Saturday, February 17, 2007

God's Love and the animals?

I'm watching an animal documentary again, and the beauty and ferocity of Nature are awesome as always. But I'm also asking myself how a supposedly perfect, loving God could have created situations where a lot of animals are senselessly suffering. Example: a baby seal loses sights of his parents, doesn't find back to them, gets rejected by the others and then slowly and painfully dies of thirst and hunger because it's not yet ready to survive alone. And that's just one example. Zillions more could be found.

Since such animals live and die far away from humans and since they haven't done anything 'wrong', why do they have to suffer? They're innocent in a sense, or is there an animal Original Sin as well? Why would God create this beings only so they could more or less rapidly die a painful death again?

Or are they just puppets/robots who can't really experience pain? Or does God use them to teach us a lesson?

How do Christians see this?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello,

There are meny different Christian views on this topic, so I can only speak for myself. The specific example you cited, i.e. a baby seal getting lost and dying falls in the category of bad things happening in the world. Originally bad things weren't supposed to happen. However mankind rejected God through sin. If God's will were being done in the world, bad things wouldn't happen. That's wgy Christians pray in the Lord's prayer "thy{god's }will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven". In heaven God's will is done and no "bad things" happen there. On Earth it is different. Humans rejected God and thus the plan that no "bad things" happen.
God sent Jesus to save humanity. [There was a chance that Jesus's coming to Earth could fail, btw. Jesus prayed the night before the crucifixtion, "Let this cup pass" i.e. don't make me do this if you don't have to. He could have run away and Jesus's death on the cross only has any meaning if it was a voluntary act on his part. We all have the freedom to accept Jesus or reject him, but by giving us this freedom of choice that means that bad things will happen because God is not deciding the outcome of events. The world is not a pre-programmed event. I hope this helps.

Daldianus said...

So animals have to suffer because of Man's Fall? Even the animals that never came or come into contact with humans? How and why would a loving and caring God do that?

Anonymous said...

Dear Daldianus,
The reason for suffering on earth has somewhat been explained by the theory of karma. The subject had obseesed me all my life. My introspection has borne some results, which makes perfect sense to me. You are welcome to check out my web-site.
I've been following your battle on beliefnet.
best,
kris

Carol said...

Your concern about animals should not stop there - consider me, you, and everyone you know...why are we cursed when Adam and Eve sinned? You first have to understand what sin is and it's effects...Sin is missing the mark or transgression of the Law. (disobedience) The effects of sin are not limited to individuals on an individual basis. In short, sin defiles. Sin defiles everything. There are OT passages (don't have them handy) where it says that sin defiles the land. Now how can the land be defiled if the land doesn't sin? And so this is the reason why I say it is not limited to individuality. It defiles absolutely everything and that includes animals. Suddenly, animals had a different nature - the need to hunt and kill. Same with humans - our nature was changed once sin entered the world.

So God did not create these cute cuddly creatures so that they could be destroyed - the fact is, He created a perfect paradise and it is US who defiled everything with sin. Not Him. It is our own fault because it was man who disobeyed at the beginning.

And since we are all born "children of wrath" as a result of this sin, He has provided a way in which to atone for our sins which was Jesus' death on the cross. He paid our penalty for us with His blood.