Why Did God Create Animals?

[itinerant1]

I do not have reverance for all forms of life.
For example, rats and mosquitos cause the deaths of millions of people every year, and I for one would like to see every single rat and mosquito wiped off the face of the earth. I certainly would not shed any tears.

Many rats and mosquitoes carry viruses and bacteria that are harmful to humans. A concern for eliminating or reducing diseases that affect humans, or other animals, or crops is respecting life. Disease is a part of the problem of evil in the world.

Because physical evils such as disease exist does not mean that everything that God created is not good. God did not create evil. Evil is not a thing in itself but a privation of some good that a being should possess. And after all, we would not be subjected to disease and death had Adam and Eve stayed righteous. Blame Adam and Eve and not rats and mosquitoes.

But if you really want to be angry about mosquitoes and rats, then why not blame Noah for not swatting that pair of mosquitoes on the Ark, or for letting rodents on board? Noah should have drowned those two nasty rats.

 

[itinerant1]

We can’t know all of the reasons for sure, but here are a few:

• To Demonstrate his wonderful ability to create
• So we can admire the beauty of his creation
• So we can use our minds to study the creation of the animals
• For our uses like food and clothing
• As part of the food chain, which supports us
• So we can enjoy pets
• We can learn some compassion from animals so animals help us to love and honor God
• For the uses of special needs people like the blind who have dogs to guide them

Basically, God’s a nice guy so he gives us animals to help us enjoy his creation and come closer to him.

Excellent response!

 

[simmania]

Romans 14(New International Version):Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment on disputable matters. 2One man’s faith allows him to eat everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him. 4Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

 

[lynnvinc]

RE meat consumption, in Christ’s time and pretty much thru all of human history people did not eat a whole lot of meat – until “The Age of Gluttony.” Furthermore, Kosher animals then and now are killed very humanely. Even tribal peoples when they kill and eat animals, give thanks to the spiritual powers. People in those days understood that God pervades the universe and is omnipresent.

God couldn’t have created animals solely for our consumption and amusement. We haven’t even studied all the species that exist, and most of them are totally unknown to the ordinary man in the street. God created them, I think, because He really loves to create (why did He come to us as a carpenter – because He loves to make things ). And God is blessed and glorified in His creatures. See Daniel 3:57-88 – “Bless the Lord, all you works of the Lord…Everything growing from the earth…dolphins and all water creatures…birds of the air…beasts, wild and tame, bless the Lord…”

And in a sense, the universe, and the earth and its creatures are like another bible written directly by God. We need to read that Bible as scientists, as poets, as philosophers, as workers, as humble people, and learn more about God from it.

If we cause species to go extinct, that is like ripping out pages from that bible, it reduces the blessings of the Lord.

If we treat creatures with contempt, or as mere objects of our use and greed, we show contempt for God, their creator.

God gave us a great responsibility in making us a bit smarter than the animals – and that is not to use our smarts to harm other people and creatures, but for God’s greater glory.

The Lord’s is the earth and its fullness,
the world and all its peoples…
Who shall climb the mountain of the Lord?
The one with clean hands and pure heart,
who desires not worthless things (Psalm 24)

God did not create the world to be a wasteland (Isaiah 45:18)

Our extensive harms to animals, plants, and the abiotic world in our age are truly egregious sins. And not very wise – not very “sapiens-like” of H. sapiens – but sort of like sitting out on a branch and sawing off that branch.

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

Because He loves us, and they’re yummy.

 

[pinctor]

So that we could delight in:

• the towering dignity of the giraffe
• the appalling ugliness of the rhinoceros
• the beauteous caudal spectacle of the ring-tailed lemur
• my old cat