Introduction

Christians should be passionately interested in how humans relate to, and treat, animals. Animals are as much a part of God’s creation as humans are and as Christians we should consistently point out that historically Christianity has failed to show due concern to how animals should be treated. Our mission should be – and some would say it was a revolutionary mission - to change Christian attitudes to animals.

As Christians we should experience frustration, pain and sadness at the suffering of the "weakest" of all – animals.

Some people will disagree with the whole idea of an animal theology in the same way that they disagree that there can be a "black" theology, a "feminist" theology or a "gay" theology.

• Theology, or more correctly here, moral theology, is the study of the relationship between religion and ethics. More basically it is literally the study of God (gk.Theos). Each religion has a theology, which is a combination if what it believes and teaches about God. When a minority group within a religion - such as gay people who are Christians - whose particular, or different, lifestyle clashes with the main theology of the religion, a version of the theology is developed which aims to try and include them - and persuade others to accept them in the main-stream. Some of these theological developments can lead to bitter controversy within a church or religion.

Christians should answer to anyone who would disagree with the idea of an animal theology is that the need for moral justice, which should be given to animals, actually comes from the "central" theme of Christian theology. It is not a fringe or optional extra. It is time for a theological change of heart leading to ethical re-evaluation.

For years Christians have largely ignored the possibility of applying Christian teaching and theology to the treatment of animals.

Christians should also have something to say to those (non-Christians) who are already involved in the animal rights movement. A theology, or religious basis, for animal rights will give more reason to the movement that might be in danger of being moralistic just for the sake of being moralistic – and give the movement more credibility to the many millions who ignore the issue because of ("weak") Christian doctrine.

Christians should  hold that human domination over animals needs to take as its model the Christ  lordship manifest in service

You need to know some Christian theology or doctrine (belief and teaching) to understand this. Here are some basic points:

• Christ (Jesus) is God Incarnate – that means God became human for a period in history in the form of Jesus. Hence the phrase: Jesus = God’s ‘son’

• One of the reasons for this was for God to reveal His Will (or way) to people, so that they could follow God’s will properly – in the same way that Islam teaches that Allah revealed His Will to people through the prophet Muhammed. For Christianity the fundamental "truth" of the Incarnation is that, through it, God offers redemption and reconciliation for humanity and Creation. The chance to restore the right relationship between God and that which he has created. This includes the Christian certainty of eternal life.

• What Jesus said, and how he acted and lived, is therefore of the utmost important to Christians. That Jesus "died for us" is the ultimate expression of His (God’s) love, sacrifice or service to "us" – service as in being a servant – or as Christians would say a suffering servant.

If God was prepared to do this for "us" then people should maybe follow this example in their attitudes to other creatures and God’s creation generally. From this you can now see that the Incarnation is God acting for the whole of His creation and not just humans. For too long Christians have understood God’s actions as being for the benefit of just humans rather than the whole of creation.

For Christians caring for animals is part of caring for the environment – which is part of caring for all of God’s creation – including people, of course – and not just one section of it. And Christians should care for God’s creation as Jesus cared for them – as servants who are prepared to suffer for it.

The Christian church, for example, has been quite slow to address concern for the environment, and in turn, animal rights – the church has lagged behind secular movements in these growing concerns. Because of its theology, the church should, or could, have been leading these concerns.

Reverence, Responsibility and Rights

Consider the following three questions:

1. Should people show respect or reverence to animals?
2. Do people have responsibility towards animals?
3. Do animals have rights?

For Christians the answer to all three questions will be "Yes" and that there are good theological reasons for this being so.

The idea that all creation and all life forms, including animals, should be revered, or respected, may seem obvious but it is not something that has been followed by Christians in History – even though there is biblical reason to do so.

We will now look at this issue through the writing of two very different but distinguished theologians. Firstly Albert Schweitzer, and then Karl Barth.

Albert Schweitzer, 1875-1965, is known as a distinguished Christian theologian and musician but also as a man who lived what he believed. As a relatively young man he decided that his future lay in service to others. He gained additional qualifications as a doctor, left Germany, and by 1913 had opened a hospital in Africa where he remained.

Schweitzer is particularly famous for his insistence on reverence for life – indeed he won the Nobel Peace Prize for it in 1954 - and deals with the concept in his book Civilisation and Ethics. Philosophy, he says, has become bogged down with secondary issues and has lost touch with the elemental questions regarding life and the world which are man’s duty to solve. Man must reaffirm the ethical thought that puts life first – ethics therefore, says Schweitzer, is the compulsion to show to all the reverence for the will to live,

It is good to maintain and encourage life; it is bad to destroy life

For Schweitzer this principle of reverence for all life is, firstly, the comprehensive overall moral principle. Feelings such as ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ come within it, and not along side of it. Secondly this principle is universal – it applies to all life forms and an ethical person would not distinguish between different life forms – human, animal or vegetable.

The principle of reverence-for-all-life in action may sound mad but notice how it is followed up with the note that anyone living like this would expect to be laughed at – until such time as this truth is generally recognised.

The third thing about Schweitzer’s reverence principle is that it is absolutist – it is final and has no opt-outs. Needless-to-say not many people have lived like this, and neither did Schweitzer himself. There is a small Hindu religious group in India, The Jains, whose aim to achieve this kind of position.

The important thing to understand about Schweitzer’s ethical principle of reverence for all life is that it is a principle and not an imposed Law - it is an ideal to which people should aspire.

• Ethics and morals are often things that are to do with personal or religious principles rather than Laws in a legal sense.

The reverence for life principle should not be written off as impossible or ridiculous but should foster the ideas that make us ask questions such as “Was it necessary to injure that life – or was it avoidable?”

• A moral or ethical act is not something we do to obey someone’s law but something we do in response to the principles that we hold. Reverence for Life as discussed here by Schweitzer is not a new law but more like a religious experience.

Life in all its forms is something that Schweitzer experiences as given by God and it is therefore sacred and holy.

We shall now turns to Karl Barth, who is the only theologian to have critically challenged what Schweitzer has said.

Karl Barth (1886-1968) is considered by many to be the greatest Christian theologian of the twentieth century. He was a Swiss protestant.

Barth is sympathetic to Schweitzer’s general principle but has three basic objections: Firstly, as you might expect, Barth has problems with animal and vegetable life being given equal status. An animal might resemble a human in the sense of being a unique and individual creature, but plants are not like this.

Secondly Barth is bothered by the universal nature of Schweitzer’s idea of reverence for life. Animals can be a secondary responsibility to humans but they can not be equal to humans. The reason for Barth saying this is theological and tied up to his third objection.

Which is grounded in the doctrine that the Incarnation happened in the form of God becoming man. Humans are therefore placed in a central and elevated position in Creation. Man is a higher and distinct being with the right to "Lordship and control" over other creatures says Barth.

There are serious short-comings with Barth’s criticism of Schweitzer:

According to Christology Jesus, or God Incarnate, is also the Logos – the creative life-force of God. Christology is the branch of theology that is totally concerned with just who the Christ, or Jesus, was. The word "Logos" is the Greek word for "word". The beginning of the Gospel of John in the Bible begins with the famous words:

In the beginning was the Word (Logos) …the Word was with God…by Him (the Word) all things were made…, and finally, .... the Word became flesh (Jesus and the Incarnation)

The Logos was there at the beginning of everything and the Logos was the agent (if you like) of the creation of everything – the Word of God you could say. Since Jesus was the word made flesh He, through the Incarnation, brings together all created things and not just humans. All created things are related, however different, because of their common origin in God.

If this is true we should abandon our sharp, often arrogant separation of humans from nature.

Barth’s argument, that humans have their own distinct and separate nature, is at odds with the belief in Christ as the Logos from whom all things come.

In uniting himself with Man God united himself with the nature of all creatures. St.John of the Cross

And from the New Testament part of the Bible God’s intention is:

A plan in the fullness of time to unite all things in Him, all things in heaven
and all things in earth (Ephesians Ch.1:10)

To sum up:

• Schweitzer – the real ethic is based on total reverence for all forms of life within God’s creation

• Some of the ramifications of this might seem mad

• But Schweitzer is talking about ethical aspirations as feelings of religious experience - not laws

• Barth objects to all creatures receiving an equal reverence because humans are deemed to chosen by the Incarnation and therefore higher than other forms of life

• But the Incarnation is actually seen as a manifestation of God with all of His creation not just human life.

 We shall now look at some further defences of animal exploitation made within the Christian tradition.

Animals are intended for man’s use in the natural order. Hence it is not wrong for man to make use of them, either by killing them or in any other way whatever. St.Thomas Aquinas

We need to ask why the Christian tradition has not promoted the idea of human duty or respect towards animals? The reasons for this are historical and go back at least partly to the influence of St.Thomas Aquinas the famous Christian philosopher of the Middle Ages. His writings were highly influential in the development of Christian thought and doctrine.

In his book Summa Theologica Aquinas suggests three reasons why the killing of all life is wrong, and then outlines why these reasons do not apply to life-forms ‘lower’ than humans.

Firstly the three reasons are:

1. All life is created and belongs to God
2. Killing a person is clearly a sin (the Bible etc. says so) and therefore all killing is sinful
3. The Law of Moses (Bible OT) says that death is the punishment for killing another man’s sheep or ox so killing animals seems to be clearly a sin

Obviously these reasons come under the umbrella of the Ten Commandments’ "Thou Shalt Not Kill". Aquinas argues that nobody takes this to mean that you can not kill a tree.

The main thrust is that lower life forms are irrational and without the power to reason, and are created for human use. There is a supposed basis for this reasoning in the Bible – Genesis 1.29 and 9.3.

Aquinas argues against the three reasons for not killing animals outlined above like this:

1. The life of animals and plants are created and preserved not for themselves but for human use: both their life and death are subject to our use (Aquinas).
2. To the second reason Aquinas asserts that animals have no ability to reason (they are irrational) - they are naturally subject to the uses of others. What applies to human life does not apply to other life. Notice how Aquinas has taken his reasoning from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. Early Jewish and Christian philosophers were always keen to relate their thought to classical Greek philosophy – for reasons of "credibility".
3. Thirdly Aquinas points out that the punishment for killing another man’s animals is not punishment for the killing of the animals, but punishment for the taking of the other man’s property.

So, for Aquinas animals are irrational creatures, with no mind or thought ability, they exist to serve humans, and they have no moral status except that of being the property of people.

You can see hopefully how elements of Barth’s objections to Schweitzer reflect aspects of Aquinas: animals are not of the same status as humans.

The thought of Thomas Aquinas comes from the thirteenth century, and is a synthesis of Greek philosophy applied to Christianity. But it still remains the basis for some, or many, Christians to state that animals have no rights on a par with humans.

