A careful reading of the Bible does not actually seem to make as much of a distinction between humans and animals as later Western Christian philosophers. As has been pointed out, the book of Ecclesiastes says that humans die just as the beasts (Ecclesiastes 3:19). Humans are born, live, eat, sleep, reproduce, get sick, and die just like animals. What is unique about humans is their special relationship with God and the special role they have been given in creation. Because of this special relationship and role, humans have been given unique abilities. I would say that science generally agrees with this idea. Humans are essentially animals, but humans are also very extraordinary animals capable of doing things on much larger scales and in much more complex ways than other animals. This is because of the expanded cognitive capacity of human beings as well as hyper-sociality and unusually strong impulse control.
Come to think of it, we humans are described as a little lower than the angels, so I guess not.
Well humans are just animals.
We are in the homo genus.
We are in the primate order.
We are in the animal kingdom.
We share a common ancestor with all other animals.
If somehow we have descendants in a billion years from now those will be animals as well. That means yes, Jesus was also a animal. That’s all biologically speaking.
If you’re wanting to use a different definition by subtracting it adding to it, then you would have to detail that one. I mean we are mammals right? If we are mammals then why are we not also primates or animals?
I’ve only heard it as “humans are just evolved apes.”
I don’t recall seeing angels listed in Genesis 1 and they also don’t live in the same sphere as humans as best I can tell so why bring it up?
Hebrews is also quoting an incorrect translation in the Septuagint, not what Psalm (a Psalm!) 8 actually says (God not angels). It also appears to make humans temporarily lower (not in the Psalm IIRC) than the angels as a parallel to Jesus’s incarnation. What Genesis 1 is explicitly teaching is clear. And Psalm 8 which Hebrews is based on actually reinforced Genesis 1. The point of Hebrews 2 is to draw an analogy for Jesus’s temporary lowering based on, you guess it, an incorrect translation of the Hebrew Bible.
So what does Genesis 1 teach us? If you dump humans as the pinnacle of creation (at least in the realm below the waters and not concern yourself with beings above the solid dome) and a literal interpretation, I am not sure how anything can be salvaged from it. Or do you think it is no longer relevant as inspired scripture? If so it is little wonder YECs draw lines like Bible vs science when the very first book of the Bible is trashed. Proof-text hunting Hebrews doesn’t negate the plain teaching of Genesis 1. Hebrews thinking is no better or more literal than Paul’s thinking on Adam. At best we can call that the divine council and the “us” of Gen 1.
Vinnie
Animals we may be, but we aren’t called to act like them.
Plus being an ape beats sharing my ancestry with dirt any day!
There is Your Inner Fish, not that I identify with it at all. ; - )
? if you’re an ape your ancestry is dirt. Third generation nuclear waste.
So the special relationship came first?
Yes. This is especially the case in the context of evolution. Otherwise the fall of man and need for salvation falls apart – especially if you are to avoid patching this up with magical solutions much the same way creationists typically handle conflicts with the objective evidence. This is because we frankly see plenty of horrific behavior in the animal world. So if man is just another animal then there really is no fall of man and instead of being a redemption from our own failing it would be a redemption from our biological roots. I think that would imply more of a physical/scientific solution to evil than a spiritual one.
Depends on the science. If you look for differences in terms of biology alone then you are not going to find differences of great significance any more than if you look for differences in terms of chemistry or particle physics.
This is especially the case if you are looking for justification for racial superiority on the basis of genetic differences. But if you look for differences from animals in the human mind where the differences are great, that would destroy all justifications for racial superiority.
In other words it is YEC who is reducing people to biological creatures and then run into problems with the objective evidence which shows how little difference there is from the animals in terms of biology.
What changes all this is an understanding of the human mind as a living organism in its own right in a completely different medium from biological life. Instead of biochemistry and genetic information, the mind is a living organism in the medium of linguistic information. In this, humans are a completely different form of life altogether, and thus could not be more different from the animals despite our biological commonalities.
In giving birth to the human mind by the inspiration of His communication with us, God could hope that we would follow His guidance and follow His example rather than the examples to be found in the behavior of animals.
In terms of biology all animals are meat for other animals.
It is only when we go beyond just biology and are looking for the edification of the human mind do we see something more valuable in other animals than just meat.
