Animals
Animals have souls, but humans have spirits -- that is, spiritual souls. We are human animals. Personal beasts, a fascinating intersection from both Heaven and Earth.
The Paradoxical Being
- G.K. Chesterton: Man is always something worse or something better than an animal; and a mere argument from animal perfection never touches him at all. Thus, in sex no animal is either chivalrous or obscene. And thus no animal invented anything so bad as drunkenness— or so good as drink.
- Pascal: Mind finds himself suspended between the poles of infinity and nothingness having the body of a beast and the mind of an angel. Man is acutely aware of his condition as he experiences the threat of nothingness. Man is caught in the paradox of being at the same time homo grandeur and homo misere. Man’s grandeur lies in his ability to contemplate his own existence. But this grandeur is at the same time misery for man can contemplate a better existence than he presently enjoys. Yet he is never able to actualize the possibilities he contemplates.
- Albert Schweitzer: Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
- A person who is going to commit an inhuman act invariably excuses himself by saying “I'm only human after all”. Sydney J. Harris
- Storm Jameson: Could anything be absurder than a man—the animal knows everything about himself except why he was born and the meaning of his unique life?
Interestingly, humans aren’t in vogue right now, but animals are.
The irony: when humans become more like animals; animals become more in fashion and humans less in fashion! Of course, people who idolize animals love all animals, except human animals.
So for the rest of this treatment, we'll avoid two extremes (that we are not animals and that we are only animals) by highlighting that God loves animals and especially, human animals—enough to unite with them. Amazing.
1. God Loves Animals
- Alfred A Montapert: Animals are reliable, many full of love, true in their affections, predictable in their actions, grateful and loyal. Difficult standards for people to live up to.
- Winston Churchill: I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
- Seinfeld: Dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them's making a poop, the other one's carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?
- Animals are sensitive to evil spirits. See Fr. Tom Euteneuer’s Exorcist Lecture. E.g, in Numbers 22, Balaam's ass saw the angel first.
- “Animals are God’s creatures. . . . By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory. Thus men owe them kindness. We should recall the gentleness with which saints like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Philip Neri treated animals” (CCC 2416).
- God loves animals more than we love other people.
2. God Loves the Human Animal
Below is a set of fascinating powers that you and I have.
Don't see these as insults to animals; see them as gifts to you—to help you become a home for God. Angels are intrigued with this.
Human Nature
- Philosophers traditionally call man the "rational animal", but because the word "rational" in modern times has been truncated to mere calculation, I prefer to restore the fullness of the old connotation, namely that man is the animal who is rational, religious and romantic; corresponding to the True, Good and Beautiful.
- Being from both the dust of the earth and also breath of God, humans and animals have differences not just in degree but kind. That is, we have a different nature.
- “Imago Dei” -- we are made in the image of God.
- We can know God more intimately, but less adequately than we can know animals, since God is infinite.
Self-Conscious
- Man has the ability to do recursions; i.e., to think about thinking.
- You are self-reflective. You can doubt your own belief, by comparing it to more firm knowledge, which is a fantastic power.
- Animals are conscious, man is self-conscious. Kreeft: “Man is self-conscious, in the sense that he is both the observer and the observed, both the judging and judged, subject and object." This means man has self-determination, which is the foundation of ethics.
- Self- consciousness is a transcendent self-awareness. So animals are often better at living in the present, wheras we can choose to—while also being in touch with eternity, which envelops the past, present, and future.
Freewill
- We have moral conscience; something within and above directing choices.
- Therefore humans can rise above instinct or fall below it.
- Man knows love; that is, can deliberately choose it.
- As Pascal says " Man’s greatness comes from knowing he is wretched: a tree does not know it is wretched." We are like dispossessed kings. Man is "fallen" and therefore is directed not just by can, but by should.
- Therefore, in response to this man can be modest or shamed.
- Mark Twain: "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
- Man is capable of guilt; we be both the one who says “I am guilty” and who hears “I am guilty”.
- Delacroix: Man is a social animal who dislikes his fellow man.
- Mark Twain: “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it." That is, pain as an end. Pain for the sake of pain.
- Animals do not commit suicide.
- Christopher West: Animals don’t create airplanes or skyscrapers—neither do they fly airplanes into skyscrapers.
- Therefore, being a moral agent, man also has the power to forgive.
- Therefore love, as Kreeft says: "proceeds only from free will. Animals cannot love, they can only like, or be affectionate."
- It follows that only man can bind himself by a lifelong promise, esp. of self—a covenant.
Mind
"Man is the pinnacle of My creation and the human mind is wondrously complex. I risked all by gaining you freedom to think for yourself. This is a god-like privilege, forever setting you apart from animals and robots. I made you in My image, precariously close to deity."
- Homo Sapiens means “man the wise”.
- Man can understand universal abstractions, such as math/logic; make judgments and arrive at deductions.