To counter this point of view let us now turn to the work of a little known English hero of animal rights from the eighteenth century – a clergyman called Humphrey Primatt whose only known work was titled: A Dissertation on the Duty of Mercy, and the Cruelty of Sin to Brute Animals, which was published in 1776.

Primatt agrees with the general thought represented by Aquinas that there is a natural order of things within creation, and that humans are at the top. (This was, after all, the universal Christian and European belief).

Although Primatt accepts an order of nature with man at the top he sees that pain is common to both people and animals – and needless pain inflicted on animals is nothing short of injustice.  

Primatt therefore puts a new (and it was new) dimension into the discussion – that animals, as part of God’s creation, deserve moral justice as well as humans. Many before him would not have considered animals worthy of refined human values such as justice.

All "cruelty is atheism" says Primatt. This makes his argument a matter of theology. He is not speaking for animals in a modern moral way – he is speaking for animals, and people, because they are part of God’s creation and should be respected as such.

We can now  sum up the Aquinas v. Primatt arguments about responsibility to animals:

The major weakness of Aquinas are:

• His argument is based too much on classical Greek thought – without question, and without enough Christianity

• This takes the main thrust that animals have no intellect or reasoning powers, and, that animals exist solely for the use of humans.

• Aquinas uses a general basis in scripture (The Bible) to support the Greek argument but does not appreciate what the Old Testament elsewhere, or overall - especially in the reading of Genesis.

In spite of this Aquinas remains the dominant Historical force in Western Christianity. While Primatt’s work was influential as the beginning of a new, enlightened understanding of theology and animals - which led to the foundation of the world’s first animal welfare organisation, the RSPCA in 1824 - the Pope in Rome refused to open an animal protection office in the Vatican in the 1850s.

We show now look further at The Rights of Animals.Justus George Lawler wrote in 1965:

Any creature when it reaches the threshold of experiencing and anticipating pain has rights  

Like Primatt this says that if you are a creature that can feel pain you have the moral right (to be protected from pain).

This idea or principle is referred to as the Sentiency Criterion for moral rights. Sentiency, or being sentient, means that a creature is self-conscious or capable of feeling by way of its senses.

Classically, sentiency has been considered to be exclusive to humans – in other words for "self-consciousness" the word "personhood" has been substituted. It has been traditionally (Aquinas etc.) assumed that to be self-conscious means to be able to both feel and think rationally which, it was assumed, animals could not – so they did not count.

The answer to this is to use an illustration which is used by Peter Singer, the Australian philosopher, in his pioneering book Animal Liberation, which was published in 1976. It is a graphic illustration that makes a contentious point. New born babies and mentally disabled people, who can feel but not think rationally, would be placed on the same level as animals, and would have no rights - if the thinking of the traditional sentiency criterion was taken to its logical conclusion!

In spite of a baby’s lack of the ability for rational thought there aren’t many people who would treat babies, and the mentally disabled, in the same way that society treats animals – and if anyone did we would have plenty of words to say about it.

The sentiency principle is an important reason for saying that animals have rights because it is a general principle that religious and non-religious (should we say humanist or animalist?) people can share. So where does the theology, or religion come into it?

It is true that sentiency is just one way in which we can make sense of the value of created things, but if there are rights it is only God (the Creator) who can properly and absolutely claim them – nature has value because it is given by God.

There is no right before God, but the natural, purely as what is given, becomes the right in relation to man (Bonhoeffer)

We now move to Theocentric Orientation, which means a point of view or belief that has God at its centre, and by which there is a Christian basis for the theos-rights, or God-given rights, of animals.

Christians should have a theocentric (or God-centred) view of Creation:

1. Creation exists for God (not man) – a simple and fundamental truth that has been obscured. Even if humans are the ultimate in Creation it does not follow that everything was made for humans – we need to be wary of making absolute claims for ourselves as though we are more important than anything else -including God.
2. God is for, or on the side of Creation – all creation. God loves and cares for all of Creation.
3. We know this because God has paid a high cost for Creation through revelation and through the Incarnation and sacrifice(Jesus and the death of Jesus). God has "self-emptied" himself into Creation – how can we be sure that this was just for humans?
4. If God exists for Creation, and has invested so much in Creation, then humans should be for (all) Creation too – including animals.

There are those who consider the notion of rights (all rights) to be wrong in the realm of theology and God’s relationship with Creation. The opposite view to this – as for example given by Bonhoeffer - is that because God gave creation there are rights inherently bound in with the relationship – if nothing else there is God’s right that all creatures, including people, should respect what is given. Christians have frequently stood for, and pioneered causes for rights. To accept notions of human rights and then query notions of animal rights is untenable:

When we speak of animal rights we conceptualise what is owed to animals as a matter of justice by virtue of their Creator’s right. Animals can be wronged because their creator can be wronged  

The Moral Priority of the Weak

Is the work and language of the "animal liberationists" enough to ensure progress with animal rights? No. Christians need to have a deeper basis – the movement for animal rights must have a theological base too – in the form of the divine generosity of the person of Jesus the weak and defenceless should be given not equal, but greater consideration. The weak should have the moral priority.

Let us begin with he idea of equality for animals set out by Peter Singer.

• Peter Singer the Australian philosopher has led the animal rights movement – in the academic area. 

One of Singer’s first publications was an article titled All Animals are Equal published in 1974. Peter Singer’s opening argument is for equality for all species and it is as simple as it is clever:

Any movement aimed at liberation from oppression and discrimination, whether it be for ethnic groups or gay people, or for animals, must begin by expanding people’s moral minds so that they can see that what they have done in the past has been wrong, and the result of unjustifiable prejudice:

My aim is to advocate (persuade us) that we make this mental switch in respect of our attitudes towards a very large group of beings (animals) ………In other words I am urging that we extend to other species the principle of equality that most of us recognise should be extended to our own species (people). Peter Singer

By equality Singer does not mean that we treat animals in exactly the same way as people, but that we show them equal consideration – his principle of equality is prescriptive rather than factual:

If a being suffers there can be no moral justification for refusing to take that suffering
into consideration (Singer)

Coming from such an academic source as Peter Singer this, in 1974, was challenging material. The main objection to what Singer says here is that humans are "higher" than animals. Even those without a religious background to (wrongly) teach them this tend to "waffle" on, writes Singer, as though it was obvious somehow that "humans had some worth that other animals did not". You must understand that Singer is working from a secular (non-religious) point of view. He is only too familiar with the way that religious teaching (Judeo/Christian at least) has consistently demoted the place of animals.

• Let us now take the reasoning that allows Christians to say that they are higher than animals in creation. The very reason that they can do this (the generosity of God shown in the Incarnation, in Jesus) is, in fact, the reason why Christians should have a much more positive and enlightened view of animals - why Christians should give to animals more than Singer’s equality.

The Generosity Paradigm

Paradigm means a pattern, or model. The Generosity "example" is God’s model of generosity revealed to man. God reveals His quality of generosity throughout Creation by what He has made for all; in the Scriptures – by His revelations - and particularly in the Incarnation – becoming man and suffering for all humanity. "God is Good", is a phrase that you may hear Christians say – it refers to the goodness of God in sacrificing Himself in this way for Creation.

This is best expressed in the writing of Karl Barth:

God willed himself to become man, to make His own the weakness and frailty of man, to suffer and die as a man, and in this self-offering to secure the frontier between His creation and the ruin which threatens it from the abyss. God is gracious.

The supreme God, who in the form of Jesus humbles himself to identify with, and suffer for, the weakly and frail creature. Barth, inspite of what we know about him, says that he cannot be totally certain that the Incarnation was for man alone and excluded other species.

This concept of generosity of the higher (God) sacrificing (Jesus’ death) itself for the
lower (humanity)  may well have meaning (even in Barth’s thinking) beyond the human sphere.

This is where we can take Christian doctrine further and we could sum up the key to Christian animal theology as:

If this principle of God’s costly service (generosity and sacrifice) is at the heart of Christian doctrine (which it is), then it should also be the paradigm (principle or model) for human domination over the animal world.

Except, of course, "domination" would not be quite the right word if humans were to properly put this principle into practice. Morally

The Christian obligation is always on the "higher" to sacrifice for the "lower"; for the strong and powerful to give to those who are vulnerable.

God (through Jesus Christ) shows His Lordship through service and sacrifice – so there can be no Lordship without service – humans (or Christian humans) need to reflect this in their own lordship and service to all others in creation.

We could anticipate two objections to what he has said so far. These objections are a repeat of the arguments discussed above – in terms of this service to others where do you draw the line in how far you go?

1. Historically the limit of generosity has been drawn at humans because they are the special or "cherished" creatures.
2. But others say that it is not possible to draw a line and that God values all of Creation, including even vegetable life-forms, and to say otherwise is a form of human prejudice.

To meet this objection we can follow Peter Singer and puts children into the equation – if children are considered to be exempt from moral responsibility they (like animals) have no moral rights. Surely there is a middle-way by extending the generosity principle from "humans" to adults, children and animals - which can be justified in three ways.

1. The story of God creating the world in Genesis (the first book in the Bible) is commonly read in terms of a hierarchy of life forms. Vegetation first, birds and fish on the fifth day, land-animals and humans on the sixth. But this could be a wrong reading since (some) animals and humans were made together on the sixth day and would seem to share the same "intimacy" with God. At least it is not a totally clear hierarchy of beings.
2. Genesis is also commonly read as giving man dominion over animals which has justified use and abuse. But a "more satisfying" understanding should include the idea of stewardship rather than dominion – looking after rather than misusing. And in any case the giving of dominion comes after God has instigated a vegetarian diet for humans (Gen 1.29).
3. Thirdly it is often assumed that the Covenant does not encompass animal life. But in Genesis 9, and subsequent repeats, it seems to be clear that the covenant refers to humans "and every living creature that is with you"(Gen 9:8f)

• Covenant is a word meaning agreement and promise. "The Covenant" is the cornerstone of the Jewish, and subsequently Christian, religions and is the agreement between God and His people that in return for obedience and worship God will protect his followers. In Genesis Chapter 9, after the account of Noah’s Ark, God is promising the survivors that He will never again destroy all living things – including animals.

To sum up the roots of Christian scripture do show differentiation between different life forms but the "commonality of humans and animals is stressed" consistently.

To illustrate the nature of a relationship of generosity rather than equality towards animals we can use the analogy of a parent’s loving relationship with children.

Equality in adult relationships is something we should all aspire to, but as any parent will tell you in the ideal relationship between parents and children nothing less than the exercise (giving) of costly generous loving is the daily moral obligation.