We draw the visualization of the evolutionary tree in a way that puts ourselves as the top branch. This is just human-centered thinking. We could draw the evolutionary tree in ways where any living organism forms the top branch.
Humans have been a successful animal species in the sense that we currently dominate the world and have the capability to destroy almost anything on this globe, including humanity. Our mental and social capabilities have lifted us to this position but that does not mean our characteristics or skills makes us fundamentally better than any other species. We are just one talented animal species among others.
What seems to make us something special is our relationship with God. Our exceptional value comes through this relationship, from God. In this I agree with what Caleb wrote.
This is an adventure in missing the point. Humans are behaviourally, interiorly the most complex organisms on the planet. They are at the top of the ladder going straight up the centre of the tree.
This is a matter of opinion and human-centered thinking.
Complexity is not a proof of being the top branch. In addition, we lack some advanced features other animals may have, such as echolocation, the ability to see UV light or senses related to electricity. Other animals may also have complex behavioral habits. We may not understand or value the behavioral or interior complexity of other species when the other species have been adapted to a different kind of environment, like whales.
What is not evident for me is the question whether other animals have more or less conscious relationship with God? Even if there were other species that have a relationship with God, humans have a special position in relation to God.
It’s a matter of fact. There is no comparison with the complexity of intentionality in humans with bats, bees and sharks and their different senses any more than there is with our thinking as opposed to our vision, hearing and touch. They are not conscious of God. Only we make that ‘sense’ up.
Seriously? Modern biologists don’t do that.
Actually, I was explicitly taught in my (modern) evolutionary course not to speak of “higher” or “lower” organisms, or humans being at the “top” of a ladder or tree. Here’s a clip from a popularized website on phylogentic trees:
" Talk of “higher” and “lower” organisms, made in reference to contemporaneous species, persists in both public and professional scientific discourse. Not surprisingly, humans typically are (self-)designated as the “highest” organisms, with other living species ranked as higher or lower on the “evolutionary scale” according to how similar they are to this particular terminal node on the phylogeny of animals.
As many prominent authors have noted, there is no scientifically defensible basis on which to rank living species in this way, regardless of how interesting or unique some aspect of their biology may be to human observers (e.g., Dawkins [1992]; Gould [1994]). This error does not so much reflect a specific misunderstanding of phylogenetic diagrams per se but a failure to grasp the very concept of common descent.
Yes, thank you, that is what I’ve been trying to point out. And if others would like to learn about evolutionary trees (aka phylogenetic trees) they should see this site from Berkeley’s excellent Understanding Evolution site:
It’s been endorsed by the National Center for Science Education
Science doesn’t assign ontological value or moral worth to anything. Everything just is. When we say highest we generally mean most complex/intelligent. Nothing else comes close.
Vinnie
The Tree Room you advertized tells:
" Building a tree involves a few key steps:
1. Choose taxa to be analyzed. Taxa are groups of organisms that have been assigned to a taxonomic group and named. Once the tree is built, these groups will appear at the tips of the tree, so biologists choose taxa among which they want to uncover the evolutionary relationships."
An evolutionary tree has many branches. The person drawing a visualization of a branch usually end up with a tree where one of the living species in that branch form the tip of the evolutionary tree.
Yes, I know how people conventionally interpret “highest” based on their human-centric perspective. But as biologists we were told that such terminology is misleading because other organisms can actually do many things (physiologically, behaviourally etc.) that humans can’t. So, a biologist could make a case that each organism is “more complex than humans” in its own way. And “intelligence” (in a human sense) is only one measure of an organism (and sometimes hard to define). For example, birds migrate globally without GPS systems and hummingbirds have amazing spatial memories for locating an exact patch of flowers that it visited the year before, across thousands of km of distance…which could be argued to be more “intelligent” than humans on one type of scale. So, its only when humans a priori define “being at the top” as “possessing human-type communication modes and intelligence” that we end up being at the top, i.e., by our own circular definition.
By the way, I have no problem thinking humans are “different” and somehow unique from other species. I have no problem making a theological argument that God gives humans a “higher role” and function in creation based on special traits we possess. I just avoid the terminology of “higher” or “lower” from a scientific perspective.