God made everything! Right? And, He gave Man dominion over the animals and the oceans and everything else. He did warn us of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and look where THAT’s gotten us!
Dear Whomper,
Yes, the word given is dominion, but the meaning implicit, is custody.
We are clearly intended to take care of what we have been entrusted with.
But animals? They have Spirit, not a Soul. The Soul is the difference between Man and animal. Plants, bacteria, viruses, paramecium, all are alive but don’t have Spirits.
Actually, Whomper, you have taken the diametrically opposite view to the Catholic Church, as I understand it.
Mother Church allows that all living beings have a soul, but only humans have an immortal soul.
There is though, as I understand it, somewhat of a ‘not proven’ as to whether the immortal soul is developed from the animal soul at some period after conception, some thought, at the quickening, or whether it was replaced. The question, as I understand it is still open.
‘Spirit’ comes from a Hebrew usage, meaning ‘breath’, hence, life, and whether this is the same as soul, is also subject to debate.
God made Man in His own image. But what is the image of God? Who can say? Just because we know what Man looks like today, and we believe that man has evolved through some sorts of differences in appearances (not to mention losing their tails and almost their appendices), how can we assume without any other proof that God looks the Man of today? Maybe God’s image was spiritual, like a little cloud? Like a bundle of energy, with protons, electrons, neutrons? When we die, our bodies decay into nothing, eventually, regardless of how long it takes, doesn’t it?
G_d is ‘Spirit’, or ‘Life’.
It is in this essence that Man, the specie, which includes man and woman, is formed in the image of G_d.
The physical form is irrelevant.
A Bible in printed format is still the same image as one in the form of a PDF file.
One exists as black pigments on a white cellulose substrate, and the other, as, shall we say, varying sized pits on a mirrored surface of a plastic disc.
As I said, the actual physical format is irrelevant.
So animals, with spirit, can feel some emotions - emotional pain, happiness, embarassment, sadness. But when they die, do their spirits go anywhere? Maybe so, maybe not.
And maybe animals assume some of the spirit of our own animalness… that, until they experience a relationship with us, they aren’t fully developed spiritually. They need us to be complete?
We at our peril, forget our own animalness.
The line that divides us from the lesser creation is not as sharp as we in our hubris assume.
Rudyard Kipling assessed that the dividing line between human and dog was crossed by the human at the age of about three years.
Maybe he had very intelligent dogs, or maybe he was associated with particularly stupid humans. His assessment was based of dogs’ understanding of human language, and their ability to work out logical problems. Just watch a shepherd and his dog(s). The dog knows what to do, even when he loses contact temporarily with the shepherd.
Yes, Kipling had this other point you made, too. Whereas we seek G_d directly, our dogs seek G_d through us.
We are the only gods they know.
That is a terrible responsibility.