Not all children are subject to this kind of relationship – some have been treated, and are treated, "like animals"(sic). Interestingly it was members of the RSPCA in Britain, and its equivalent in the USA who began the first anti-child cruelty organisations in the nineteenth century.

When we use our power over animals and have to make decisions about their quality of life, and sometimes their life itself, the motive should always be the interests of the animal, and not our own benefit – as it should be with children.

The idea that we can use our God-given power over animals is a worrying concept. The idea of man being superior in a hierarchy of life forms, must be superseded by the (Christologically) enlightened principle, which says that:

Whenever we find ourselves in a position of power over those who are relatively powerless our moral obligation of generosity increases in proportion.  

The Generosity principle is preferable to Singer’s Equality principle:

1. Peter Singer himself seems to be inconsistent with the equality principle – equality does not mean that we treat animals and humans in the same way and further, Singer proposes positive discrimination which by definition goes beyond equality.
2. Equality is limited. Equality frequently aims for a minimum of rights and does not satisfy the higher obligations of (Christian) service in the sense that we are now using the word.

Singer’s equality would not necessarily prohibit all animal experiments whereas Christian generosity would not allow any abuse of animals to promote human happiness or welfare:

The Generosity Paradigm insists that humans must bear for themselves whatever may flow from not experimenting on animals it does not allow for the sanctioning of institutionalised abuse  

We idolise ourselves and animals are the sacrificial victims of our God-like powers – for the sake of new cosmetics and the like.

The equality principle, based on utilitarian ethical principles is limited. The generosity principle is set in the teaching and example of Jesus and demands more of us. It gives priority, not equality, to the weak and defenceless:

It requires of us a massive reorientation in our attitudes towards animals as it has
done – or begun to do - in the case of our attitudes towards children and the weaker members of the human community

Let us now look at two anticipated objections to his argument.

1. The Generosity principle could be said to be a regression from principles of justice and rights. To this we need to be reminded us that we could give all the accepted rights to a child but still fall short of being "loving and forgiving" parents – what we owe animals and children goes far beyond rights.
2. The stronger objection is that the Generosity principle would be impossible to put into practice and enforce – like Schweitzer’s reverence for life. Yes, this is true. (Although it does not follow that "laws" should be the outcome of an ethical discussion where the responsibility is placed on an individual’s attitude)

Behaving morally to animals and reflecting a Christ-like relationship of service to animals will be costly to humans.

We have sacrificed the gains of slavery and child-labour to make moral progress – can we now make moral progress in respect of that other group of the weak and defenceless- animals?

Humans as the Servant Species

Many people have problems with the animal rights assertion that humans and animals are equal in terms of morality and theology. Animal rights people have problems with the claim that humans are special or unique. Does it follow that Christians have to give up the Christian notion of the unique position of humans if we want to promote the ethical treatment of animals?

No, Christians do not,  the moral superiority of humans is part of the reason why Christians have a duty to follow the example of God who suffers in the service of all sentient creatures:

Human uniqueness can be defined as the capacity for service and Self- sacrifice.

Uniqueness Spotting 

There are three reasons why "theology" should be suspicious of some of these claims:

1. Some of them are now agreed to be false. For example not many would now agree that only humans are intelligent and can think rationally – do you remember that film of a chimpanzee using a banana leaf as an umbrella?
2. Few would now agree with the 16^th Century philosopher Descartes that animals are automata with no consciousness or feeling (of pain).
3. It has been said that the whole idea of claiming that humans are in a unique position is a sign of human insecurity (and arrogance). If you climb to the top on the backs of others you tend to want to denigrate "the others" – in this case animals. Eighteenth century Europeans demonstrated the same thing with their attitude to slaves and slavery. 

So is there any way for humans to be both unique and not guilty of the above points? "yes" – if the theology is right.

The Suffering God

Many of the claims of the uniqueness of humans have been made from a scientific or naturalistic point of view (from the days when science and theology and the arts were all mixed up). Let us now look at this from a theological point of view. 

There are in fact a couple of interesting or relevant points:

1. God suffers – all the pain of the world was Christ’s cross
2. Christians can "see" that God suffers in the Incarnation, when God, in the form of Jesus, visibly joined and took part in human suffering at a specific time - just like the image of the rings visible in the cut tree trunk. You only see a small section of what you know to continue throughout the whole length of the tree.

If it true that God is the creator and sustainer of the whole world of life then it is inconceivable that God is not also a co-sufferer of the in the world of non-human creatures as well. Years of tradition have obscured this basic implication of the gospel narrative for at least two reasons

1. Tradition has denied animals any moral standing
2. Christian tradition, and other traditions, has denied that animals can feel pain – even, academically, within the last hundred years.

Obviously (you might say) anyone with a proximity to animals will suspect or know that the last point is not true – even though theoretical moral arguments have claimed this.

The Christian Church has been neglectful in its teaching (or theology) about this aspect. The idea that Christ suffers for all has been beneath the surface and is seldom taught or celebrated in services. However there is one rare example in a prayer from the Eastern Orthodox wing of Christianity:

The whole of creation was altered by thy Passion (suffering and death) for all things suffered with Thee, knowing O Lord that thou holdest all things in unity.

• This is not to say that the church fails to emphasise Christ’s suffering – it certainly does - in respect of people. But not in respect of all creation

• The issue for Christians behind this is that, if God (Christ/Jesus) suffers for all then Redemption is for all too. "Redemption" is what Christ gives by His suffering, death and resurrection – it is the promise of forgiveness of sin (He died for "us"), of death being defeated, and of eternal life. So redemption for all of Creation? Animals in heaven?

Sacrificial Priesthood

What does it mean for humans to exercise a priestly role of redemption? Quite simply: it concerns the releasing of Creation from futility, from suffering and pain and worthlessness. This is the divine work of redemption to which humans are called. by God it is the liberation of creation itself
from decay and suffering.

·         We need to understand the term “priesthood” in a special way. We do not mean just those people who are "priests" by way of profession (vocation). The priest is in this context the agent of God, working for God – in theory all Christians could be called priests by this token. The priestly role is for all Christians, not just those actually ordained as priests. You could substitute "priestly role" with the words mission or ministry

The Priest is the icon of Christ

Think of an icon as the link button or a "window" on a computer screen – the priest is the way in to Christ – it(he/she) not only gives access but reveals or reflects what is inside - God/Jesus. 

Service as Uniqueness

How are humans unique in Creation?

The uniqueness of humanity consists in its ability to become the servant species

To become servants in the way that Christ was the servant of Creation.

To see this uniqueness in a new (and proper) way  three changes of attitude are required:

1. To move away from the idea that God’s suffering is only suffering in the human sphere of Creation.
2. A shift away from the conception that the priesthood is only concerned with the relationship between humans and God.
3. A shift away from the idea that the role of the priesthood can be carried out only in the human dimension - without consideration, in a Christ-like way, for the whole of Creation.

This last point carries with it not only a responsibility for animals in Creation, but for the whole of creation – an ecological theology.

These changes of attitude would allow humans to see that human uniqueness lies in the ability to think and become the servants (of God) of other species. "Co-workers" with God for the redemption of the whole world – instead of beings who think they inhabit a world that was created solely for human use and pleasure at the expense of everything else.

To be the servant species means to act in a priestly way towards God’s creation – therefore (Christian) humans have no right to regard animals as just a means to their ends:

To make animals suffer for human purposes is not just morally wrong, it is an act of grave faithlessness

And in the words of Humphrey Primatt:

…as our Father (God) is merciful the obligation upon Christians becomes stronger…to extend the precept of mercy to every object (of creation) …a cruel Christian is a monster of ingratitude (to God), a scandal to his profession.

The way we presume to treat animals now, in all spheres of abuse shows that we have lost sight (or never really had it) of "the generosity of God revealed through Jesus Christ".

We will now look at possible objections to what he has just said:

1. That if Christians elevate the place of animals they will put animals before humans.
2. That this reduces theology to ethics by discussing the priesthood in ethical terms
3. How can God suffer eternally and at the same time offer redemption from suffering?

The answers to these objections are as follows:

1. Nothing he has said takes away from the need to care for humans. You could say that we are adding duties not replacing them. The distinction between the suffering of different human groups and species is not as clearly distinguished as was once thought (taught). The way we give humans the priority makes the suffering of other species worse – it is part of the problem rather than the solution.
2. It should be clear that Christian ethics are deeply founded in Christian theology and doctrine. The problem is that the Church has tended to divorce (some) ethics from theology – a divorce between divine activity and human response (as there has been - both morally and in respect of the environment and animals) is starkly perilous at this time  
3. This is technical theology. But if God entered the world at a specific time and place to share suffering and offer redemption, why can not this be an illustration of what God is actually doing all the time? Like the rings on the tree. 

Liberation Theology for Animals

Christian Theology like everything else is subject to change and social developments. We have already mentioned feminist theology and gay theology along with animal theology.

One of the most important developments in the last part of the twentieth century was the appearance of Liberation Theology. This is always associated with Christians in South or Latin America striving for equality and freedom for oppressed people living under dictatorial political governments. The pioneer of Liberation Theology was Gustavo Gutierrez with his 1971 book A Theology of Liberation.

We shall first identify three levels of the meaning of "liberation" from Gutierrez’s work:

1. Liberation is the hope of oppressed peoples: be it political, economic or social.
2. Liberation is a way of understanding history – as the quest and development of people gaining their liberation and the ramifications that go with it.
3. Liberation is what can be gained from the Bible in a religious sense: Christ offering to liberate us from sin – the root of all evil and oppression. (redemption or salvation = liberation).

The first major work of Liberation theology is fact restrained or limited by its totally "humanocentric" focus. It appears to be just about human liberation.

In spite of Gutierrez’s use of scripture "all things have been created in Christ, all things have been saved in him" (Bible, N.T. Colossians 1 15-20) he goes on to say:

Humankind is the crown and centre…of creation…creation is worth nothing if not done for the good (and liberation) of humanity

To sum up: this great work of modern theological development of our own time seems, in its theory, to discount the value of moral obligation to anything outside of humanity. In line with Aquinas, and all Christian tradition that has followed, Liberation Theology fails to envisage the possibility of moral oppression outside of human relations.

• Liberation Theology, for many, is synonymous with violent political oppression in countries like Chile and Nicaragua in the early 1970s. To be fair the notion of animal rights at this time was not a priority of those in South America, and hardly heard of anywhere else anyway. The first writings of Peter Singer did not appear until 1974-6.

Humanocentric Constriction

We shall now look at another writer of Liberation Theology, Leonardo Boff whose book St.Francis – A Model for Human Liberation was published in 1981, by which time ecological issues had become part of theological discussion. With St.Francis, one of Christianity’s animal rights champions, in the title things look more hopeful, but although Boff writes about humanity’s relationship with nature, it is in the sense of a relationship for human benefit and liberation – not nature’s.

