Of Christ and Creatures: Animals in Christian Theology

Of Christ and Creatures: Animals in Christian Theology

This workshop brings together theologians and philosophers to think about the relationship between animals and Christianity. How does Christianity conceive of our relationship to animals. Should we reconceptualize these ideas in the light of ecological destruction and climate change, and mass factory farming? We'll focus on topics such as

• why do animals suffer? 
• are there/will there be animals in Heaven?
• could, under a Christian conception, God incarnate into a non-human form? 
• how should we think of the concept of dominion? Are we justified in treating animals as mere instruments, to use as we see fit? 

The workshop is aimed at a broad audience of not only philosophers and theologians, but also pastors, interested laypeople of all religious beliefs and none, and anyone else who wants to think about animals and its relationship to Christian theology.   The second day will end with a panel discussion where members of the audience can ask (in advance, at the time if time permits) questions to our panel of speakers and experts.    Please submit your questions here:

https://forms.gle/vmqVrzRgj5CUfLUm9  

Program [all times are Central Time Zone, please convert accordingly]

November 10

9:30-10:30 AM Allison Covey, What about Dominion?  

Break

10:40 -11:40 AM Bethany Sollereder, Theological Explanations of Animal Suffering

11:40 – 1 PM Noon (or other longer) break

1:00 - 2:00 PM A.G. Holdier, Faith in Non-Humanity

Break 

2:10 - 3:10 PM Blake Hereth, Why God Became (Only?) Human

November 11

9:30 - 10:30 AM John Schneider, Animal Suffering and the Messianic Artistry of God  

Break

10:45 - 12 noon Panel discussion with audience questions

Program abstracts:

What about Dominion? The Image of God and the Ethical Treatment of Other Animals

Allison Covey, Villanova University

The Creation stories of Genesis tell us that God made human beings in God’s own image and likeness, giving us dominion over the fish of the sea, and the fowl of the air, the cattle, and every creeping thing. This Biblical dominion has historically been used to justify humanity’s instrumental use of other animals, taken as divine permission to treat other species as mere means to human ends. This talk questions whether such an anthropocentric reading of the text is the only plausible option and asks what difference it makes if we understand humanity’s dominion instead as a reflection of God’s own. What might it mean for our human relationship with other animals if we were to see ourselves as the image and likeness of a benevolent, compassionate God, one who reigns with mercy and love?

Theological Explanations of Animal Suffering

Bethany Sollereder, University of Edinburgh

Abstract: This talk will look at how Christian theologians have tried to explain the painful and violent reality of animal suffering in the creation of a good God. A particular focus will be on animal suffering before humans evolved, thus excluding the explanations relying on the Fall or explanations of human greed and exploitation destroying nature.

Faith in Non-Humanity

A.G. Holdier, University of Arkansas

The concept of service found in Christian theism and related religious perspectives offers robust support for a political defense of nonhuman animal rights, both in the eschaton and in the present state. Previously, I have defended a picture of heaven as a harmoniously structured society where humans are the functional leaders of a multifaceted, interspecies citizenry. In follow-up work, I am now considering more carefully how orthodox religious believers (concerned with promoting God’s will “on Earth as it is in Heaven”) have a duty to promote and protect the interests of nonhuman creatures in the present, premortem state. Specifically, I focus on norms of faithfulness to one's fellows to explore various ways humans wrong our non-human neighbors.

Why God Became (Only?) Human

Blake Hereth, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Christians believe God incarnated as a human being. Less discussed, however, is whether God has ever incarnated as a nonhuman being. In this talk, I offer two arguments for the conclusion that God would incarnate as a nonhuman animal. First, as I've argued previously (Hereth 2019), a morally perfect God would become incarnate in ways that express solidarity with all suffering and oppressed creatures, including nonhuman animals. Second, because a morally perfect God would oppose not only speciesism but also the appearance of speciesism, God would therefore either avoid incarnating altogether or avoid incarnating only as a privileged species.

Animal Suffering and the Messianic Artistry of God

John Schneider, Emeritus at Calvin University

The Darwinian problem of animal pain in nature poses a serious challenge to Christian faith. In modern times, we have learned that unimaginably great amounts and kinds of animal pain occurred in nature during an epochal pre-human planetary past, while animal pain remains remarkably pervasive in nature now. Further, prevailing Darwinian theory states that this configuration of “nature red in tooth and claw” is inherent in the very processes that created species in the first place and is inscribed into the design of existence for animals. The Darwinian problem is the difficulty of seeing how the natural world, so unveiled, could be the designed creation of the omnipotent, morally perfect Christian God.

In this paper, I give a brief survey of the solutions offered by leading Christian thinkers. I suggest that some are more successful than others, but none dispels need for a still better Christian explanation.

So, finally, I offer a fresh alternative to the fundamental conceptual and moral framework that these thinkers commonly employ. A basic shift from their stringently ethical picture of God to an analogy of God as Artist opens avenues to improved Christian explanation.