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A Sermon by
Donel McClellan
A Sermon by
Donel McClellan
June 24,
2001
Scripture Lesson: Selected
Passages
Genesis 1:20-25
20
And God said, “Let the
waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the
earth across the dome of the sky.” 21 So God created the great sea
monsters and every living creature that moves, of every kind, with which the
waters swarm, and every winged bird of every kind. And God saw that it was
good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply and
fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23
And there was evening and there was morning, the fifth day.
24
And God said, “Let the
earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things
and wild animals of the earth of every kind.” And it was so. 25 God
made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every
kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw
that it was good.
Genesis 9:14-17
14
When I bring clouds
over the earth and the bow is seen in the clouds, 15 I will
remember my covenant that is between me and you and every living creature of
all flesh; and the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all
flesh. 16 When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember
the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh
that is on the earth.” 17 God said to Noah, “This is the sign of
the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the
earth.”
Isaiah 11:6-9
6
The wolf shall live
with the lamb,
Matthew 6:25-26
25
“Therefore I tell you,
do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or
about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body
more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they neither
sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.
Are you not of more value than they?
I begin with a confession.
If there is such a thing
as a natural capacity to bond with animals, to feel deep and psychic
connections with them, to appreciate them in their wonderful individuality, I
do not possess it. Whether that is a serious deficit in my character I will
have to leave it to you to determine.
My wife, Marilyn, seems
somewhat amused that I have selected the subject “Do Animals Have Souls?” for
one of my Hot Topic sermons. “What’s controversial about it?” she
wondered aloud. In this attitude, Marilyn sides with the dominant
theologian of this century, Karl Barth, who
concluded that from the perspective of Christian theology, animals constituted
a marginal issue.[1]
I selected this
marginal issue precisely because it has been neglected in Christian
theology. I have witnessed animals engaged in conduct which contradicts what I
have read and learned about them. More recently I had the pleasure of talking
to two women who both told me that the most profound influence in their
spiritual journeys was made not by a human person but by an animal.
Let me begin with a little
bit of theology and then move on to more interesting things. To ask if animals
have souls assumes that humans do have souls. Further it suggests that
whatever we define as a soul may be that quality that differentiates humans
from animals.
This is the case in the
second creation story in Genesis. God creates a human being from the dust of
the earth and blows into it the divine breath. Later God forms all the other
living creatures from dust. The implication is that humans are like the other
animals in that they are formed from earth. But humans are unlike the other
animals because the human alone has the divine breath.
The Encyclopedia
Britannica defines soul this way:
“ . . . in religion and
philosophy, the immaterial aspect or essence of a human being, that which
confers individuality and humanity, often considered to be synonymous with the
mind or the self. In theology, the soul is further defined as that part of the
individual which partakes of divinity and often is considered to survive the
death of the body.
A more childlike way of
asking the question “Do Animals Have Souls?” might be “Will my dog go to
heaven when she dies?”
For most of human history
animals have been considered distinctly and dramatically different from
humans. Animals may be used for whatever purposes benefit humans. St. Thomas
Aquinas followed the Greek philosopher Aristotle in setting an instrumentalist
view in place. He wrote:[2]
“There is no sin in using
a thing for the purpose for which it is. Now the order of things is that the
imperfect are for the perfect . . . it is not unlawful if man uses plants for
the good of animals, and animals for the good of man as the philosopher
states.”
Our relationship to
animals is based upon the notion that they are wholly different from us
humans, and that they are placed in creation for our benefit. That is what I
was taught as a child. As I have grown older, I have found reason to doubt
that premise.
It all began in Yosemite.
For many years our family
spent two weeks each summer at Lake Tenaya in Yosemite National Park. Camping
by the lake we were living in the middle of a flourishing habitat for native
animals. In a sense, we shared their home for a short while each year. Each
night brown bears roamed through the campground looking for any food not
secured in cars. I once watched a bear amble into a neighbor’s campsite where
dinner preparation had been postponed too long. The bear picked up a pot of
beans cooking on the campfire and quickly made a meal of someone else’s
dinner.
