by Brian Allred
In 1945 George Orwell published the book Animal Farm in which a society of farm animals overthrows the “tyranny” of their human owners and sets up their own government. The story is generally understood as an allegory warning against communism’s tendency to drift toward totalitarianism. While the animals start out devoted to the ideals of equality, their charter for government is eventually reduced to a single principle by the end of the book, expressed rather memorably: “All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” [1].
As intriguing as unpacking Orwell’s story is, there’s something to gain when we ditch the allegory and simply consider the actual society of animals around us and how we as humans relate to them. Are we free to be tyrants and treat animals however we wish? Or do we have a responsibility to care for them and look after their welfare? Would we go so far as to say that animals have rights? Does the Bible offer us any answers to these questions?
You might be surprised by how much the Bible says about animals – and by what it says about God’s interest in animals. It seems the God of the Bible can be accurately described as the divine animal lover. Think this is a stretch? Let’s explore the claim by considering a number of angles from Scripture. We can see God as the divine animal lover when we notice God’s creation of animals, God’s control over animals, God’s care for animals, and God’s commission to humanity.
God’s Creation of Animals
Animals make their appearance quite early in the Bible – in the opening chapter, in fact. We’re told in Genesis 1 in the account of creation that God creates the animals. But he doesn’t create all of the animals on the same day. He creates birds and sea animals (and probably insects) on the fifth day. He creates other animals on a different day, specifically “livestock, and creeping things, and beasts of the earth.” Livestock include domesticated animals like sheep, goats, cows, bulls, horses, oxen, pigs, dogs, cats, and the like. Creeping things most likely refers to reptiles. The beasts of the earth are comprised of wild animals like lions, tigers, bears, elephants, giraffes, kangaroos, and so on. I’ll sometimes ask ministry candidates during ordination exams to tell me on which day God created dogs. They almost always say the fifth day. They likely know that day six records the crowning act of creation when God makes humanity in his image, so they reason that dogs must have been made earlier on day five. But day five is the wrong answer. According to Genesis 1, dogs and other land animals were created on day six – the same day as humans. So while these animals may not serve as the finishing touch on creation, they’re close.
This means that long before Darwin the Bible recognized a close affinity between humans and such animals, not only by pointing to a common Creator but also by presenting both as products of day six creation. We should not be surprised, then, to find that these animals share many characteristics with humans. Physically they have eyes, ears, noses, mouths, hair, arms, legs, bones, joints, and similar internal organs. They breathe, sneeze, reproduce, nurse offspring, expel bodily wastes, sleep, and even dream. Mentally they think, learn, recognize, predict, and remember. Socially they can live in family units or packs and can also adapt to occupying human habitations quite well. They’re close enough to us that we can establish relationships of trust – dare we say friendships – with them, and we can break that trust. Anyone who has owned a pet knows that animals have distinct personalities and they can become an important part of family life. Because of this, losing them can be an occasion of deep sorrow for both children and adults. Given the Biblical teaching that death is an intruder in the world as result of sin, there’s no shame in experiencing and expressing grief at the loss of our pets. Functionally animals can build and work, aiding human labor in many ways – think of oxen, horses, donkeys, and camels. The ant is put forward as an example of industriousness in Proverbs 6:6. Emotionally animals experience fear and seem to exhibit moods that resemble joy, excitement, playfulness, loneliness, sadness, and grief. And in a fallen world, along with us, they suffer pain, sickness, and death.
The collective effect of these similarities explains why people like Orwell and others so readily anthropomorphize animals to tell human stories. It’s also why children can become attached not just to a favorite doll but to stuffed animals. And it’s why we so easily suspend our disbelief with talking animal characters like Daniel Tiger, Franklin the Turtle, Mickey Mouse, the Cat in the Hat, Bugs Bunny, and Donald Duck.
