
had argued that all material bodies are automata, machines. The difference
between human beings and the lower animals is that animals cannot reason or
think because they have no souls. Only human beings have souls. Animals are
like clocks with springs that cause them to move and make noise. One reason
Descartes gives for believing animals cannot think is that "if they thought as we
do, they would have an immortal soul like us. This is unlikely, because there is
no reason to believe it of some animals without believing it of all, and many of
them, such as oysters and sponges are too imperfect for this to be credible.... [It]
is more probable that worms and flies and caterpillars move mechanistically than
that they all have immortal souls."44
Descartes was understood by his followers, most notably Malebranche, to say
that animals did not feel pain precisely because they couldn't think they were just
machines. In a later letter to the marquess of Newcastle, Descartes clarified
himself by saying that animals have life, since he regards life "as consisting
simply in the heat of the heart." He also said he didn't deny that animals have
"sensation, in so far as it depends on a bodily organ."45 But his followers either
didn't get that message or they probably thought pain is something more than a
sensation. To them it requires thought and intelligence to experience pain, and
Descartes denied they could think. So it seemed natural for people like
Malebranche to take what Descartes argued to an extreme and claim that animals
"eat without pleasure and cry without pain."46 Even Andrew Linzey, the
preeminent theologian on the status of animals, argues that from what Descartes
wrote, the clear logic of it "creates the conclusion that animals are little more
than machines."47 Descartes' followers used this as an excuse to torture, kill, and
experiment on live animals.48 As a result, Peter Singer tells us, experimenters
"administered beatings to dogs with perfect indifference, and made fun of those
who pitied the creatures as if they felt pain. They said the animals were clocks;
that the cries they emitted when struck were only the noise of a little spring that
had been touched, but that the whole body was without feeling. They nailed poor
animals up on boards by their four paws to vivisect them and see the circulation
of the blood, which was a great subject of conversation."49
Voltaire responded to these socalled experiments by calling them "bizarre." In
his own words: "Barbarians seize this dog... they nail him to a table and dissect
him alive to show you the mesenteric veins. You discover in him all the same
organs that you possess. Answer me mechanist, has nature arranged all the
springs of feeling in this animal in order that he should not feel? Does he have
nerves to be impassive? Do not assume that nature presents this impertinent
contradiction."'0
There can be little doubt any longer that animals feel pain depending on their
central nervous systems. We have evidence of it in their increased heart beats,
breathing rhythms, and in the activity in the pain centers in their brains when
animals are subjected to pain stimuli. According to bestselling authors Temple
Grandin and Catherine Johnson, "We know animals feel pain thanks to
behavi
oral observation and to some excellent research on animals' use of
painkillers." With regard to behavior, "dogs, cats, rats, and horses all limp after
they've hurt their legs, and they'll avoid putting weight on the injured limb.
That's called pain guarding. They limit their use of the injured body part to guard
it from further injury"51
Andrew Linzey summaries the evidence in these words: There is ample
evidence in peer-reviewed scientific journals that mammals experience not
just pain, but also suffering, to a greater or lesser degree than we do
ourselves. The scientific reason is straightforward. Animals and humans
show a common ancestor, display similar behavior, and have physiological
similarities. Because of these triple conditions, these shared characteristics,
it is perfectly logical to believe that animals experience many of the same
emotions as humans.... In fact, the onus should properly be on those people
who try to deny that animals have such emotions. They must explain how,
in one species, nerves act in one way and how they act completely
differently in another.52
An argument has been made that animals cannot anticipate the future or
remember the past and so their pain is only momentary. For instance, it's claimed
they don't worry about the future, nor do they have guilt and the fear of death.53
This says nothing about their present pain, and we know they experience it. But
even if it's the case they have no memory of the past and cannot anticipate the
future, such a state of affairs may actually increase their present pain, for in
Wennberg's words, "precisely because animals lack vivid links to the future (or
to the past) physical pain may actually be worse, since there are no future
oriented distractions to mitigate these powerful sensations ... and it also denies
animals the pleasure of happy memories and happy anticipations."54 Human
suffering, by contrast, writes Andrew Linzey, "can be softened by an intellectual
comprehension of the circumstances" of the suffering itself. For instance, a visit
to the dentist's chair can be painful, but human beings know why such suffering
is needed. This is not the case with animal suffering, for they "experience the
raw terror of not knowing."" So even if the argument can be made that animals
do not suffer as much as humans, Wennberg argues: "The fact remains that
animals suffer physical pain and suffer from negative emotions, and at times
they suffer considerably" So "whether animals suffer more or less than humans
is not quite to the point."56 But, in fact, animals can remember, show evidence
of guilt, joy, fear, and curiosity, and there is evidence they think and draw
conclusions as well (see note).'?
It's amazing to us that anyone ever thought otherwise about animals. But with
the rise of evolutionary science we now know we, too, are animals (highly
evolved ones, who feel pain, sometimes intense pain), and since we're related to
the animal kingdom, animals must share in the pain and suffering that we
experience because they are our predecessors. There's a reason why warm-
blooded animals like to stay warm: being cold hurts them. Even the desire to eat
for sentient creatures must motivate them to hunt and kill, otherwise-without
hunger pains-they would die. Just observe a small-bodied spider that has
obviously not eaten in a while, and he will attack a much larger bee or cricket
with an intensity that is both amazing and ugly to behold. The literature on the
complexities of this argument is growing exponentially, but I see no reason to
pursue such an obviously wrongheaded kind of argument any further. As
Christian philosopher Robert Wennberg said: "To seek to exonerate God by
appealing to the possibility of a state of affairs that I myself cannot help but
believe not to be the case, is not to argue with frill integrity," therefore,
"consistency at least requires that we seek a response that acknowledges the
reality of animal pain."58
OPTION FOUR
According to this view, God doesn't care about animals. God is indifferent to
their pain. During a discussion/debate I had with David Wood on the Infidel Guy
online radio show, Wood suggested that God just may not care that much about
animals. This echoes what Peter Geach has argued:
The Creator's mind, as manifested in the living world, seems to be
characterized by mere indifference to the pain that the elaborate
interlocking teleologies of life involve.... Sympathy with the pains of
animals whose nature we share is ... a virtue in men.... But it is not a virtue
that can reasonably be ascribed to the Divine Nature. God is not an animal
as men are, and if he does not change his designs to avoid pain and
suffering to human beings, he is not violating any natural sympathies as Dr.