In as far as we can tell, from sources from thirteenth century Italy, the challenge of St.Francis was to look at creation with other than human eyes:

St.Francis sought to petition the emperor to protect birds for the sake of ‘the love of God’ not for human’s sake from God’s point of view every creature is a blessed creature or it is no creature at all that St.Francis challenges us to do is to…look at creation from God’s perspective and not our own

The concept of the 1970s liberation theology is too narrow and restricted – too humanocentric.

Recovering Christological Connections

There is a theological basis for an animal theology and that it is within the concept of liberation theology.

Note that the language used in Liberation Theology, while written in the context of people could often refer to other creatures as well. In respect of the poor Gutierrez says:

One who does not have what is necessary to subsist

Hens subject to modern factory farming would make a graphic illustration of this.

• We need to reiterate Christology so as to realign it in terms of liberation for all of creation and not just humans. Like others we have already noted that the great Liberation theologians were (justifiably) preoccupied with a human centred reading of theology and Christ. 

There are five points of "recovering Christological" connections – basic theological points - to a theology for the liberation of all creation:

1. Christ as co-Creator: The Logos "through whom all things came to be". The point to note is the common origin of all things ( in the Logos), not the distinctions between them.
2. Christ as God Incarnate: The Incarnation is God’s "Yes" to humanity – but this does not mean it is also a "No" to the rest of creation? The "Yes" of the Incarnation (the approval of God, if you like) is a Yes to all creation – the danger of it being otherwise, as we have seen in history, is not only a "No" to animals, but also a "No" to women, to other races, and to other religions.
3. Christ as the New Covenant: The Covenant is the promise to his people that God will look after them and protect them. The first Covenant with Noah is recounted in Genesis 9:8-11. It clearly includes not just people in the agreement but "every living creature that is with you"(everything else was killed by the flood) (Gen.9:10). What is the Christian relationship to "every living creature" supposed to be, then, if God includes them in his promise and if that promise was renewed and enriched by Christ’s presence with creation? Theologians have been neglectful of this and that Liberation theologians have not been radical enough.
4. Christ as the Reconciler of all things: both Karl Barth and the Liberation theologian Leonardo Boff acknowledge that Christ is the agent of reconciling all creation, including creatures, with God. What they fail to do, is to recognise that this also means that humans have a moral duty towards other creatures. Seems obvious doesn’t it?
5. Christ as our moral exemplar: The Liberation theology movement leaves no doubt about Christ being seen as the ultimate liberator of the poor and oppressed. Christ’s liberating act consists of the highest selfless giving of Himself for others. This is the example Christians are called to follow. If we try follow that example meaningfully, and consider all of the above points, how can we possibly exclude animals from the "exercising of Christian responsibility"?

If a traditional reading of Genesis says that "man" is made a "god" in Creation and that all creatures should serve him, the new reading, putting Christ into the equation, should be that, given our power, we should be serving the creatures. The "higher" making the sacrifice for the "lower" – as in the revealed example of Jesus Christ. 

We shall now look at three possible objections to Animal Liberation Theology:

1. Rather than breaking the humanocentric view of Creation it has heightened it by making people central to animal liberation – even if it is in a new way.
2. That the language of oppression and liberation is strained and inappropriate when used in respect of animals.
3. It has to be asked what we actually mean by the liberation of, say "hedgehogs or mice"?

These points are answered in the following way:

1. This is valid. We should be happy to have put forward a new kind of theologically sound humanocentricity: it is precisely because humans have been so awful. So unaware of their redemptive task towards creation that the destructive capacities of humankind threaten not only ourselves but creation too.
2. The use of word oppression in respect of the treatment of animals is totally within the proper meaning and use of the word. To deny this is to "deny that there is a moral issue at all". Oppression within the human sphere has always targeted the weakest. To those who say that we cannot do without the benefits of animal (abuse) – food, clothing, experiments etc. – we could say that they used to say the same about slaves too.
3. That hedgehogs and mice cannot claim their rights is true – but neither can new or unborn babies and patients in a coma. It is the Christian response to the "groaning and travailing" of creatures (St.Paul) that is vitally important – our response determines whether or not we are acting as true "sons of God".

Animal Rights and Parasitical Nature

"Parasitical" – as in parasite – living on others. What we may assume to be the natural way of things involves all types of creatures depending on other creatures for life – i.e. humans eating meat. Traditional and modern theology has accepted this parasitical order as "natural". But Animal Theology should show that living unnaturally in the spirit of the world-transforming revelation of Jesus Christ can be "a sign of grace":

……living without killing sentient creatures wherever possible is a theological duty laid upon Christians who wish to bring about the Kingdom of God.

This means becoming vegetarian.

The story from Anne Rice’s novel Interview with a Vampire can be taken as an illustration (You may have seen the film of this novel).

• As a vampire the character Louis requires blood at least once everyday – requiring the killing of mortals.

• Louis does not want to kill or be a vampire, however.

• He sets out on a quest to discover why he is, and why vampires are, like they are.

• His vampire "friends" do not seem to be bothered by the problem – they don’t see the moral problem.

The moral problem? Should he go on living at the expense of others - parasitically? The human consumption of animals – six to nine billion animals per year in the USA - are vastly greater than the vampire’s fictitious consumption of blood. The main point about Conversation with a Vampire, however is that the majority of humans share the same morality as the vampires Louis speaks to – the belief that this consumption is totally natural.

Rethinking Natural Law

Natural Law is a concept that has engaged philosophers and theologians from all periods and cultures. If you have studied Macbeth you may know about Shakespeare’s reflection of the concern about nature and what was natural at the time of James 1. In ancient Greece the philosopher Plato imagined a time when all creatures would live harmoniously. In the Bible Genesis Ch.1 begins with God creating a harmonious world before it becomes corrupted - with the Fall of Adam and Eve from the perfect Garden of Eden, and later the wickedness that leads to the Flood and the story of Noah’s Ark (two key elements in Christian/Jewish theology).

If God can tolerate a world where, now, a parasitical existence seems to be the natural way of life we have two choices:

1. To accept a parasitical order as natural and give up the idea of God as a totally just loving and creator,
2. Or, find another way to understand it.

The answer to this question is quite complicated. But obviously a Christian is not going to give up on God.

We need to remind ourselves that creation is the work of the Creator and by definition is always less than the perfect Creator – imperfect and incomplete. In itself creation cannot be an absolutely clear measure of what God wills or desires.

It is, anyway, a familiar theme in both Jewish and Christian theology that creation is a never-ending process. It did not finish on the seventh day in Genesis – hence the role of the Flood, the prophets, and the Incarnation itself, are all part of the continuing process of revealing God’s will. (Some Christians would say that revelation was complete or finished with the Incarnation others wouldn’t.)

When we read ethical philosophers like John Macquarrie we can see that more often than not the concept of natural law has been based on "how things seem to be" rather than on "how things ought to be".

This is a fundamental flaw or misconception that has meant that the human idea of what is natural has frequently been based on a human interpretation of Creation rather than on God’s will. What God’s will is has been limited by humans to what they see in nature – a view limited by human limitations and by the failure to see God’s revelation through and beyond nature, with the result that has been an almost total failure to grasp the possibility of redemption outside the human sphere

Trans-Natural Moral Imperative

To turn this around we have to begin by realising that there is not really a natural law in creation that we can recognise. Creation, as humans see it, will always be ambiguous – it will show both goodness and what appears to be immoral or unjust suffering (remember that the Creation of the Creator is bound to be less than the perfection of the Creator).

So, Louis in Conversation with a Vampire is right to question the rightness of having to kill mortals for their blood – he is right to refuse to accept that sucking blood is "natural law". The idea that any human sense of a natural law can form a moral imperative can never be right because the world does not explain itself, either there is explanation outside of creation or creation is inexplicable.

To understand this point is a theological act. This means that as humans we have not the capacity to see everything. We need an outside agency to help.

A moral imperative (command) based on human ideas of natural law will not be just or right (as in treatment of animals) because we always have to question what natural law is. And, in any case, the nature or ambiguity of Creation means that we are not able to easily deduce any natural law from it.

• Because creatures appear to have to live off of each other does not mean that this is an imperative natural law. It is not an imperative natural law that humans have to eat meat.

The "theological act" therefore is to be able to see that a human moral imperative based on natural law is not and cannot be an imperative. Christian moral imperatives should be formed from somewhere beyond "nature": hence trans-natural moral imperative.

• A trans-natural moral imperative is an imperative that based on something that goes beyond what Christians can deduce from nature and includes what Christians ought to understand God’s Will to be. We have to include the "ought" because, of course, many Christian writers have not gone beyond a human view of nature. 

What is true now is that humans have a real choice - unlike vampires. As recently as the 1920s animal rights supporters (such as there were in the 1920s) were shackled by the pervading belief, and their own belief, that humans had to eat meat. Those who claimed to be vegetarians were believed to be secret meat-eaters who would have died if they were not!

Only in last thirty years has it become generally clear that humans can be vegetarians and survive. In the western world, at least, ignorance about vegetarianism can no longer act as a prop of mistaken natural law. To state this is also to be very aware of the position of many humans in the world today whose fight against hunger for survival means that vegetarianism is not a moral priority or option.

Objections to Vegetarianism

To stop being parasitical and to change apparent nature humans have to become vegetarian. We shall now look at possible objections to this.

1. Firstly, natural law - which actually supports the traditional idea that the world is in a fallen less-than-perfect (evil) state - will result in accusations of Christian vegetarians being against the modern trends of environmental concern and conservation. These tend to hold that nature is all good.
2. Secondly will be the argument that, crudely put, claims that Jesus was not a vegetarian so why should anyone else be?
3. Thirdly, that even if the total harmony of creation is God’s ultimate Will there is no way that it can be achieved now or in the near future.
4. Fourthly there will be objections to the rationality of a trans-natural moral imperative based on something beyond the law of nature – the idea of an moral imperative derived from something beyond nature means that it cannot be an empirically or statistically quantified in any way.

The answers to these points can make for an interesting discussion:

1. If you don’t go along with the Judeo/Christian/Islamic idea that the world is in a fallen state you presumably believe that everything in nature is good and right. This means that you probably believe in ideas such as "the survival of the fittest" and the strong overcoming the weak. This could mean that you do not allow for the possibility of a moral discussion about cruelty and injustice and the saving act of a Creator God is unnecessary. It also opens the door for right-wing dictatorial states and fascism. Nazi thought in Germany in the 1930s was obsessed with "naturalism" and the power of the dominant German race fuelled by the philosopher Nietsche’s concept of super-humans. But  as a Christian, if creation is (perfect as it) is a Redeemer God is a redundant concept.
2. It is certainly reported in the Bible that Jesus ate fish - if not meat. No one can claim that he was a strict vegetarian. We can deal with this in two ways:

Firstly: to talk about what Jesus actually did is to restrict him to a historical and geographical time and place. To do this would mean all sorts of complications in many areas. If we imitated the historical Jesus we would live with slavery. Following Jesus, or discipleship, is not to follow a fixed pattern in a strict historical setting.