Of course, there are essential differences between humans and animals. One difference you’re likely to hear asserted is that animals don’t have souls. But the Bible doesn’t say whether animals have souls or not. Obviously animals don’t have human souls any more than they have human brains, human eyes, or human hearts. But they do have brains, eyes, and hearts according to their kind, so perhaps they have animal souls. We don’t know [2]. We should admit, however, that it certainly seems like animals display sympathy and guilt at times – capacities often and not inappropriately associated with the soul. James Herriot went so far as to write in All Creatures Great and Small: “If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans” [3].
What we can say with certainty from the Bible is that these day six animals are not made in God’s image – that is unique to humanity. But still, like all of creation, animals reflect something of their Creator. John Calvin rightly saw “every living thing, no matter how humble or harmful, as a vehicle for the self-disclosure of its Maker” [4]. So when we behold the majesty of lions and tigers, the strength and beauty of horses, the intelligence, companionship, and service of dogs, the speed of cheetahs, the grace of deer, and the meekness of cows and sheep, we are seeing something of the goodness and greatness of the God who created animals.
God’s Control over Animals
The God who created the animals also exercises control over them. There are many examples of his control over animals in Scripture and his using them for his purposes. For example, we’re told in Genesis 2 that God brought the animals to Adam to be named (Genesis 2:19). He also directed animals to Noah’s ark before the flood (Genesis 7:14-15). He brought frogs into the houses and bedrooms of the Egyptians and assembled swarms of flies during the Exodus plagues (Exodus 8:1-6; 8:20-24). He controlled the travel patterns of milk cows in 1 Samuel 6 when the Philistines sent the Ark of the Covenant back to the Israelites (1 Samuel 6:12). God commanded ravens to feed Elijah (1 Kings 17:1-6), caused a donkey to speak to Balaam (Numbers 22:28), and shut the mouths of lions to protect Daniel in the lions’ den (Daniel 6:21). God shows he rules over the sea animals by appointing a fish to swallow Jonah (Jonah 1:17) and over the birds – at least poultry – by arranging the number of times and the exact moment a rooster crows to fulfill Jesus’ words about Peter’s denial (Mark 14:30, 72).
Outside of specific roles that animals play in the unfolding of the Bible story, God uses animals in many ways today to bless us and enrich our lives. Animals have long been used in farming and transport and have provided nourishment and clothing (think of milk and wool), while the seeing-impaired benefit from service dogs that help them more safely navigate their surroundings. There is growing research that the mere presence of pets and animals in schools, hospitals, assisted-living facilities, and mental health clinics can help reduce stress and anxiety, decrease reported pain levels, decrease loneliness, provide comfort, invite social interaction and participation by creating a sense of security, improve focus and concentration, aid relaxation, and help foster a climate of empathy, care, excitement, and laughter [5]. These benefits were known long before recent scientific studies: the ancient Greeks noted the value of human-animal interaction [6]. In the late 1800s, Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing, recommended that patients with chronic and critical illnesses be comforted by interacting with small animals [7]. In the 1930s, the psychologist Sigmund Freud observed in his clinical notes that patients were more comfortable and participated more during counseling sessions when his dog was present [8]. But apart from past and present research, most people on the basis of personal experience are able to agree heartily with the words of Bernard Williams: “There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face” [9].
God is good to give us animals that bless us in countless ways. But apparently animals aren’t just for us but for God, too. The Bible consistently reveals to us, in sometimes surprising ways, God’s care for animals.
God’s Care for Animals
We see God’s care for animals declared in Psalm 104:
You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches … You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate … The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. In them the birds build their nests; the stork has her home in the fir trees. The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers … The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. When the sun rises, they steal away and lie down in their dens … O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Here is the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great … These all look to you, to give them their food in due season. When you give it to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. (vv. 10-12, 14, 16-18, 21-22, 24-25, 27-28)
God’s commitment to provide for the needs of his creatures is repeated in Psalm 145:15-16: “The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.” This divine attentiveness to supply food for the animals is present at the very outset of creation in Genesis 1:30: “And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” It appears again in Genesis 6:21 with God’s commitment to save animals from the flood and to feed them in the ark when he says to Noah: “… take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up. It shall serve as food for you and for them.” God’s care for animals is more striking when we recognize that at the literary turning point of the flood in Genesis 8:1 we read: “But God remembered Noah” – but not just Noah. It continues: “God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark.”He then remarkably makes a covenant promise not only to Noah and his offspring but to the animals in Genesis 9:9-10: “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your offspring after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the livestock, and every beast of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark; it is for every beast of the earth.” These are the words of the divine animal lover!