- Man can even transcend abstractions, in the sense that man can freely choose to be a cause. That is, abstraction (such as numbers) cannot produce effects. You can cause, therefore you are greater than a number.
- JP2: Animals can only be trained; humans can be educated, which involves combining arguments.
- In addition to logic and math, man can abstract across time and transcend it.
- Therefore animals do not tell stories, since storytelling transcends time. Kreeft: "Animals cannot play with time. To play with something you must transcend it. Toys do not play with themselves; people play with them."
- Therefore man can perceive processes and not merely events.
- Animals can instinctively know a goal and work to it, but they cannot work to a final cause, that is, a goal of goals (i.e., Heaven) because that involves recursion.
- From the book Moral Choices: "Animals are pushed by their instincts, which are caused by chemicals, nerves, genes, or electrical charges in their brains. But we are moved by our mind contemplating an ideal. We are pulled by the ideal, not pushed by instinct merely.
- We are moved from up ahead, not just from behind.
- Animals can operate on a purpose of theirs, but not a purpose for them. Unlike humans they have no "meta-awareness", no awareness of being aware; consciousness, but not self-consciousness.
- Animals suffer because of human sin, but God shields them—some studies show that animals lack that portion of the brain which gives "second order" pain awareness. That is, even though they may be in pain, they’re not aware they’re in pain. For relief, animals await our response to God—for their redemption is tied to ours. (Rom 8:22).
Imagination
- Animals have imaginations that can recall images (such as dreams), but they do not apparently image things never seen (e.g, unicorns).
- We can ask why, and can wonder. No dog is in shock upon seeing snow for the first time.
- We can form concepts (not just precepts/facts); and therefore think not just about how the world is, but how it might be. Therefore we can have larger goals.
- Animals can have knowledge, but not the understanding of meaning.
- Animals have signals (a representation), but not signs (a representation of meaning).
Beauty
- Animals can be beautiful, but do not create art or have an ascetic sense. E.g., no poetry.
- Greeks: man is the animal with language. Animals have primitive communication, but they can’t invent languages (so no plurality of languages). They seem to have little or no creativity—ordering from a transcendent position.
- Philosophers today say that man has not only the capability to do language, but that he has an appetite for it, a mysterious need for language.
- Man can smile. Animals can be happy, play, silly. But yet they don’t have humor in the technical sense, because it is based on irony, that is, the power to contrast concepts. (Animals don't even have puns, because that involves language).
- Scientists say animals apparently do not have the ability to mock or ridicule.
- Animals (and also computers) can’t be ironic—the contrast perceived between what seems and what is, especially between appearance and reality. (Note: like animals we have sensation; like computers we have calculation.)
- Josef Pieper: Man only celebrates. Animals can have happiness, but they do not reflect on time, signs or seasons; therefore no culture, no celebrating births, weddings, funerals.
Physical
- Humans have larger brains, longer childhoods, and require more resources for aging parents.
- We have speech, hands, and the ability to walk upright.
- We have susceptibility to diseases, yet minds that can prevent them.
- Animals tear from extreme pain, but humans are unique in that they tear from emotional causes, which contain different chemicals. No one knows how this could have evolved.
- Animals do not take advantage of clothing (e.g., jewelry), cooking, tools or fire.
- Philosopher Thomas Hurka says man’s pleasures are more varied and can come from thoughts—being man can think abstractly, unlike animals that have only direct stimuli. So we can feel good about a moral choice, beauty, accomplishment, etc.
- Humans are the mammal that continues to mate, while ceasing to pro-create.
- Animals do not have pain in childbirth, as we do. This was one of the results of the Fall. The greatest creativity involves the greatest suffering.
Creation
- CCC 357: Being in the image of God the human individual possesses the dignity of a person, who is not just something, but someone. He is capable of self-knowledge, of self-possession and of freely giving himself and entering into communion with other persons. And he is called by grace to a covenant with his Creator, to offer him a response of faith and love that no other creature can give in his stead.
- The number for animals is 6. E.g. 666 = the Beast. On the sixth day, man is merely an animal, until he rests and finds resolution with God on the 7th day.
- This experience of “divine rest” means satisfaction: He is a being for his own sake, not as a means to another end. (This is one reason why animals can be eaten, but not man.)
- In fact, man is the only thing God created for its own sake.
- JP2: Man distinguishes himself from the animals by giving them names. In Jewish culture knowing a person’s name meant you had power over them, as when Jesus commands the demon to reveal its name.
- We can worship, have capacity for religion, ultimate reality, desire for Heaven.
- God became a human animal. We are invited to unite with God.
- Augustine: "Capax Dei"— we are capable of God, which is staggering.
God the "Divine Animal"
That may sound like a strange phrase, but it's interesting how many times Christ images himself that way: the Lamb of God, the Lion of Judah, etc.
Perhaps God is more organic than we think. He certainly loves His creation.