Let me assure you that we
were careful to stow food in the evening and to wash our children’s faces
after the evening snack of s’mores. One night a mother bear and two cubs
moseyed into our section of the campground. There are few animals cuter than
bear cubs and few animals more dangerous that a mother bear separated from her
cubs. The mother sent the cubs scurrying up a fir tree not far from our tent,
and then she made the rounds of the camp looking for food. At one point the
cubs started down the tree and the mother returned and gave them a tongue
lashing you wouldn’t have believed. They scurried up higher and the mother
left for a time. We went inside the tent and prepared to go to sleep. Lying
there in the darkness, we heard the mother return and talk her cubs down from
the tree. The language she used was so similar to human mother-talk that
Marilyn believes that she understood every word. Suddenly it occurred to us
that this bear mother was very much like any human mother.
Another evening we walked
a half-mile to a large meadow along Tenaya Creek. It was good exercise before
bed and a peaceful place to watch the sun set. On this occasion we were
fortunate to discover two does and their fawns already in the meadow to graze,
drink, and play. The fawns chased one another over the hillocks and across the
streams, playing speed-racer just like human children. Their mothers watched
and called them back whenever they strayed too far. It was a magical moment in
a beautiful, silent glade. Suddenly the magic was broken. A large black bird
flew from a tree at the edge of the meadow squawking loudly. The dear picked
up their ears and quickly herded the fawns into the underbrush. They
disappeared in the twinkling of an eye. We stayed to watch. Within two minutes
a black bear entered the meadow from the other side. I believe we had observed
an interspecies warning system which protected vulnerable fawns from a
predator.
Perhaps it is natural for
mothers of all species to speak to their young in similar language. I was
surprised, however, to find a friendly bird warning deer of an approaching
bear. By my observation, animals appeared to be more intelligent and complex
than I had been taught to believe.
Ginger Kennell, who
graduated from Western this month, spoke of her religious journey at a women’s
luncheon in May. She caught my attention when she introduced her presentation
by saying,[3]
“This is the story of two
great teachers. These teachers spoke in a language I could understand and
taught in a way I could learn. I have known many men and women . . . who have
taught me important life lessons, inspired me to learn, and encouraged me to
question everything. These particular teachers were different because they
taught me the intricacies of love, patience and compassion. They taught me to
teach and they taught me about God. My teachers were horses.”
Ginger’s horses, Diamond
and Cameo, each died tragically and unexpectedly, but not before they had
taught her something about relationship, trust, vulnerability, and love. I
especially like stories about Diamond who was taught to overcome his fear of
humans and followed Ginger like a dog as she cleaned up the corral. When
Ginger’s attention was diverted, Diamond would playfully tip over the
wheelbarrow and undo Ginger’s hard work. Diamond and Cameo had distinctive and
clear personalities. They partook of a quality we might describe as soul.
In another recent
conversation, Dawn Prince-Hughes told me she had learned important life
lessons from 500 pound silverback gorilla named Congo. Dawn who has PhD in
interdisciplinary anthropology has an exceptional background in the study of
primates. In October her book, Songs of the Gorilla Nation, will be
published with a foreword by Jane Goodall. I asked
Dawn to talk to me further about whether animals have souls. She responded in
her thoughtful and methodical way.
Dawn began by clarifying
that one cannot know another human’s individual subjective state, much less
that of an animal. There are, however, qualities which Dawn identifies as
soulful. They include such things as:
1.
Self-awareness
2.
The ability to remember the past.
3.
The capacity to imagine a future.
4.
The capacity to project an emotional state into the future.
5.
The capacity to modify behavior to achieve a future imagined goal
6.
The ability to imagine the effects of one’s behavior on others.
Some humans do not have
all of these abilities and some animals have many of them. There are no
features all humans have and no animals have.
