Christian Theology and the Status of Animals

The Dominant Tradition and Its Alternatives

R. McLaughlin

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137344588
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

The author argues that there are conflicting traditions with regard to the question of what is the moral standing of animals according to Christianity. The dominant tradition maintains that animals are primarily resources but there are alternative strands of Christian thought that challenge this view.

1

Thomas Aquinas and the Dominant Tradition

There can be little doubt that Saint Thomas Aquinas has left a profound and lasting impact on the landscape of Christian philosophy and theology. His appropriation of Aristotelian philosophy and his engagement with the thinking of such figures as Augustine, John Damascene, the Jewish philosopher Maimonides, and the Islamic philosopher Averroes are nothing short of brilliant. Contemporary scholars, however, have raised questions regarding Aquinas’s legacy in relation to creation care. These questions warrant investigation into his eco-theological position.

In this chapter I argue that Aquinas represents, in a coherent and cohesive manner, a view concerning nonhuman animals that is the dominant tradition in Christian history. In this view animals are essentially reduced to resources for human well-being in the temporal realm, including bodily nourishment and spiritual knowledge. These resources belong to the entire human community and thus must be used in a manner conducive to the welfare of that community. This emphasis on the common good renders Aquinas’s position a potentially powerful voice for ecological concern but only within a framework that is ultimately indirect, anthropocentric, and conservationist. Humans must preserve the cosmos as it is for the sake of the entire human community. Such is the dominant tradition – one that posits only indirect moral concern for nonhuman animals and effectively denies them intrinsic value.

The question of Aquinas’s eco-theological legacy

In his frequently cited 1967 essay, Lynn White writes: “Especially in its Western form, Christianity is the most anthropocentric religion the world has seen.”¹ As we will see, White’s contention is not without dissent. Even so, many scholars’ sentiments echo White’s regarding at least the dominant strand of thought in Western Christianity. These scholars, both secular and religious, often trace this strand to the writings of Aquinas.

For example, regarding Aquinas’s position regarding nonhuman animals, Peter Singer states, “No argument could reveal the essence of speciesism more clearly.”² Richard Ryder laments that Aquinas’s anthropocentrism is responsible for the justification of “several centuries of outstanding cruelty” toward animals.³ Gary Steiner categorizes Aquinas as “the apex of medieval anthropocentrism.”⁴ Robert Wennberg argues that Aquinas, like Immanuel Kant, adheres to a moral theory “that has no place for animals.”⁵ Andrew Linzey charges that Aquinas’s speciesist viewpoint in which nonhuman creatures have no claim of direct moral concern “has left a bitter legacy in Christian theology.”⁶ Finally, Paul Santmire detects an anthropocentrism in Aquinas in which “nature is seen more as an object for human use, which satisfies biological needs and serves spiritual knowledge, than as a subject in its own right.”⁷

In responding to these negative readings, defenders of Aquinas have frequently pointed to his historical context and the overarching scope of his theology in order to reveal the aforementioned critiques as overly simplistic. For example, John Berkman writes that, for Aquinas, “the entire physical universe (for example plants, birds, nonhuman and human animals) is ordered towards ‘ultimate perfection’, which is in turn ordered to God, and by its perfection gives glory to the goodness of God.”⁸ With this claim, Berkman argues that, for Aquinas, “God’s plan in creation ... is by no means anthropocentric.”⁹ Anne Clifford argues that negative interpretations of anthropocentric passages in Aquinas can only stand when they are “read in total isolation from other passages in which he affirms the inherent goodness of all creatures as unique manifestations of the Trinity and if his theology is interpreted ahistorically.”¹⁰ Celia Deane-Drummond, while noting certain problems with Aquinas’s biology, nonetheless defends him against overgeneralized accusations of anthropocentrism by acknowledging the interplay between grace and nature in his thought.¹¹ Jame Schaefer offers a similar qualified defense.¹² William French, likewise a critical advocate of Aquinas, notes, “Many who know little of Catholicism cite certain unfortunate parts of a long and varied tradition to dismiss it as holding no helpful resources for promoting responsible care of animals or the eco-system.”¹³ Mark Wynn argues that Aquinas’s position is more nuanced than his detractors acknowledge. To make this point, he draws on Aquinas’s understanding of God’s subsistent existence in order to highlight his theological cosmocentrism.¹⁴ Willis Jenkins maintains that Aquinas “escapes facile categorization by cosmological centrisms.” In Jenkins’s view, Aquinas resists appeals to “anthropocentrism, theocentrism, and ecocentrism ... because he sees that God chooses to move creation to Godself by inviting humans into a friendship shaped by their intimacy with all creation.”¹⁵

Even given the disparate voices, there can be little doubt that Aquinas has greatly impacted the theological landscape of Christian history. What remains in dispute is the nature of his eco-theological legacy. Does Aquinas provide the foundations for an unhindered degradation of the nonhuman creation? Or does his theocentric framework and historical context either mitigate or flatly disprove such accusations?

