Animal Pain and Suffering

Rascal writes, “Now, the reason I think this chapter is silly is, even if animals have pain, why would God pay attention to them, if he loves us more.”

This statement makes me uncomfortable because God created animals and why would God not care for something that he created? Part of our role as humans is to rule over the animals (Gen. 1:26). If we are to rule over them we should care for them for God rules over humans and he obviously cares for us. God may love us more (since humans were very good instead of simply good), but that does not mean that God would not care for all of creation—even stating that he loves us more is a recognition that he loves something less than us (but I don’t think we can judge how much God loves something). And if we love something, shouldn’t we care if the thing we love is in pain?

And what about God’s interferring with the serpent? Yes, the whole incident occurred because of the serpent’s deception toward Eve, but God tells the serpent in Genesis 3:14 that the serpent is cursed above all livestock and wild animals. God punishes the serpent for his actions just as he punishes Adam and Eve for theirs.

Rascal also writes later on, “My question is, does God change the rules and perform miracles, for the sake of animals? I sure hope not. If He does, He would be a little like the people that give their money to those commercials with Sarah McLachlan in them to save dogs or something, when there are PEOPLE dieing. Not such a good thing.”

I don’t know how to respond to the statement that we shouldn’t give money to animal charities while people are dying because it is hard to reconcile all the different types of suffering that exist. By stating that animal charities are not worth while, is that also stating that donating money to research for cancer is not worthwhile when that money could potentially the lives of children who are starving to death or those who suffer from HIV in Africa?? And it seems that by asserting animal charities are not worth our time and effort one is also saying, maybe inadvertantly, that animals are not worth our time and effort. Does this mean animals have no purpose? Who are we to judge why God created animals and whether we shouldn’t just let them all die in pursuit of the survival of humans?

Again, part of our role as humans is to rule over animals and this role is God-given. Lewis writes in PoP, “Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beasts, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise, or a sacriligeous abuse, or an authority by Divine right” (142). Therefore, we should care about animal suffering just as we should also care about human suffering for God calls us to love our neighbor. I think it is easy to get caught up in the idea that God loves only humans because we focus so much on God loving all humans rather than a select few. What about God loving all creation? After all, if God did not love the rest of creation, where would we be? The world we live in would cease to exist as we know it.