There’s also something said about the law being written in the heart of a person. I understand this as humanity’s innate ability to understand morality. Since some animals may be able to understand a tiny bit of morality, I don’t get how they can be 0% guilty as you say.
If animals do not understand, have appreciation for, or even notice the beauty of creation (as my observations suggest), then how can an animal understand there is a Creator?
Without God, there is no morality. Morality therefore doesn’t apply to animals. That’s my reasoning.
Easy. Because the law written in the heart just simply means one of two possible answers.
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The Holy Spirit now works on convicting all of mankind through their conscience on good and evil.
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Humanity evolved to the point they can understand a covenant and are held accountable to it.
What would be the scriptural response to show anywhere in the Bible that animals are guilty of sin? What animal can agree to the abrahamic faiths or to the teachings of Christ? Which animal can be evangelized to and held accountable for their sins?
Now even little kids are held accountable because they can’t choose good or evil.
Isaiah 7:15
New American Standard Bible
15 He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good.
Throughout scripture we see humanity and humanity alone, other than angels, being held accountable for sin.
So the case comes from you. You have to prove the case that animals are held accountable for sin and risk being destroyed in hell for not doing it.
I think you’re taking it too far by saying that I think they’re sinful. I tend to make a distinction. Some animals can do something bad and are bad when doing it but not sinful since they can’t be given the chance to believe in Christ and go to heaven. Second, I don’t expect the Bible to tell me whether an animal does something bad or not. Scientific natural observation is enough. Also, I do not expect them to believe in God as I said. And lastly I don’t have to prove anything. If science doesn’t convince you of what I said then I can’t do anything else. And since most of us accept science the burden falls on you to prove what you said about the 0% guilt part.
We are not talking about science though. You mentioned the laws being wrote on the hearts and implied that’s relative to animals.
My entire point to every post is countering the argument that animals are guilty of sins. They are not. Nothing in the posts were relative to the fact that animals can feel bad for doing something wrong like when you dog knows it’s not allowed to chew shoes but does it and lowers it’s head before you even know what happened.
My other point was that there is no distinction made on if animals are restored. It says creation is restored which includes animals. There is no verse isolating animals from restoration.
No one goes to heaven. Heaven, the new Jerusalem, comes down to earth.
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If that’s not what you’re talking about then for me it’s misleading in your OP to language like guilty or not of their choices. That’s Christian language on a Christian group tied into being guilty of sin.
So once I’m home I’ll reread your post with new I out to see what you’re even arguing .
I still don’t get why you believe this but anyway, even if they (I’m talking about the most intelligent animals i.e. chimps, dolphins, elephants) don’t have a tiny appreciation (as much as a 5 year old child’s) for the aesthetic this is irrelevant to my question as the data I have clearly show they have a small knowledge of morality.
And it therefore doesn’t apply to anyone not of an Abrahamic faith.
The edit clarified it a lot for me. When initially reading the post and you mentioned they are guilty and brought in the image of God and culpable of morality I connected ohhh it to arguing that since animals can tell right or wrong to some degrees ( though it’s debated if it’s morality or expectations and fear of punishment by owners or the herd ) that it was about them being culpable to sin and able to be held guilty of it.
I do agree that animals can tell at the very least what is expected of them within their herd or from their owner. They can definitely know better in many cases. My cat knows it can’t go outside in the morning when I leave to work. She knows if she hides and tried to dart out she will be in trouble. By trouble I just mean I will bring her back in. I can tell she knows it’s wrong because she will sometimes be standing near the door and will flatten her ears when I look at her. She knows something. Dogs are definitely able to know what’s expected of them. They can learn tricks. I’m not sure if they can reason right from wrong necessarily as much as cause snd effect. This gets a treat and is good. This gets a squirt from a water bottle. I personally don’t spank or hit pets. I think it’s cruel. I don’t think they learn anything from it but fear. Which I guess is all they learn from a spray bottle but I’m ok with that. Even though some recommend not doing it to cats I occasionally still do but with them it’s often just moving them.
I do believe that nature is going to be restored. I don’t know exactly what that will be. I’m not 100% or even actually 50% certain what resurrection will be or what the restored heaven and earth will be or what the white throne judgement even will be. But whatever it is that we get as humans, it’s promised to all creation.
This is liable to be long since you stumbled into asking a question that I’ve been researching for quite a while. I apologize in advance.
There’s a difference between normal/acceptable behavior of “social” animals and human morality. All animals that live in groups must learn the behaviors of the group. These are the evolutionary roots of morality, but it’s not the same as human morality. It’s similar to the difference between animal communication and human language. Animal communication is dyadic (one-to-one) and consists of requesting specific behaviors from others. Human communication is triadic and uses shared frames of reference. In plain language, people will say, “Look at that beautiful sunset,” but chimps don’t point at things or hold up objects for others to notice. In the same way, animals may show “remorse” for violating a known behavioral expectation, but only when they are caught and fear punishment, and animals only “punish” violations of group “rules” when it directly affects them. (The herd doesn’t confer and decide on a punishment.) Humans, on the other hand, create whole categories of “good” and “evil” and project those understandings onto everyone in sight and demand punishment for wrongdoing, even when it doesn’t directly affect us.
