When Humans are Not Unique: Perspectives on Suffering and Redemption

Introduction

Humans are unique. Of this there can be no question. No other known species has the same capacities for imagination or intelligence. No other species combines such extraordinary acts of love with such unspeakable atrocities. Complex cultural formation, linguistic abilities, religious capacity, the extent of technological development, and the image of God all continue to set humans apart. Yet, in our zeal to point out the differences between humans and other animals, we have often failed to notice the deep continuities that exist. Ever since Darwin’s proposal made evolutionary theory cohere in 1859, some Christians have felt it impossible to affirm that we share a common ancestor with non-human animals, refusing our close communion with nature. Others, while affirming an ancestral connection have drawn other (sometimes rather arbitrary) boundaries to set us apart from the rest of the created order. This article will explore two interconnected and contested areas of human uniqueness: suffering and redemption. I will argue that these two areas are places of deeper continuity than Christians have regularly affirmed.

Are Humans Unique in Suffering?

It may seem a common-sense answer in our present cultural moment to simply affirm that other animals suffer. However, while horror stories of seventeenth-century vivisectionists laughing about the howling cries of dogs as ‘mere creaking of the animal “clockwork”’ may seem unthinkable now, the philosophies that informed them are still with us. C. S. Lewis, for example, argued that non-human subjects could not apprehend pain as suffering. They might feel pain and react to it, but they did not have the higher-order capacities necessary to reflect on it, and so non-human suffering was not as important a moral problem as human suffering. This view still has its defenders.

Bob Bermond’s ‘The Myth of Animal Suffering’ has had an unfortunate and dramatic impact on the debate, claiming three things. First, that ‘suffering is the experience of pain and of negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, sorrow and guilt.’ (Note that this definition includes both the experience of pain and the emotional response). Second, that it is difficult to prove that non-humans experience emotional states. Third, that most non-human animals do not have sufficiently developed prefrontal cortexes to allow for the emotional experience of suffering.

Michael Murray, in his influential Nature Red in Tooth & Claw, names the denial of non-human suffering as ‘neo-Cartesianism.’ Murray divides pain experience into three levels. The first is nociception: the ability to respond to noxious stimuli without any conscious awareness. This is what happens when we touch a hot stove by accident, and pull our hand away before we have even noticed the pain. The pain signal is processed by the spinal cord, which directs a muscular reflex immediately. The conscious awareness of pain comes later for humans. For creatures without complex brains, worms for example, there is good reason to think that nociception represents the whole of their experience, and therefore their experience of pain does not constitute suffering.

The second level of pain exists in sentient animals, who feel pain but do not have the ability to reflect self-consciously on the experience. They feel pain consciously, Murray argues, but do not suffer in an emotional sense. He compares sentient animals to people who have had lobotomies, who often claim to be in pain but say they do not mind it. The pain ceases to be unpleasant. We will come back to this point.

At the third level of pain, the creature not only feels pain, but can reflect self-consciously on the experience. It is the difference between the second level of pain awareness and the third level of self-conscious suffering that attracts controversy, because causing and/or allowing pain in a creature who has the third-order level of pain becomes an important moral consideration. Whether or not non-human creatures suffer, then, informs not only our self-understanding of human uniqueness, but also has wide-ranging implications for non-human animal ethics.

In making his case, Murray argued—following Bermond—that the ability to translate pain into suffering is located in the prefrontal cortex. Unfortunately, Murray made a mistake in translating Bermond’s thought and wrote that the prefrontal cortex ‘occurs only in humanoid primates,’ when in fact all mammals have a prefrontal cortex. Murray’s mistake was then repeated forcefully in a prominent debate by philosopher William Lane Craig in 2011. The televised debate sparked ferocious responses by atheists such as Jerry Coyne, Stephen Law, and P. Z. Meyers, and gave unwarranted hope to those looking for a simple answer to the complexity of evolutionary theodicy.

Still, the focus on the prefrontal cortex is not entirely a red herring. The frontal lobes seem to be deeply involved in linking pain with suffering. The most interesting research in this area comes from lobotomy patients.

The lobotomy operation, once used routinely to treat a variety of mental illnesses and chronic unmanageable pain, cuts the connections of the prefrontal cortex away from the rest of the brain, or simply scrambles the lobes entirely. Often, patients would report still feeling pain, but (apparently) would not mind. This strange result was reported by Paul Brand, who met a lobotomised patient in India. The woman, who had suffered severe chronic pain for years, had a lobotomy to try to solve the issue. Brand reports:

When I inquired about the pain, she said, ‘Oh, yes, it’s still there. I just don’t worry about it anymore.’ She smiled sweetly and chuckled to herself. ‘In fact, it’s still agonizing. But I don’t mind.’