Secondly: one of the key points about the Incarnation was that Jesus was both God and human. God on earth with all the restrictions of a time and place. A short human life cannot "demonstrate, let alone exhaust, all the possibilities of self-giving love" What Jesus did was to talk clearly about the coming "Kingdom of God" (when everything would be right), and  this was later expressed by Paul when he wrote that God’s plan would be put into effect when the time was ripe – when all things would come into a unity with Christ (Ephesians Ch.1,9-10)

The nature miracles performed by Jesus can be seen as signs of the new possibilities for all of Creation. The human ideas of what is natural can be changed and transformed with Christ.

3. Maybe because of the quote from Ephesians above some would say that the time is not ripe for humanity to change its nature and become vegetarian. We know that no natural law insists that we must eat meat, but the psychological reasons for doing so are enormous. Human weakness and frailty are part of the problem but so is the danger of optimism about change backfiring and causing inaction. If humans cannot prevent human suffering and cruelty to each other what is the chance for animals? But Christians have a clear choice: either the natural world is simply a world of suffering and death, or there is, "glimpsed" through Christ, the possibility of redemption and transformation to a "new world order". For Christians "the God who demands is also the God who enables" and although this will not happen at a stroke it is "possible to believe that by the power of the (holy) Spirit new ways of living without violence (to animals) can be opened up".
4. A law of nature is derived from observation and deduction – it has a kind of scientific or empirical basis. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus said that observed laws of nature all stem form one overall divine law which he called the logos – the originating word from which all things occurred in a "natural" order. Clearly there are similarities between Heraclitus’s use of the idea of logos and the Christian idea of logos. The Christian logos, as in the Incarnation of Christ, reveals that peace is better than violence and that reconciliation is better than disintegration. In other words we are given a glimpse of an imperative beyond natural law – a trans-natural imperative. By becoming vegetarian Christians are not indulging in a trend but instead are witnessing to a higher order of existence, beyond human concepts of natural law, which, revealed by the Incarnation is struggling to be born in us.

Animal Experiments as Un-Godly Sacrifices

The idea that animals exist for human use has a long history – the idea that there are moral limits to how we treat animals is new, long overdue and demanding. We will now examine the use of animals for medical experiments.

The idea that Creation has a meaning and worth beyond the meaning and worth given to it by humans could be said to be a trans-natural observation. Creation has an intrinsic value which means a value beneath the observable – a value that is within or inherent.

Obviously for Christians (and Jews and Muslims) this sense of the intrinsic value of Creation comes from, and is inseparable from, belief in a Creator God. And the belief that God, and therefore His Creation, is intrinsically good.

We will now examine how this goodness should be presented and reflected in Christian doctrine. The basics of Christian theology encompass many of the things we have already discussed and serve to keep our focus  firmly fixed in Christian doctrine.

God the Creator

All things exist because of God – nothing can exist without God and only continues to exist with God’s will. Creation’s meaning and purpose is that which the Creator puts upon it, and it exists within a relationship of grace with the Creator.

But "classical" Christian theology considers humans to have fallen from the state of grace with God – to have become corrupted - so that we cannot look at Creation, as we see it, as a reflection of God’s perfection. Although the intention of Creation is good and all of its parts have value it is wrong to look at as it is and deduce moral imperatives.

God Incarnate

The Incarnation – the belief that God, somehow took human form at a particular time and place for the purpose of redeeming Creation is a revelation of the value God places on Creation. The Incarnation would not have happened if God didn’t care.

• The Trinity doctrine helps Christians to explain the Incarnation by seeing God in three aspects - the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The "Father" is God as we would normally use the word. The "Son" is the Incarnation of God, Christ or Jesus in the historical sense, while the "Holy Spirit" is the mystical presence of the Father in the world – before and after the Incarnation.

God became flesh and blood in order to redeem or save Creation. Flesh and blood are what humans share with the animal kingdom .

Many Christians have seen the Incarnation as placing humanity in a special and elevated position in Creation. It does, but it is wrong to assume that it does not also "reinforce" the value of all other living things too. Another way of expressing who Jesus was is the term Logos – the creative word of God as in John Ch.1– by whom all things were made.

God the Reconciler

The power of the Incarnation reconciles fallen (sinful) creation to God by the life, sacrifice, death and resurrection of the Logos (Jesus, Christ, Son of God).

The theological issue is whether reconciliation is offered to humanity or all of Creation. Are animals and plants fallen in the same as the human species? After all animals cannot sin in the sense of human sin you might say. One answer could be that animals are fallen as a result of their involuntary connection with human sin.

There are three possibilities of understanding reconciliation that could all fit within traditional Christian theology:

• Animals don’t sin so therefore are not in need of reconciliation with God.

• If animals are fallen creatures there should be an Incarnation in the animal world to redeem them.

• That by becoming Incarnate in the form of one species God offers reconciliation to the whole of Creation.

God values the whole of Creation and has acted to save it from the worst possibilities of sin, corruption and disaster – caused almost totally, but not exclusively, by human self-destruction.

God the Redeemer

Redemption – or redeeming Creation – is essentially another way of looking at reconciliation. Redemption however can be seen as embodying the future hope of humanity for itself (maybe firstly) and Creation. It cannot but follow from a God who creates, incarnates and reconciles, that everything will be made new.

The making new, or renewal, the saving, is the redemption in this context. The restoration of all things involves the whole of creation and not mankind  alone nothing which God has made will be lost.

It must follow that all suffering of all life-forms will be made good and all have the hope/promise of eternal life:

Man and Beast thou savest O Lord (Psalm 36:6)

Note that we should not follow this line too far. We should be happy to accept the general idea as rightly coming from Christian theology without attempting to specify the nuts and bolts of all the intricacies of eternal life for rabbits.

What we do need to stress is that what he has said does not come from fringe or marginal Christian sects or groups but from the centre of "orthodox" Christian doctrine.

Moral Implications

Four moral implications arise immediately from the above review of Christian theology:

1. If Creation is valuable to God it must be valuable to humans too
2. God’s value of Creation must be distinctly different from humanity’s value of itself – people cannot assume that they know, or hold a monopoly of God’s values
3. The theological purpose of Creation should be seen as distinct from human ideas about the purpose of Creation
4. If Creation has value humans cannot claim any absolute value for themselves within Creation

The first of these points is not optional – nor is it some kind of moral judgement. For Christians it is straight from the heart of Christian belief.

In respect of the second point it may be that human ideas of human value would be similar to God’s ideas but the distinction should always be kept. The danger is when humans impose human values on God – or suppose that human values are God’s too. Humanity cannot claim to hold the measure of good in respect of other species.

The third point is that we cannot claim to know for sure God’s ultimate purpose in Creation. If we cannot know the purpose it is maybe more important that we handle it with care. As the theologian Karl Barth said: we do not know their (animals) purpose therefore we have to exist with them as fellow creatures.

The fourth point cannot be over stressed. Humans have acted as though they have an absolute place at the "top" of creation and have no moral responsibility to other life forms. If humans assert values in Creation they can only be values for all Creation. Creation is an entity – humans have no right to ascribe value to parts of it and neglect other parts.

Animals as Sacrificial Victims

The main objection to these moral points as coming from those who may agree about the value of Creation, but who maintain that the purpose of the lower life forms is to serve the higher life-forms. This is illustrated in the sacrificial tradition of the Old Testament part of the Bible. This tradition has animal sacrifice to God as part of human spiritual activity.

Let us take Genesis 8:20-22 as an example – Noah, having been saved from the flood, offers substantial animal sacrifice to God as thanks, and God appears to be pleased. That is how it reads. Can God create life forms and then be pleased at their death? If the answer is "yes" it would seem that animals are placed beneath humans in a hierarchy of being. This would damage a large part of the argument made thus far - or is there another interpretation?

You may find the answer to this question bizarre. It is one of those that is logically correct but "paradoxical" and "puzzling" in practice. It is based on a new interpretation of sacrifice by theologians Eric Mascall, Eugene Masure and R K Yerkes from 1965. An animal sacrifice is the return to its creator of a cherished creature - to release it from the world and allow it to find its true happiness! To sacrifice an animal is to acknowledge its value to God and to acknowledge that it belongs to God.

This explanation of animal sacrifice does maintain the value of animal life and places animals at a level of importance in some way equal to humans. 

Some Old Testament passages that may suggest that animal sacrifice was not totally accepted as good: e.g. Isaiah 1:11. We also need to recognise the much more important point that for Christians today the sacrifice of Jesus supersedes the sacrifice of animals as a way of access to God – animal sacrifice is no longer relevant or desirable.

Once again we need to remind ourselves of the nature of Christ’s sacrifice – the higher serving the lower – the surrender of absolute power – the compassion towards the weak and helpless.

• Compassion towards the weak and helpless does not necessarily mean weak and helpless humans – in the context of God’s power and His relationship with what he has created all people and all of Creation is weak and helpless.

In the light of Christ’s sacrifice it follows that the meaning of human domination should be quite different to what it generally has seemed to be.

This central Christian truth of love in action is frequently displayed in human interactions, but why has it taken so long for it to become the model for interaction with the natural world too?

It could be because of the retention, in Christian minds, of the traditional interpretation of the Old Covenant (the agreement between God and man in the Old Testament – mainly Genesis Ch.8-9). But the New Covenant of Christ (in the New Testament part of the Bible) should "fulfil" the old and provide a new moral example demanding a change of attitude.

A Critique of Animal Experiments

With the theology discussed can the theory now be applied to the use of animals for scientific experiments? We can draw three conclusions:

1) Animals are not Things.

Animals are not "raw materials" for human use. The doctrine of Creation does not allow us unrestrained use of animals for human purposes. Animals can be used by humans in relationships that benefit and enhance both species.

In a world where the seen natural order reveals all kinds of species living off other species it can be difficult to be morally certain about this. But there should be a "moral norm", based on Creation theology, that any unavoidable injury, abuse, deprivation and suffering caused to animals is morally wrong.

As part of God’s Creation animals have value. To misuse them devalues Creation. Animals belong to God.

2) Animals are not instrumental to humans

Animals do not constitute a means to a human end – however good that end may seem. Animals are not laboratory tools. Creation cannot be seen in humanocentric terms and humans cannot assume that their purposes are the same as God’s purposes – humans cannot take their own needs as always absolute and primary.