There’s more. When God announces in Exodus 12:12 that he would take the life of all the firstborn in Egypt, it’s interesting to note that the firstborn of every beast was included. By inference then, the lives of (some) animals were spared by the blood that was placed on the doorposts and lintels in response to God’s Passover instructions [10]. In addition, animals are explicitly mentioned as coming out of Egypt alongside the people liberated from their slavery in Exodus 12:37-38: “And the people of Israel journeyed from Rameses to Succoth, about six hundred thousand men on foot, besides women and children. A mixed multitude also went up with them, and very much livestock, both flocks and herds.” When the people reach Sinai and the Sabbath command of rest is given, God’s care includes animals. In the fourth commandment recorded in Exodus 20:10, we’re told: “the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock.” They are given rest, too. These are the words of the divine animal lover!
Consider also that when God gives water from the rock to his thirsty people in Numbers 20:11 the livestock drink too. According to Isaiah 30:23-24, animals will benefit from God’s grace when he rescues his people from exile and restores them to their land: “And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork” (cf. Ezekiel 36:11). Not only is the welfare of animals in view when the people return from exile, but the harmony disrupted in human-animal relations, as well as animal-animal relations, will be restored in the new creation. We’re told of a coming day in Isaiah 11:6-9 (cf. 65:25) when:
The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
Finally, God’s care for animals stunningly concludes the book of Jonah when God confronts Jonah with a question about the divine mercy shown to Nineveh: “… should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” We should hardly be surprised then when we read David’s words in Psalm 36:5-6: “Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; your judgments are like the great deep; man and beast you save, O Lord.” These are the words of the divine animal lover!
God’s care for animals is undeniable. And it has implications for us when we recognize God’s commission to humanity.
God’s Commission to Humanity
With Adam and Eve, humanity is entrusted with ruling over creation in Genesis 1:28, including over the animals: “… have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” God repeats the call to exercise dominion after the flood when he includes animals in the covenant promise to Noah. By implication of this covenant, humanity’s dominion is not to be exploitative or harsh or abusive but is to reflect the same kindness and care for the welfare of animals that God himself shows. According to Calvin, when the Creator placed animals in subjection to humankind, “he did it with the condition that we should handle them gently” [11]. Given God’s care for animals, it stands to reason that we read in Proverbs 12:10: “Whoever is righteous has regard for the life of his beast.”
In his book Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy, Matthew Scully writes: “Animals are more than ever a test of our character, of mankind’s capacity for empathy and for decent, honorable conduct and faithful stewardship. We are called to treat them with kindness, not because they have rights or power or some claim to equality, but in a sense because they don’t” [12]. It’s hard to see how a view like Scully’s can be grounded in strict naturalistic Darwinism, and it’s hard to see how a Darwinian view of life provides any basis for protecting endangered animals – isn’t nature simply selecting against them? On the other hand, the Bible offers a solid basis for our care for animals while clearly explaining our sense of responsibility: God’s commission to humanity to steward, care for, and protect what he has created.
Several years ago, a document entitled Every Living Thing: An Evangelical Statement on Responsible Care for Animals was issued. The statement contained several resolutions including: “we resolve to rule and treat all animals as living valued creatures, deserving of compassion, because they ultimately belong to God, because he has created them, declared them good, given them the breath of life, covenanted with them, and entrusted them to our responsible rule. So while animals have been given into our hand and for food this does not mean we can treat them as objects or act cruelly towards them; we resolve to exercise our responsible rule in part by confronting any and all cruelty against animals; we resolve … to work for the protection and preservation of all the kinds of animals God has created, while prioritizing human needs” [13].