It is my position that regarding nonhuman animals in particular, Aquinas’s position can be described as both anthropocentric and conservationist. These facets of his thought are grounded in – as opposed to exonerated by – his theocentric framework. To back this position, in this chapter I explore the intersection of nature and teleology in Aquinas’s summas. I argue that his appropriation of these ideas establishes a cosmological theocentrism that grounds, in temporal practice, an eco-theological ethics in which the telos of corporeal nonhuman entities is exhausted in the temporal realm and is directed to the well-being of the entire human community. Because this ethics understands the value of the nonhuman creation with reference to humanity, it is anthropocentric. Because this value exists for the sake of all humans, including future generations, Aquinas’s ethics calls for conservation of the natural order. In my view, such is Aquinas’s eco-theological legacy. This legacy, as I argue in Chapter 2, is evident today in contemporary magisterial pronouncements of the Catholic Church.

Aquinas’s theological framework and nonhuman animals

For Aquinas, the created order embodies a multiplicity of formal distinctions. All of these forms, whether human or nonhuman, are good.¹⁶ However, as “formal distinction always requires inequality,” the multiplicity in creation entails also a hierarchy of created things in which some are more perfect than others.¹⁷ Regarding the forms of life in these distinctions, Aquinas posits three hierarchically arranged classifications of souls: vegetative, sensitive, and rational.¹⁸ At the lowest rung of the hierarchy of souls is the vegetative soul, which lacks both sentience and rationality but possesses the powers of nutrition, augmentation, and generation.¹⁹ At the second rung is the sensitive soul. It is here that Aquinas places all nonhuman animals, in that in addition to vegetative qualities, they possess the exterior and interior senses but lack rationality.²⁰ Aquinas maintains that forms of higher perfection contain the lower forms. That is, “What belongs to the inferior nature pre-exists more perfectly in the superior.”²¹ Hence, the human soul possesses the qualities of both the vegetative and sensitive souls; but in its rationality it excels them.²² Aquinas claims that it is this unique rational dimension of the human creature that constitutes the imago Dei (“image of God”). All nonhuman creatures and the animalistic dimensions of human beings bear a likeness to God in that they reveal a trace of God’s design “just as the shape of a house points to the idea of the architect.”²³ However, only the rational component (the mind) of humans bears the likeness of God as image: “This image of God is not found even in the rational creature except in the mind.” That is, “[t]he intellect or mind is that whereby the rational creature excels other creatures.”²⁴

I return to Aquinas’s depiction of the hierarchy of beings below, but my immediate concern is the link between the nature and telos of a creature. What is the proper end of the human creature that, with its rational soul, occupies the highest tier of the corporeal hierarchy? In Aquinas’s thought, the answer is twofold.²⁵ The first end proper to the human creature pertains to temporal matters. The second is the ultimate telos of humanity, which Aquinas defines as “happiness.”²⁶ For Aquinas, “God alone constitutes man’s happiness.”²⁷ Hence, while all creatures have God as their end, “happiness” denotes the particular way in which humanity is directed toward God as ultimate end. This telos of happiness is a shared life with God in which the rational soul contemplates the divine.²⁸ In short, for Aquinas, the ultimate telos appropriate for the nature of the human creature is the Beatific Vision. Thus, he states: “Final and perfect happiness can consist in nothing else than the vision of the Divine Essence,”²⁹ which Aquinas elsewhere links to union with God.³⁰ While this telos is appropriate to humanity’s rational core, human nature also requires a gracious augmentation to perfect it for the Beatific Vision.³¹

Regarding the temporal telos of humanity, Aquinas posits that an imperfect happiness is possible in the temporal realm. This happiness “depends, in a way, on the body.”³² Furthermore, “For imperfect happiness, such as can be had in this life, external goods are necessary, not as belonging to the essence of happiness, but by serving as instruments to happiness, which consists in an operation of virtue.”³³ This passage indicates that the temporal ends of humans (1) include a dependence on their animal bodies, which requires meeting the needs of their vegetative soul, among which are nutrition, augmentation, and generation;³⁴ and (2) are directed toward their ultimate end.³⁵ It also reveals the centrality of teleology in Aquinas’s understanding of virtue.³⁶

For a human to live virtuously in the temporal realm is for that human to live toward his or her proper telos, whether temporal or ultimate. Thus like Aristotle, Aquinas holds that the cardinal virtues, which exist for Christians and non-Christians alike, are directed toward temporal ends.³⁷ However, Aquinas differs from Aristotle in arguing that in Christians, who are infused with the theological virtues, the cardinal virtues are perfected beyond what is possible for those who lack the former.³⁸ The theological virtues’ presence perfects other virtues. Pinckaers expresses this point when ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  Thomas Aquinas and the Dominant Tradition
• 2  The Dominant Tradition and the Magisterium
• 3  Theology and the Reconfiguration of Difference
• 4  In Via toward an Animal-Inclusive Eschaton
• 5  Breaking with Anthropocentrism: Genesis 1
• 6  Breaking with Conservationism: Isaiah 11:19
• 7  The Sacramentality of the Cosmos
• 8  Alternative Traditions and Interreligious Dialogue
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index