We do not know the exact significance of all animal life and we do not know the significance of the results of our actions in the long-term.

The use of animals for experimentation is a moral dilemma for Christians. Some experimentation on animals may be justified – but how can the enormous abuse of animals in this area be evaluated. There is a difference between:

…the use of animals sometimes prompted by necessity and the subjugation of animals on a huge scale on the assumption that they can be used solely for human ends  

We should acknowledge the amount of learning achieved by using animals in experiments but we also need to counter this with the need to know ourselves in a moral and spiritual way too. Knowing ourselves, directed by Christian theology, would question the use of animals in science, and would acknowledge, too, that utilitarian scientific dominance of nature can do little to nurture the things that make life valuable – love, friendship, strength, dexterity, imagination.

3) Animals are not to be sacrificed for humans

Animals cannot be seen as items that can be traded for human benefit. Sacrifice is, in any case, an offering to God and not to man – and in a Christian sense sacrifice is something that is freely given and offered as love not blood. In animal experiments animals are "sacrificed" to human ends.

The Helsinki Agreements of the World Medical Assembly in 1964 and 1975 laid down strict (and proper) rules in respect of medical experiments on humans whereby experiments on all but truly voluntary subjects (people) are prohibited.

There are no theological grounds for not including animals in the Agreement and this principle needs to be enshrined in law for both humans and animals. Because animals cannot voluntarily agree, neither can they have the choice - which is an essential stipulation of the Agreement. The moral responsibility is taken on by any human who consents to be part of an experiment but, says Tom Regan, the moral responsibility can not be taken on by a subject who can not consent to being experimented on - it remains with the experimenter. 

Tactically we may be reluctant to have animal experimentation prohibited by law in that imposed law is not a good way to encourage moral correctness. People will obey a law but have no real respect for the moral principle behind it. Another reason for his reluctance is that a growing number of scientists are themselves very concerned about the morality of experimenting on animals – these scientists are searching for alternatives to animal experimentation and we should have no desire to attack them.

Christians have for too long been restrained by a theology that has distorted views of nature by putting humans in a unique and exalted position within nature – just as they were once restrained by views that placed Europeans above other people. Theology grew in vision and heart by its slow progress with historical issues such as slavery. Perhaps the theology of our own age will be convicted of myopia if it does not spend serious reflection upon the new kind of reverence for nature that is appearing among us.

Hunting as the Anti-Gospel of Predation

We have discussed the use of animals for human medical purposes. We shall now turn our attention to the use of animals for human enjoyment or sport.

Is there a "decisive" theological argument against hunting?

It could be argued by Christian hunters that he death of the hunted animal as a glorious beginning for it – if life is eternal for humans then why not for animals who never sinned against the nature God gave them? .It is true that the belief that death is not the end has not ever stopped Christians valuing and fighting for human life in hundreds of ways. Murder has always been considered wrong.

But the same attitude has not been generally applied to animal life.

The Christian hunter would say that killing for pleasure only and not making use the product is a wanton sin – wasting God’s Creation. But using the killed animal for meat is not a sinful activity. We should agree that the sport or enjoyment of killing animals is rightly to be called a sin because humans do not need the sport for life purposes. But  neither do we need the meat for life purposes and therefore killing for meat unnecessarily is a sin too: The unnecessary act of hunting is an offence to God.

The Christian pro-hunter might reply to this with the assertion that the Biblical "Thou shalt not kill" refers to humans not animals, which in strict context, is true. But there are other parts of the Bible (Old Testament) where it clearly seems to say that God’s original intention was that humans would not eat meat.

Jesus our Predator

A Christian hunter might continue the argument with the belief that creatures are provided by God for our tables. Animals are for human consumption as part of God’s intention. This is a return to the humanocentric idea of Creation.

It is how Christian theology has been allowed to support this view that we need to question.

To eat and finally to be eaten are part of the blessing of God

This is just part of the quotation from Richard Cartwright Austin, a modern "eco-theologians" – that is, a theologian who are addressing contemporary global issues in ways that theologians haven’t done before. He sees the way to spirituality in nature, but also seems to accept that eating other creatures is part of nature. He holds that it is a law of the Universe that we all eat and get eaten. 

What should concern us about eco-theology is not that it is doing what many have always done, in assuming the human perception of nature to be God’s Will. It is not, even, that it is neglecting an important theological and moral issue, which is part of the general ecological concern. It is, rather, that it seems to be insisting that "good" theology will conform itself to the (human perception of the) ‘laws’ of nature.

The idea that God actually ordains and wills a "self-murdering system of survival" – a kill-and- eat-others to survive system of nature would mean nothing less than:

God’s Will is death

In response to this view of "eat and be eaten" there are two things to say. Firstly it is not totally true that all of nature reveals a self-murdering system of survival – there is plenty of evidence of co-operation between elements of nature and even altruism between species – and secondly, if it were true that God ordained such a system the Gospel would be very different.

• Different to the extent that Jesus would be shown to be eating not just fish but to be the butcher par excellence. Instead of driving out the sacrificial animals from the Temple Jesus would be driving them in!
  ( John Ch.2:13-16).

• Jesus would not be saying "I am the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep", but "I am the Good Shepherd who slaughters his sheep…"

• Instead of healing the sick Jesus and raising Lazarus from the dead Jesus would endorse the idea of the survival-of-the-fittest and teach that death was a blessing!

These biblical rewrites are to some extent flippant but it is good to have a few biblical examples that point to the essence of Jesus’ teaching and that illustrate that the general sense of Jesus’ teaching is miles away from any notions of "Eat and be eaten".

However it is also true that these biblical examples do not give a whole and rational alternative to the "eat and be eaten" message. Nevertheless they do serve to show that this "Predator" idea of Jesus is totally incompatible with what the Bible reports about His teaching. You cannot go "Hunting with Jesus"!

The Sacrifice for All

But Matthew Fox, another eco-theologian says that "even the divine (Jesus) gets eaten" and uses the eucharist as an example of the "vindication of predation".

• The eucharist is the Christian sacrament of eating the body and drinking the blood of Jesus (in the form of bread and wine) which is a central part of Christian worship called Mass or Holy Communion by various Christians. Most Christians would say that the eucharist is a symbolic or metaphorical way of taking Jesus into their lives – or give it a more mystical significance. Few would see it as related to the laws of nature.

Fox’s mistake is his failing to see that divinity (Jesus) allowed itself to be eaten and his failure to distinguish between being prepared to be sacrificed and "being murdered":

Humans may choose to sacrifice themselves – the sacrifice of animals is always murder

The sacrifice of Christ frees Christians from the old ways of nature and opens the door to new possibilities. It is not an invitation or endorsement of sacrifice (of others) but is an invitation to self-sacrifice and service for the sake of all of Creation.

Deliverance from Bondage

Bondage, in a Biblical sense, is to be enslaved to sin or the "old order". As we have said before there is a consistent theme, especially in the teaching of Jesus, that Creation is unfinished and ongoing. Christians have many facets of worship and prayer which look to the future for the completion of God’s Will – not least fuelled by Jesus’ specific teaching of the coming Kingdom of God. The teaching of Jesus and His life challenges, if not contradicts the old order. 

To be engaged in wanton killing is clearly at odds with the general spirit of Jesus’ teaching. In the words of Edward Carpenter killing in this way is to:

…to fall back into that bondage, into that predatory system of nature from which the Christian hope has always been that not only humanity but the natural order itself is to be released and redeemed.

That the apparent nature of the world seems to have killing for survival embedded in it will always pose a problem for Christians, but it must be remembered that this "predatory system of nature" is the old order, to which Christ brings the hope of a new creation or continued fulfilment of the original Creation.

By hunting humans ratify and endorse the old order, not only by the activity itself, but by also by the training of selected animals (hunting dogs, horses, for example) to be more efficient in sustaining the old predatory way of nature.

Hunters do not just imitate the cruelties of nature: they create them.

Vegetarianism as the Biblical Ideal

Vegetarianism has the strongest Biblical support of any animal theology issue. The Biblical basis for vegetarianism can be drawn from the Old Testament and deals with the problem that Jesus is not shown to be a vegetarian in the New Testament.

The Old Testament discussion revolves around two passages:

1. Genesis Ch.1:29-30, where it seems to clearly say that God did not intend humans to eat other creatures but, rather, the "seed" and the "fruit" of plants.
2. Genesis Ch.9:1-4, where Genesis Ch.1 seems to be contradicted and God allows Noah and his family to eat "every moving thing that lives"

Both vegetarians and non-vegetarians could use the appropriate passage in arguments for their cause. Is this a contradiction that cannot be resolved – is it an illustration of why individual Biblical passages cannot easily be used to promote or counter arguments?

The first thing to note is that neither of these passages were written by members of vegetarian cultures. So, how did non-vegetarian writers come to imagine a time when humans were, or should have been, vegetarians?

Genesis Ch1 and 2 describe a perfect Creation – a belief about how things were before things went wrong (the fall). It contains no hint of violence and God’s instruction to humans to be vegetarian comes after the instruction to humans to "dominate" Creation.

The question we must answer is how the change of attitude set out in Genesis Ch.9 came about. This also requires us to know the stories (from Genesis) of the fall of "man" and of Noah’s Ark. After God had set up Creation, in a perfect state, the stories of Adam and Eve, Cain and Able, and Noah’s Ark all reveal how human corruption and wickedness soon destroy any sense of perfection:

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence …… I am sorry that I made them (people), (says God) (Genesis Ch.6:7)

It is specifically said that it is because of the violence in humans that God decides to rid the world of human flesh by causing of the flood (Gen.6:14):

I am going to put an end to all people; for the earth is filled with violence because of them  

Ambiguous Permission

God would rather not have people at all than have violent people. A strange context to be followed up with Genesis Ch.9’s apparent permission to kill and eat "everything that moves".

However it is this statement that has, for many Christians, sanctioned the use of animals for food and put an end to any discussion of the matter. Meat eating has become the norm.

Note however the verse that follows Genesis 9:4 which seems to have been overlooked by many Christians. Immediately following the permission to eat everything "that moves" come the words:

Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is its blood. For your lifeblood I shall require a reckoning: of every beast I will require it, and of man.

These words at least make it clear that God does not grant a free licence to kill and eat flesh – there will be a "reckoning" for all the blood shed of every living thing.

It is also clear that nobody should read Genesis 9:1-3 without also reading verse 4.

But what does this actually mean? Many modern scholars would agree with the following explanation.