Basically right, but the comparison is more apt to a toddler than a 5-yr-old. Both chimps and toddlers have first-level theory of mind, which means they can understand that others have thoughts, beliefs, and intentions. Dick knows that Jane thinks (or wants to do) this. By the time a child reaches the age of 5, they have acquired the full grammar of their native language, and they start to develop second-order theory of mind. Dick knows that Jane thinks that Mary wants to do this. Because of the properties of language, adult humans are adept at fourth-level and about 50% at fifth-level theory of mind.
Does possessing first-order theory of mind render an individual morally responsible? Suppose a child of 4 or 5 intentionally strangles his infant brother to death. Should he be imprisoned for life or executed for murder? If a human child isn’t considered morally (or criminally) responsible for their actions, a chimp certainly can’t be morally responsible.
I agree with you mostly, but here’s another way of looking at it. Being made in the image of God is a purpose or calling, specifically to represent God in the world as his representatives. But even if you interpret the image in that sense (as I do), certain mental, linguistic, and moral attributes must be met before we can represent the good God in any meaningful way.
As a special education teacher, I absolutely agree with your concern for those who don’t meet the norm. They cannot be “subhuman.” Like everyone else, they were born/created in the image of God, with the sacred calling to represent him on Earth. But as a matter of fact, everyone is born/created in the image of God, but no one has achieved the goal of imago Dei. A few, unfortunately, are born with disabilities or suffer injuries/disease that prevent them from reaching full maturity as morally culpable persons. The rest of us, like our forebears in Eden, choose evil and fail to represent the moral goodness of our Creator. Thus, all without exception are born with the vocation of imago Dei, but none of us except one person in all of human history—the Son of God—lived up to the divine call.
See above. Herds don’t confer on what to do about behavior violations. Animals respond to violations of group norms only when it directly affects them.
Nope. It’s both. The brain and language co-evolved, as did morality. The biological component was the general trend of enlarging the brain, capped off by the phenomenon of globularity that began around 100,000 years ago and ended by 30,000 years ago, at the latest. Larger brains allowed greater language capacity, and greater language and social demands provided selective pressure for larger and more complex brains. It was a feedback loop.
Right. That relates to theory of mind that I discussed above.
As Wittgenstein observed, If a lion could speak, we would not understand him. Every species does have its own social codes of behavior, though they’re not actually capable of codifying them because they lack language. Whatever examples of social behavior they learned as “pups,” animals take that as their own moral palette.
Beauty–like love, justice, fairness, and God–is an abstract concept. Abstract concepts may be “felt” as gut reactions, but until they can be shared (as in language), they don’t really exist. Remember that human communication consists of shared frames of reference, while animal communication consists of requesting a specific behavior from another creature. We have an instinct to share our psychological state with others. Animals don’t.
The same way that a human infant can be 0% guilty, or a toddler 0% guilty, or an 8-yr-old, etc., up to an age of accountability (moral responsibility). Various cultures draw the exact line differently, usually between 10-13, but it is always there. The same holds true in individual experience. All of us cross a fuzzy line of moral responsibility (and guilt) somewhere along the way.
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If smart animals and prepubescent children and those that never develop minds beyond that level aren’t morally culpable, do they get a free pass to heaven?
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Klax, that is a question I have also. My conclusion is that "age of accountability " is a concept invented by Evangelical theology to try the fill a gap in soteriology that exists otherwise. Those who believe in infant Baptism tend to fill the same gap in that way. A few seem to fill the gap with reincarnation. Ultimately, we have to rely on the wisdom of God.
Excellent. What little Luther got right is overwhelmed by what he and all his successors got wrong. Exclusion. Damnationism was always there, but they took it to new depths. All due to misunderstanding Paul, creating him in their own image.
I rely on God’s competence.
That just seems silly. Clearly there are moral dimensions to human existence regardless of whether God exists or not. The status of God cannot underpin morality when morality itself is commonplace but ‘proofs’, whether for or against God’s existence, reliably fail to persuade those who don’t start off holding the same position.
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Upon further consideration, I agree with you. On the other hand, among human beings the concerns of morality seem to revolve around some set of the foundations Haidt speaks of. I’ve been told by more than one believer that without the objective quality bestowed on it by God, morality in different cultures might be very different with one society insisting children must be cared for while another places them on the menu. Never could wrap my head around the intuition which leads people to make that argument. Then again, it has almost always come from an apologist on a mission so one cannot assume they even believe it themselves.