It’s obvious by the emphasis on prioritizing human needs that this isn’t a statement from extremists committed to saving animals at the expense of human life or well-being. Rather it’s an attempt to remain committed to biblical ethics. Besides, it’s misguided to believe we’ll prioritize human needs at all if we’re indifferent to the welfare of animals. There’s a connection between how we care for animals and how we care for people. The philosopher Immanuel Kant observed: “He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men” [14]. A person who treats animals like trash will probably eventually treat “inconvenient people” like trash, too.
But what about people who treat animals quite well but still treat other people like trash – you know, the kinds of people who are impatient, intolerant, uncaring, unkind, and maybe even abusive to the people around them while treating their pets like royalty? And why not give pets the royal treatment? They are loyal, they love us unconditionally, and they don’t judge us. Understandably then relationships with animals can be more appealing and feel safer than relationships with people. And perhaps they are “safer.” People can and often do wrong us, sometimes terribly, in ways that pets don’t. But assigning a level of worth and providing a quality of care to animals that eclipses what we grant to those made in God’s image is not ok. Biblical ethics require us to prioritize humans and human needs because, above all, God is the divine people lover.
We see this in the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus points to the birds of the air in Matthew 6:26, saying: “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” His point in the immediate context is that God provides for the birds, so don’t worry – he’ll provide for you. But the force of his argument is in what he says next: “Are you not of more value than they?” As much as animals are to be valued, as much as God cares for them and feeds them, humans are of more value as image-bearers. Listen again – carefully – to what Jesus says to us about the birds: “your heavenly Father feeds them.” Not their heavenly Father but yours. Animals have a good Creator who cares for them, but we can know him not only as our Creator but also intimately as our Father – and ourselves as his sons and daughters.
And we can know him this way only through faith in Jesus – who while pleased to be described as the lion of the tribe of Judah and the lamb of God – took to himself not animal flesh but human flesh. He shed his blood on the cross to atone not for animals but people. He fulfilled the law to impute his righteousness not to animals but people. And he sits at the right hand of God in heaven to intercede not for animals, but for his beloved, for children of the Father, who belong to him by faith. Yes, God created, controls, and cares for animals – and we are commissioned to imitate his care. But we can entrust ourselves – now and for eternity – to the God who loves us and gave his Son to save sinners.
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[1] George Orwell, Animal Farm (New York, NY: The New American Library, 1959), 123.
[2] Ecclesiastes 3:20-21 explicitly refers to the spirit of a “beast” alongside the spirit of a human: “All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth?” The same Hebrew word for “spirit” is used for both the man and the beast, while the word for “beast” is the same word translated “livestock” in Genesis 1:24.
[3] James Herriot, All Creatures Great and Small (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1972), 270.
[4] Peter A. Huff, “Calvin and the Beasts: Animals in John Calvin’s Theological Discourse,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 42/1 (March 1999), 69.
[5] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/animal-therapy#how-it-works.
[6] https://hawaiianrecovery.com/rehab-blog/history-of-our-relationships-with-animal-assisted-therapy.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/bernard_williams_104835.
[10] Obviously the life of the lambs that supplied the blood were not spared. But even with this, how amazing it is that the blood of lambs on the occasion of the Passover served as a type of the blood of Jesus (see 1 Corinthians 5:7).
[11] Quoted in Peter A. Huff, “Calvin and the Beasts: Animals in John Calvin’s Theological Discourse,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 42/1 (March 1999), 70.
[12] Matthew Scully, Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003).
[13] To read (or sign) the entire statement, or to access other resources related to the topic of caring for animals, visit https://www.everylivingthing.com.
[14] Immanuel Kant, Lectures on Ethics (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 1980).