God in Genesis Ch.9 gives a conditional permission for people to eat flesh but only, it seems, as a concession to the state that people, being wicked, had fallen into. The killing of any living creature will require justification to God since all living things belong to God: "for every life you kill you are accountable to God". The words of Genesis Ch.9:4 therefore seem to allow for the state into which "man" has fallen – they seem to be an adaption for the context of the situation of a fallen world rather than a perfect world.

Understood in this way Genesis 9:1-4 does not replace the higher ideal of the perfect world of Genesis 1.

• We might also appreciate that the words are spoken to Noah and his family at a time when the world had been devastated by the flood, and their continued survival might depend on animal sources of food.

This interpretation is supported in this interpretation of Genesis 9 by the Union of Progressive and Liberal Synagogues. Remember that these verses hold as much importance for modern Jews as they do for Christians.

A statement by the Union concludes that:

Only after The Flood was human consumption of animals permitted and that was later understood to be a concession to both human weakness and the scarcity of edible vegetation

The question of whether God intended humans to eat animals revolves around the situation that humanity placed itself in following the original setting up of the Creation. Eating animal flesh evolved from the fall of humanity from the original perfect state. In order to reinforce this view let us go to further sections of the Old Testament.

From humanity’s fallen state the Old Testament writers, especially the prophets, looked forward to a time when things would be different. They wrote about the coming of The Messiah who would restore the Creation to God’s intended state before the Fall and the Flood – they looked forward to the coming of the Messianic Age.

Isaiah Ch.11:1-6 paints an idyllic picture, but it is a picture of how the writer thought (believed) things ought to be – how they were once, before the Fall, and they will be restored one day.

Notice that, not only are relationships between hostile species and humans transformed, but also relationships between different species:

…the leopard shall lie down with the kid (as in goat)…the weaned child
shall put his hand on the adder’s den…

A similar picture is given in the book of Hosea where God gives the additional promise of a time without violence of any kind:

And I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; and I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land; and I will make you lie down in safety. (God speaking in Hosea Ch.2:18)

There is, therefore, a clear Biblical implication that the world, as it is, is not as God intended it, and that human hope should be focused on some point in the future when Creation will be transformed to its original state.

That transformation would clearly seem to involve a transformation of the relationship between humans and other species – it demands vegetarianism. 

Living without Violence

Read in this way the Bible does have an "internal integrity", and a part to play in the current debate about animal rights and vegetarianism. In the light of this there are three ethical challenges to deal with:

1. The first thing to note is that the Bible reinforces the gravity or seriousness of killing animals. We may live in a society where the majority take the breeding and killing of animals for food to be the norm. The Bible does not. There is no support in Genesis for the way animals are generally treated in our society. The theologian Karl Barth reinforces the sense of gravity that Christians (at least) should have in respect of killing animals when he speaks of the suffering of animals as "the perversion" for which the guilt lies "ultimately within man himself". (Remember that Barth is not a particularly animal rights minded writer).
2. The second is that there is no Biblical "warrant" for claiming that killing is God’s will. Where killing is sanctioned it is on the understanding that the killer will have to account for the action before God (Gen.9:4). Barth who, although sceptical about the vision of Isaiah Ch.11, cannot claim that the Bible suggests that killing is God’s will. The (Jewish) Talmudic scholar Abraham Kook has described the Jewish food laws from the Old Testament (Torah) and the Talmud as ways of regulating the consumption of meat in preparation for the Messianic Age – the coming time of "universal Justice and peace".
3. The third point is that those who wish to adopt a vegetarian life-style are supported by the Bible. Although there is, perhaps, no crystal clear Biblical pronouncement about being vegetarian there is enough to say that eating meat is not desirable or necessary to human life. The vegetarian argument cannot rest on the basis that killing for meat has always been totally wrong, but it can argue that killing for meat has always been a "grave" issue, and, to not kill for meat is more in keeping with God’s intention. The Bible is written from the "perspective" of the world as not being an ideal place to live. Even if we are strict vegetarians we may share the guilt for the destruction of the animals who would have been competing for our crops.

The Prince of Peace

The major objection to a pro-vegetarian Christian argument, as we have said before, is that Jesus was not a vegetarian – or rather it cannot be assumed or proved that he was a vegetarian.

There are four possible answers to this problem.

1. The first is the possibility that Jesus actually was a vegetarian. Two things might support this. The fish that Jesus is recorded as eating (he is nowhere recorded as actually eating meat) belong to an episode that is symbolic or metaphorical. The fish can be understood as representing people, or the countries, of the then-known world, and the whole incident is really about Jesus commanding his disciples to go out into the world to evangelise and make converts (John Ch.21). The second reason for supposing that Jesus may have been a vegetarian is the possibility that he was a member of the Jewish ascetic group the Essenes who were strict vegetarians. Jesus is reported as such in some of the apocryphal Gospels that were not included in the New Testament. 
2. The second possibility is that, as a totally human Incarnation, Jesus was not, and could not be, perfect in every way. This would allow Jesus to not be vegetarian but still imply that being vegetarian was God’s intention for humans. Many Christians would have problems with this idea since they do see Jesus as both "Son of God" and the perfect human. However there are biblical instances of Jesus himself implying that he was not perfect e.g. Luke Ch.8:19 
3. The third possibility – if we allow that Jesus only did ever eat meat in the form of fish - is that fish can be seen as less "morally significant" than mammals – fish may not possess the sentiency of "higher" animals.
4. The fourth possible answer is Approximating the Peaceable Kingdom

Approximating the Peaceable Kingdom

It is that, sometimes, it may be justifiable to kill fish for protein in order to remain alive – in special circumstances. This would at least accord with the biblical scripture of Genesis 9 discussed earlier in Chapter 8.

But even if killing for food at times of real need is acceptable to God, the killing that goes on in contemporary society cannot be justified in this way – we have both the economic and moral freedom to live without the mass slaughter of animals – to live without violence.

Although the scarcity of biblical material in respect of Jesus and vegetarianism might be a disappointment for animal rights supporters there are other aspects of the life of Jesus which present Jesus in significant proximity to animals:

• His birth, traditionally, happens in the stable of sheep and oxen

• In Mark’s Gospel Jesus begins his work with the "wild beasts" Mark Ch.1:13

• Jesus arranges for a donkey to ride into Jerusalem. Matthew 21:6

And perhaps more significantly:

• In a discussion about what can be done on the Sabbath, according to the biblical Sabbath Law, Jesus says that doing good, such as rescuing an animal, is permissible work (A controversial statement). Matthew 12:10-12

Theologian Richard Bauckham has pointed out the significance of Mark 1:13. Jesus beginning his work with in the wilderness with the "wild beasts" may be seen as an illustration of Jesus conforming to Isaiah’s Messianic vision  of the "reconciliation between nature and humanity" . If Jesus is believed to be the instigator of the Messianic Age should not those who follow Him be attempting to help realise the vision described in Isaiah?

Although a always a minority, some notable Christians in history have concluded the vegetarianism is a biblical demand.

For instance the order of monks founded by St.Benedict were not allowed to eat meat except at times of extreme weakness and illness which can be seen as conforming to Genesis 9.

William Cowherd, a Church of England priest who founded the Bible Christian Church in 1809, made vegetarianism a rule of his church and is accredited with being the "herald" of modern vegetarianism.

The "astonishing" growth in vegetarianism in western societies since the 1970s may be due to a number of factors.

The "rediscovery" of the two verses of Genesis 1:29-30 should be the reason for all Christians to revise their dietary thinking in terms of the Will of the Creator and the re-establishment of Creation to its original state.

Genetic Engineering as Animal Slavery

Christians should "reject absolutely" that animals can be modified genetically in order to produce meat more effectively. To do this is nothing less than the equivalent to legalised human slavery. The genetic modification of animals is beyond:

the absolute limit of what any reputable creation theology can tolerate

Animal Revolution

George Orwell’s book Animal Farm is the allegorical story of the communist revolutions (specifically the Russian revolution) of the twentieth century told in the form of farm animals rebelling against their tyrannical farmer. In the book there is a speech by Old Major the statesman like pig who rallies the animals to revolution against the humans at the beginning of the story. This speech summarises the state of the animals and their lifestyle under the rule of the human farmer Jones – Jones is a farmer who treats his animals dreadfully. In Animal Farm this speech is a satire of how dictatorial human rulers treat their people but we can also think of it as though it actually does refer to animals on a farm:

Man is the only creature that consumes without producing. He does not give milk, does not lay eggs,  he is too weak to pull the plough…yet he is lord of all animals. He sets them to work, he gives  back to them a bare minimum that will prevent them from starving.

When Old Major asks, "What is the nature of this life of ours?" he is raising the issue discussed above: are animals simply a part of a "natural" order of Creation that places them as subservient to humans, and existing solely for human use?

Aristotle the classical Greek philosopher, who you will remember influenced Thomas Aquinas, reasoned that he knew animals were naturally subservient to man because they did not refuse to be used by humans. Animals with no power of reasoning and thought that would enable them to refuse were therefore only fit for human use.

Aristotle used the same reasoning to explain and justify why it was natural for some people to be slaves  – those people with very limited powers of thought and reason. Note that for Aristotle women stood somewhere between the two assumptions of belonging to and existing to serve men. For animals and slaves these two assumptions were their only purpose for being.

Belonging To and Existing For

We can recognise Aristotle’s notions of lesser creatures belonging to and existing for humans in the writings of Aquinas where they are also used in respect of animals, slaves and, to an extent, women:

In a secondary sense the image of God is found in man, and not in women, for man is the beginning and end of woman (Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica)

To dismiss Aristotle and Aquinas as being anti-human rights (in a modern sense), as well as animal rights, is of course too simplistic. Aristotle, and some Christian writers up to the nineteenth century, actually believed that slavery was an essential part of progress and evolution – slavery was a step forward in the rescue of primitive people from their primitive state. Similarly it was argued by Aristotle that domesticated (or slave) animals were:

better off to be ruled by men because it secures their safety  

In respect of human slavery it was the more familiar arguments that won the day in early nineteenth century Europe (remembering of course that slavery is not entirely wiped out in the twenty-first century). The great names in the fight against human slavery in early nineteenth century England, Wilberforce and Shaftesbury, were determined that no people had the right to own other people, that people were not property to be bought and sold, and that God does not sanction people’s domination of other people. (Shaftesbury, you should remember, also wrote about duty to animals)

In fact the same anti-slavery argument had been used as early as the fifth century by St.Gregory of Nyssa, but with an addition that might seem inevitable: while God did not give "man" domination over other people, He did give man dominion over animals - making it reasonable to enslave them.

Once again we see that the issue is polarised on the interpretation of those key words in the Book of Genesis in the Bible.