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And here I thought you were a universalist! haha. Smart animals aren’t tasked with imago Dei. As for the rest, it depends on one’s theology. Some Christians would follow Augustine and say unbaptized children go to hell, some would say they go to purgatory, and some would say they go to heaven. In my opinion, the Scripture is unclear on the fate of children, hence the multitude of speculations, but that’s a whole different thread.
What, you’ve never heard of a Bar Mitzvah? haha. I hear what you’re saying about the fate of children and agree that we ultimately have to rely on the wisdom of God, but that’s a side issue. An “age of accountability” is a universal in human culture and an indispensable concept in criminal law that every society must address. At what point is a child criminally/morally responsible for their actions? The concept that a child isn’t morally mature is ancient and not an Evangelical invention (see Deut. 1:39 – "Moreover your little ones and your children, who you say will be victims, who today have no knowledge of good and evil). Many, many cultures – with and without written codes of law – have initiation rites to recognize a boy or girl’s transition to adult status within society/tribe/clan.
I’m a fan of Haidt. As you probably know, his basic idea is that morality developed from our emotions – mainly disgust, anger, and contempt. Disgust plays into concepts of “purity”; contempt is felt for those who violate “normal” decorum; and anger applies to violations of our person or rights. As for animals, I can think of a few examples of purity (most species won’t mate with brothers/sisters) and contempt (a pack animal being “shunned” for consistently abnormal behavior), but the animal roots of morality mostly involve anger. Don’t take my food. Don’t mate with me. Don’t hurt me. Etc. Humans took the categories of purity and contempt to a whole new level. We became the Pharisees, constantly expanding the purity (do not taste, do not touch) and contempt (towards Gentiles, women, slaves, etc.) laws until there was no room left for anyone. Another reason I love the counter-cultural Jesus.
Morality in different cultures is different. There is an obvious common core, but enormous variety along the edges. Morality obviously wasn’t implanted in our heads by God before birth. Children have to learn it by trial and error, as did the human race. The same is true of language. Chomsky was wrong about “universal grammar.” Children aren’t born with an innate sense of the rules of grammar. It must be learned.
Hello people and thank you for your responses. As I understand it (because of what some of you said) it’s possible the Image of God has more to do with us being representatives on Earth to do God’s will. Therefore if that’s the case then it doesn’t matter if some animals can reach some of the logical capabilities of a 5 year old, they’re just not in a position to bear God’s image. As for embryos, babies and children before the age of accountability who die, it’s safe to assume God knows best what He will do for them. He is just. I don’t think they’ll go to hell. The same goes for people with problems that impair their reasoning, such as Down syndrome or autism. So in conclusion, humans are created in the womb by God with all the capacities that will lead them to be fully Image Bearers, which is something that animals lack. Do you think I’m right with this or not? And if that’s the explanation there remains one question. The origin of doing bad-deeds in animals. How did some animals (which were created very good but not perfect) start intentionally doing things they know are wrong? As for how humans did many point to the story of the fall in Genesis or to something else.
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The orthodoxy in me says God is the ground of everything good, but the postmodernist in me says what good is an objective ground of morality if God is beyond our reach? I don’t know about the rest of you, but God doesn’t speak audibly to me with an answer to every moral decision I make. The conscience is birthed in experience and culture, so it may point in a certain direction, but it isn’t an infallible guide to objective, moral truth. Some will say we have such a guide in the scriptures, but the multitude of interpretations says, once again, that objective truth is out of our reach. As Pascal said,
Let us then take our compass; we are something, and we are not everything. The nature of our existence hides from us the knowledge of first beginnings which are born of the Nothing; and the littleness of our being conceals from us the sight of the Infinite.
Our intellect holds the same position in the world of thought as our body occupies in the expanse of nature.
Limited as we are in every way, this state which holds the mean between two extremes is present in all our impotence. Our senses perceive no extreme. Too much sound deafens us; too much light dazzles us; too great distance or proximity hinders our view. Too great length and too great brevity of discourse tend to obscurity; too much truth is paralysing…
This is our true state; this is what makes us incapable of certain knowledge and of absolute ignorance. We sail within a vast sphere, ever drifting in uncertainty, driven from end to end. When we think to attach ourselves to any point and to fasten to it, it wavers and leaves us; and if we follow it, it eludes our grasp, slips past us, and vanishes forever. Nothing stays for us. This is our natural condition, and yet most contrary to our inclination; we burn with desire to find solid ground and an ultimate sure foundation whereon to build a tower reaching to the Infinite. But our whole groundwork cracks, and the earth opens to abysses.
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In some sense (with my usual qualification) I think that is true. It might also be true that separation from God* is the very essence of hell. But if one thinks of God as the creator of all - including the good, bad and indifferent - then God must be the ground of all of it, no? If so then God isn’t any more necessary for morality than for anything else so why single it out?
What would Love do Jay? And why is Imago Dei a task? A bar we must leap or fall all the way to Hell? There is no task but to love one another. Better. There is no other faith.