Dawn worked with the
primates at the Woodland Park Zoo for ten years. The primate office was
surrounded by the sleeping cages for the gorillas. Dawn became especially fond
of the mature silverback gorilla, Congo. One morning after a restless night,
she remembers coming to work very early, feeling very depressed. As she came
into the office,
Congo
watched her and then placed his shoulder between the bars of his cage and
motioned Dawn over to him. He indicated that she should put her head on his
shoulder. She did and cried while Congo made calming gorilla noises to her.
Congo stayed with her through his breakfast time, most unusual behavior. After
a half hour Dawn was feeling better and Condo went to breakfast.
When Congo died in
mid-life at age 37 of a heart attack it was a great loss to the zoo staff and
Dawn in particular. He was described as the “Gandhi of the gorilla world.”[4]
Another fascinating
subject is the recent experiment in teaching chimpanzees and gorillas American
Sign Language. Roger Fouts of Central Washington
University taught a young Chimp named Washoe to converse in ASL. He discovered
that Washoe learned language very much as did his young son. Like a child
chattering to himself, Washoe sighed to herself as she played. For instance,
she would sign QUIET to herself when she attempted to sneak into a forbidden
room. Or she would sit on her bed and talk to her dolls spread out before her.[5]
An even more remarkable
example is a lowland gorilla, Koko, who has
advanced further with language than any other non-human.
Koko has a working vocabulary of over 1000 signs, initiates the
majority of conversations with her human companions and typically constructs
statements averaging three to six words. Koko has
a tested IQ of between 70 and 95 on a human scale, where 100 is considered
"normal."
[6]
Koko
has demonstrated two remarkable abilities.
First, he once left a doll
out in his play yard when he came into the house. He signed that he wanted the
doll. He was asked where it was. He took a piece of paper and a pencil and
drew a rectangle that represented the yard, then an x on the paper. The x was
where a caretaker found the doll. Koko the gorilla
was capable of drawing a map.
On another occasion,
Koko conversed talked about death. He said: “Old
Gorillas have trouble and die. Death is a comfortable hole. Then you say
goodby.” Koko the
gorilla was cognizant of death.
Ginger Kennell concluded
her presentation by speaking of the deaths of her two horses:
Diamond was my angel in so
many ways, and what I have realized along the way is that I was also his. God
was in me as I struggled to understand him, and God was in him as he showed me
the way. God was in the process of loving him and in the pain of losing him.
God is in every connection I make whether it is with a horse or another
person. . . . Cameo was my freedom dove: my special reminder that life and
love are the greatest of miracles that can bless my life over and over again
in glorious ways. From each of these blessings, I can learn to love more
deeply in anticipation of the next.
So, do animals have souls?
After much reading and
conversation on this topic I have come to the conclusion that less separates
me from other animals than I have been taught to believe. There may be very
little difference between high functioning animals and low functioning humans.
So, by whatever criterion we use to define soul we cannot exclude some
animals without also excluding some human beings.
Therefore I have to
conclude that if all humans have souls then animals cannot be excluded from
that potentiality.
Or, as Emily Dickinson put
it so many years ago: “In the name of the bee and the butterfly and the
breeze.”
Amen.
[1].
Karl Barth, Church
Dogmatics, III/4.333 cited by Andrew Linzey, animals,
The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought by Adrian Hastings (Editor),
Alistair Mason (Editor), Hugh Pyper (Editor),
p.22
[2].
I. Q. 64 a. i, Cited by Linzey, p. 22
[3].
Ginger Kennell speaking to a Women’s Luncheon at the First Congregational
Church of Bellingham, May 3, 2001
[4].
From a conversation with Dr. Dawn Prince-Hughes, Research Associate, Western
Washington University, June 18, 2001
[5].
Roger Foputs, Next of Kin: My Conversations
With Chimpanzees, Avon Books 1997, p. 72 |