To summarise so far: historically the arguments for animal slavery were the same as those that justified human slavery:

Animals like primitive humans had no reason (rational thought)

It was as nature intended

Slavery was progressive

Slavery was a benefit to those enslaved

In other words - Animals belong to humans: they exist to serve humans.

Genetic Engineering is the epitome of this attitude. It is the ultimate expression of the use of animals on the pretexts of belonging to and existing for.

Humans have always used animals, have always assumed ownership and have invariably treated animals cruelly. What is new about genetic engineering is that we are now employing the technological means of absolutely subjugating the nature of animals so that they become totally and completely human property. So much so that:

 new animals ought to be patentable, for the same reason that new robots are patentable.
Prof.Roger Schank of Yale University

Animals can be modified, created, used and discarded – this is the ultimate manifestation of human domination.

Aristotle envisaged the same kind of progression in terms of human slavery and surmised that "tools" (slaves) would one day need no orders or controllers and would work automatically. Biotechnology has turned the ancient dream into a present nightmare..

Patenting and Creation Doctrine

The first European patented animal was the 1992 "oncomouse" – a mouse developed in Germany for the purpose of cancer research (onco = oncology).

Such a step makes the animal a human invention and is a direct contravention of the God given duty for humans to look after the creatures of God’s Creation. No animal patents should ever be given.

The granting of a patent signifies legal ownership – the subject of a patent denotes a thing or an object. A patent on an animal marks the lowest point that is possible to achieve in demoting the status of God’s creatures.

The discussion of Christian Incarnation and reconciliation doctrine in preceding chapters should render it unnecessary to outline again why God’s Creation cannot be treated in this way. Human estimations of our worth cannot be the basis for evaluating the worth (or worthlessness) of other species.

Notice again that this is not a totally simple argument of "Thou shalt not interfere with God’s Creation". If Creation is fallen it is, by definition, nor perfect and therefore there must be some scope for the human improvement of Creation. The whole ecological debate involving conservation and improvement of land – and human attempts to restore bio-diversity - falls into this area of debate. But the idea of improving nature must hold some very serious considerations and restrictions.

God’s commissioning of the human species in Genesis to be caretakers, or stewards, of Creation can be supposed to mean caretakers for the good of Creation and not for human self-interest.

It should also be evident that any human alteration and "improvement" of nature should be demonstrably for the good of all Creation and not for human self-interest.

This means that the central question in this argument is whether the created state of animals can be improved by genetic engineering. The first answer to this is obviously not, if, as in the case of the oncomouse, the purpose is to use the animal to grow, and experiment upon, human disease.

The artificial creation of disease in a creature can hardly be compatible with a loving and compassionate Creator God – and the granting of a patent also allows the "owners" to profit financially from the action.

Nor is the oncomouse example compatible with traditional moral theology, which has always held that cruelty must be opposed. If there could be any justification for this genetically engineered mouse it would have to shown to be essential to something, to be for some higher good, and to be a way to achieve an end that was impossible to achieve in any other way. Animals can never consent to, or understand the purpose of, any scientific experiments made upon them and, where the justification for the infliction of pain is in question, animals are on a par with babies and mentally handicapped people.

The very reason that animals are used in this way – that they are lesser beings – and that they are weak and defenceless, is exactly the reason, according to Christian doctrine, why they should not be treated in this way.

You can probably hear some people saying: "Wait a minute - this is only a mouse we are talking about." Many people, probably a majority of people including Christians, would place more value on a person than on a mouse. There are three points to make about such a comment:

1. Genetic engineers have been careful, so far, to select and use animals that would cause a minimum of public concern and anxiety.
2. There can be no moral reason for valuing a mouse less than any other sentient creature – mice are mammals, warm-blooded and intelligent.
3. The oncomouse represents a "test case" – once patented and accepted what will come next? The oncocow? The oncomonkey?

However Christian doctrine towards Creation has been implemented in the past (or "unimplimented") it is important to take it seriously now. The patenting of genetically engineered animals represents a victory for short-term utilitarianism against the constraints of Christian theology and we stand on the brink of a new relationship with animals when humans will become dealers in commodities rather than custodians of fellow creatures.

The Discredited Theology of Genetic Engineering

One of reasons why humans and, in particular, the Christian tradition have propagated the use of animals with the principles of "belonging to" and “existing for" is that these principles have matched the traditional views of what God is like. A God who is pictured as vengeful and tyrannical, all-powerful and expects humans to be the same – a God who gives humans domination over all Creation, and for whom other aspects of Creation are less important unless they happen to be the "property" of humans.

This is generally speaking a God of the Old Testament, a God without Jesus, and a God that has been misinterpreted anyway. It is a view of God that is now declining, for two reasons. Firstly growing numbers of Christians do not really believe in a God like this anymore, and secondly, very few modern theologians would now agree that this picture is correct and that it relies on a misunderstanding of scripture, and of what the word "dominion" in Genesis actually means.

"Dominion" is now seen as the responsibility to look after and care for Creation.

You can see how this shift of understanding has taken hold of current Christianity by this quotation from Robert Runcey the then Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England. Here is one key line a lecture given by Runcey in 1988:

…our concept (undeerstanding) of God forbids the idea of a cheap creation, of a throwaway universe in which everything is expendable save human existence. The whole universe is a work of love.

Like all of Creation animals exist through the love of God for God. Humans cannot claim ownership and exclusive use of animals.

Genetic engineering implies and claims human ownership of animals and is therefore idolatrous – it implies claims that humans are equal to God.

Four Objections

Let us now work through the expected objections to what has just been said.

1. Animals have always been "slaves" and used by humans. To expect a change in this is absurd.
2. The record of Christianity in respect of animals has been terrible. You cannot expect theological argument to suddenly make any difference.
3. Genetic engineers are good, well-meaning people – they are caught in a moral dilemma like most other people in their various professions. Why pick on them?
4. In respect of the analogy of slavery it should be said that animals are only animals and not human. Use of animals and human slavery to do match or equate.

To the first of these objections we should be quite clear that we want a "roots and branches" cultural change based on the assertion that humans do not own animals. Christians may disagree about details of the use of animals, but that animals are not human property is not open to discussion. Genetic engineering marks the "lowest" point in animal abuse for this reason – or, put another way, it marks the "highest" example of human claims to animal ownership.

The answer to the second objection is that two hundred years ago some Christians were calling for an end to human slavery while others were using Christian doctrine to defend slavery – they said that slavery would never end, but it did. Christianity was at one time an "agent of slavery" but it became a force for the liberation of slaves. Let us hope that the same can happen in respect of the treatment of animals. In a hundred years from now!

To the third objection it is possible to show some sympathy – we should have no desire to "vilify" genetic engineers. But we must argue with the utilitarian and (strictly) humanist principle of the predominance of the quest for human self-interest. The danger of the attitude that encourages genetic engineering on animals is that it is part of a sequence of events whereby all morality could be "bargained" away.

The fourth objection – you cannot equate treatment of animals with human slavery - implies and promotes a clear distinction between humans and other species. But ironically genetic engineers themselves have helped to blur this distinction. One genetic engineer when faced with opposition from protest and church groups claimed that he did not know what was meant by "species integrity". In other words he did not see the distinction between species that is supposed to justify genetic engineering on animals. When he went on to say that:

Much of all genetic material is the same from worms to humans

He was adding further fuel to the argument that there is, morally, no distinction between species that renders humans superior.

And this leads to another perhaps more sinister question: If we accept genetic experiments on animals, and genetically there is no distinction between animals and humans, what is there to stop experiments on humans?

In fact we already know that experiments on humans have taken place, and many of us would perhaps immediately think of Hitler, death camps and medical experiments on Jews. But in 1918 a book was published called Evolution in Christian Ethics, by a Christian Percy Gardner, arguing in favour of the selective breeding of humans.

Eugenics and Genetic Engineering

It was fifteen years after Gardner that Hitler wrote more forcefully about the need to

select and ensure that only the fittest humans were allowed to breed in order to ensure that the perfect race was not infected with disease or deficiency .

• Eugenics is the "science" of racial superiority. Eugenics would claim, as Hitler did, that one race was superior to another – in his case white "Aryan" Germans over everybody else, but particularly Jews.

Using Hitler as an example may be counter- productive since it is an extreme and unusual example. But the notions of a superior race and creating a "superior animal" are not totally unconnected.

We should be alarmed that people have failed to recognise that animal experiments are often the precursor of human experiments. The twentieth century saw a massive growth in the use of animals for experimentation and the abuse of human subjects too.

C.S.Lewis points out that if we dispense with the "old Christian idea" that animals and humans are quite different then arguments for scientific research on animals are equally valid for scientific experiments on humans. This illustrates just how the argument against the differentiation of species could backfire in the wrong hands.

C.S.Lewis was writing after the Second World War and with knowledge of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis. Lewis Caroll, the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland wrote in the previous century about the logical steps to follow from animal vivisection. His concerns are graphically the same however.

The genetic mutations of animals is not an isolated moral problem, but part of the profound theological question about how humans see themselves in Creation. Can we acknowledge moral restrictions to our awesome power, not only over animals
but also over our own species?  

For Old Major in Orwell’s Animal Farm there is only one solution to the misery and slavery of animals – get rid of humans.

We can agree with Old Major in the context of Romans Ch.6:6 from the New Testament. Here Paul writes that "our old self" has to die with Christ in order to be freed from sin.

It is quite clear that the way in which humans have separated themselves from nature - from God’s Creation and all that it contains - in order to abuse it, and all that is within it, for their own self-interest is sin.

Only when the "old humans" have died with Christ, when we have surrendered our idolatrous power, which is nothing short of tyranny shall we be worthy to have the moral dominion over all which God intended for us.

Further Reading

Many of the arguments in this article come from Andrew Linzey's book Animal Theology, University of Illinois Press; ISBN: 0252064674. This is the best place to read further.

Beyond this, the following books are also useful.

Linzey, Andrew and Regan, Tom (Eds.) Animals and Christianity, SPCK, UK 1989.

Linzey, Andrew and Yamamoto, Dorothy (Eds.) Animals on the Agenda, SCM, UK 1998.

Political Theory and Animal Rights (ed. with Paul Clarke) Pluto Press 1991.
Readings from over thirty philosophers demonstrating strands of thinking about the place of animals in society.

Animal Gospel, Hodder and Stoughton, 1998
A more personal account of how the Christian faith has drawn Andrew Linzey into his animal theology work – described as "personal" and "inspirational". Maybe a good place for students to start.

Animal Rites, SCM, 1999
A specialised book offering liturgies, or services, about animals to be used in churches etc. Many churches already hold animal (or pet) blessing services and this book gives ideas for prayers etc. The back cover note begins with: "Christians believe that the Logos is the source of all life, yet Christian worship remains unashamedly humanocentric.