Moreau did. Only anthropomorphic imagination allows us to accuse God of
cruelty in this regard."59
Peter van Inwagen rightly argues against Geach by saying it "proves too
much," for a parallel argument can be made that given these same conditions
God is "under no obligation to eliminate or minimize the physical suffering of
human beings" either.60 Van Inwagen reverses Geach's argument by asking why
someone could not accept the following argument: "God is not an animal as men
are, and if he does not change his designs to avoid pain and suffering to human
beings, he is not violating any natural sympathies as Hitler did. Only
anthropomorphic imaginations allow us to accuse God of cruelty in this
regard."61
So, if Geach is correct, God's goodness is seen as something different than our
goodness. I am not indifferent to the pain of the law of predation in the world.
Nor am I indifferent to any pains of my dog or cat. I'll do everything I can
reasonably do not to hit a small animal while driving down the road. I'm against
needless and unreasonable animal experimentation, and almost all of it is
needless anyway-maybe all of it. And I'm totally against trapping animals,
especially just for their fairs, or in hunting them for their trophy heads, or killing
elephants for their ivory tusks. To say God is indifferent to these kinds of things
means I have no way to assess whether or not God is good. The only standard I
have for knowing whether God is good is based on my standards of goodness. If
God has an entirely different standard of goodness, then why should I believe
him to be good at all?
This view, that a perfectly good God is indifferent to the pain of most of his
creatures, is simply repugnant to thinking people. How can a perfectly good God
not care when one of his creatures is suffering? In order to answer the problem
of animal suffering by saying God doesn't care that much about it, or that he's
indifferent to it, means God isn't perfectly good. This answer simply denies the
omnibenevolence of God, and as such, isn't an answer at all. It concedes the
argument. It denies God is the kind of God demanded by Christian theology.
Most Christians have disagreed with Geach. Most Christians consider God as
a being who cares for all of his c
reatures by virtue of the fact that he created
them. While no Christian has to go as far as Saint Francis of Assisi, he
characterizes the complete opposite viewpoint. He called all creatures, no matter
how large or small, even crickets, by the endearing terms of "brother" and
"sister," because they all had the same creator. Robert Wennberg states it this
way: "To conclude that there are evils that we, but not God, recognize and abhor
is to attribute to God an unacceptable moral ignorance. Or to claim that God
knows that physical suffering is an evil but that he is still indifferent to it would
be to attribute to God a moral fault-indifference to known evil."62
OPTION FIVE
One reason why it's believed God may be indifferent to the sufferings of animals
is because God is much more interested in human soul making. John Hick makes
this argument in these words:
The justification of animal pain is identical with the justification of animal
existence. And from the point of view of the divine purpose of soul making,
animal life is linked with human life as the latter's natural origin and setting,
and origin and setting that contribute to the "epistemic distance" by which
man is enabled to exist as a free and responsible creature in the presence of
his infinite Creator. If, then, the animal kingdom plays this part in this
indirect way in the forming of man as a child of God in this "eighth day of
creation," the process must be justified by its success.63
What we find is that Hick's God is using animals as a means to an end. They
only have instrumental value and no intrinsic value. Their intense suffering
doesn't matter to God so long as they have been used by him to produce human
beings who can be made into his children. Is it even reasonable to believe the
same ends can't be achieved without such a vast scale of animal suffering
anyway? I think not.
Now it's one thing to use inanimate objects as a means to an end. I can use a
hammer to help nail down a roof, for instance. The hammer feels no pain, so
there's no problem using it as a means to an end. But when it comes to using
sentient creatures as means to an end, disregarding their inaudible cries for help,
that's another matter. If a theist can sit by and watch as a fawn is slowly burned
to death in a forest fire or as a cat kills a mouse or as killer whales drown a
humpback whale calf, and not question whether her God is perfectly good and
caring to all of his creatures, then I'm baffled. Besides, if God is justified in
abusing animals for instrumental ends, he could also be justified in abusing
humans for the same reasons. After all, humans could be considered a different
species than God.
In the end, Hick's God is a speciesist who falls under all of the same criticisms
that human beings fall under when they treat animals with utter disregard and
disrespect. Peter Singer's book Animal Liberation, is the Bible for this type of
criticism. Singer argues that discrimination against animals simply because they
belong to a different species is an injustice, in the same manner that it's an
injustice to discriminate against other people based upon the color of their skin.
According to Singer, the interests of all sentient beings are worthy of equal
consideration and respect depending on their capacities for thought.64
OPTION SIX
This Christian option is that God may resurrect all sentient animals to a new life,
either on a new earth, or in heaven itself, thus rewarding them for their service to
God and to man. Early church fathers Irenaeus, John of the Cross, and
Athanasius all believed this, as do some modern Christian thinkers like C. S.
Why Faith Fails The Christian Delusion Page 33
