Abstract
This essay critically evaluates the theodicies of John Hick, Richard Swinburne and process theism regarding animal suffering and evils. Their positions on animals are found to be flawed and/or inadequate because they cannot explain the mass suffering and unnecessary deaths to animals throughout time. I also offer a positive contribution. That is, God’s putative love for all humans and animals does not entail that he loves every single human and animal. It is very possible that God treats humans and animals similarly in regard to evils. This theory partly explains human tragedies such as the Holocaust and much unnecessary animal and human suffering.
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Notes
Puccetti, The loving God – Some observations on John Hick’s Evil and the God of love p. 260.
Ibid. p.261
Recent strong evidence suggests that animals such as chimps and scrub jays, have episodic memory and are able to plan for the future. Although it is often difficult to measure or understand animal thinking, it seems like that they can remember and recall past events, as well as knowledge about the world. Chimps can remember where food is hidden outside their enclosures. This experiment confirms common sense and ordinary observations. Dolphins use tools and have unusually large brains, four times the size of chimpanzees. Some scientists believe that they show evidence of self-consciousness by recognizing themselves in a mirror. Moreover, many species, such as felines, canines and primates exhibit a trivial freewill through their movement and play.
Hick, Evil and the God of love, p.349.
Ibid.
Swinburne, R. Providence and the problem of evil. p. 182. See also Tattersall (1998).
Ibid. 173
Chartier (2006). Predation is the killing and consuming of animals in the wild.
Chartier, G. Non-human animals and process theodicy. p. 6.
Geach (1977). Geach approves of Hobbes’ assertion that God’s almightiness is a sufficient justification for his infliction of pain on humans; it also raises no more of a problem than pains to animals, p.109.
Luke (2007). Sport hunter advocates claim that arguments of animal rights proponents are, perhaps, hypocritical. The pro hunting argument claims that if hunters are at fault for inflicting pain on animals in the wild, then animal rights proponents should consider preventing predation in the wild, but that seems absurd to them.
Theologians have argued that God could or would not interfere with the Nazi’s freewill. Martin Buber and others have been silent on the Holocaust, and believe that it does not necessitate a special response. Others cite Biblical passages (such as Daniel 12) where God seems to foresee a distant terrible tragedy. Influenced by Nietzsche, Richard Rubenstein claims that the Holocaust (Shoah) demonstrates that God is dead and that no viable answer is satisfactory. This existentialist response has been sharply criticized by other Jewish theologians. Rubenstein offers instead a radical secular opinion which announces the final death of God. He concurs with Sartre and Camus on the human condition, however unlike them, Rubenstein is not an atheist. He believes that it is important to promote a religious community, especially after the death of God. Logically, it is difficult to assess his book because it is essentially a testament to Jewish beliefs and historical background, rather than a sustained argument.
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Acknowledgements
I am especially grateful to the anonymous editors of this journal who assisted me with numerous substantive and style changes to the manuscript which improved the paper and made publication possible. One editor suggested the title. I am also thankful to Paul Draper for suggestions regarding the evolution of animals and footnote 19. Peter Byrne of U.K. read a much earlier version and gave me wise directions for further developing it for publication. This is appreciated. Other anonymous reviewers also offered interesting and helpful advice in much earlier versions of this paper.
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Maller, M. Animals and the Problem of Evil in Recent Theodicies. SOPHIA 48, 299–317 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0093-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0093-8