At the time it startled me to hear words about agony coming from a person with such a placid demeanor: no grimace, no groan, only a gentle smile. As I read about other lobotomies, however, I found she was displaying a very typical attitude. Patients report feeling ‘the little pain without the big pain.’ A lobotomized brain, no longer recognizing pain as a dominating priority in life, does not call for a strong aversive reaction. Bermond’s claim that the prefrontal cortex in non-human animals is not complex enough to do the job of connecting pain with suffering suddenly does not seem so far-fetched. Do non-human animals only experience ‘the little pain without the big pain’?

Unfortunately, the evidence from the lobotomy patients is a double-edged sword. Some lobotomies did solve cases of extreme pain, but in many others, patients became more sensitive to pain, even if they seemed to forget about it more quickly. Some patients continued to use narcotics—such as morphine—for pain relief, and many patients who were initially helped by the lobotomy often ‘relearned’ suffering. Even apologists of the procedure admitted that ‘experience with the lobotomy, both the standard and the limited procedures, indicates clearly that this operation is no panacea for intractable pain.’ If humans—entirely without the benefit of a prefrontal cortex—were still able to suffer self-consciously, and sometimes profoundly, what does that mean for the creature whose brain is only less developed but not lacking these essential parts? Lennart Nordenfelt writes in response to Bermond that there is no evidence that ‘only such pieces of the prefrontal lobe as are exclusive to humans and the higher apes are the ones that are responsible for sensational and emotional suffering.’

The lobotomy evidence works against the neo-Cartesian position in another way: the patients who claimed that they did not suffer were no longer averse to pain. They did not worry, show signs of stress, or avoid the things that caused them pain before the lobotomy. Like the woman whom Paul Brand met in India, they seemed able to chuckle at severe pain. If the non-human experience of pain is like that of the lobotomy patients who do not suffer, then we should not expect them to be averse to painful stimuli. However, what we actually observe is that the neurological, chemical, and behavioural responses to pain in many non-human animals are so close to the responses that are evoked by human suffering that it is very difficult to come to any other conclusion except that non-human animals suffer. Evidence of suffering extends from very short term-effects of trauma, such as chemical stress responses, to long-term psychological effects similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.

We cannot, in the end, prove that non-human animal suffering either exists or does not exist. However, when creatures have similar neuroanatomy, and exhibit parallel chemical responses, pain aversion responses, and long-term psychological effects, the argument is as strong as can be reasonably hoped for.

If non-human animals do suffer, it causes a great deal of theological trouble. The history of evolution is littered with violence and pain, and therefore also with tremendous suffering. Traditionally, Christians have explained suffering in one of two ways: suffering is a result of sin, or suffering is allowed by God because it provides the opportunity for moral growth. Yet non-human suffering during the long pre-human eons of evolution cannot be blamed on Adam and Eve, nor can non-human animals benefit morally from suffering (at least, so far as we know). So compelling is the theodicy issue that several thinkers, including Nicolas Malebranche and Cardinal Melchior de Polignac, took a neo-Cartesian position simply to avoid the problem. A full proposal on the solution to non-human suffering is well beyond the scope of this paper, although there are some very good resources available. A small part of the question may be explored here, but the path involves challenging another bastion of purported human uniqueness: the scope of redemption.

Are Humans Unique in Redemption?

When faced with the question ‘Do non-human animals experience the redemption of the resurrected life?’ the most common answer in the Western Christian tradition, if the question was raised at all, has been ‘no.’ Aquinas, for example, argued that since only humans possess rational souls, and only rational souls can exist beyond death, then only humans can partake in the life beyond death. A parallel has often been drawn between the capacity for suffering and the capacity for redemption. Just as, in the neo-Cartesian view explored above, non-human animals were thought to have no capacity for present suffering, so they were also thought to have no place in future redemption. Humans were unique in their suffering and in their redemption.

A notable exception to this line of thinking was John Wesley, who preached with characteristically rich hope:

The whole brute creation will then, undoubtedly, be restored, not only to the vigour, strength, and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed. They will be restored, not only to that measure of understanding which they had in paradise, but to a degree of it as much higher than that, as the understanding of an elephant is beyond that of a worm.The link between redemption and understanding here is made explicit. Yet Wesley’s ‘bio-universalism’ is a rare thing, and visions of the new creation, when they have included the non-human world at all, have remained largely anthropocentric. Many exclude non-human involvement, while others allow some other-than-human creaturely involvement as long as it is mediated through humanity.

C. S. Lewis, who, as we saw earlier, denied the non-human capacity to suffer, did have a limited place for non-human redemption based on his understanding of the creature’s relationship to humans. For Lewis, non-human animals who were particularly close to people became ‘humanised’ by that contact, and therefore gained a share in the resurrection. This ‘Velveteen Rabbit’ model of redemption, where the only hope for a non-human creature to become properly ‘real’ is through the love of a person, does not extend any independent value to the being of creatures. In a similar way, John Polkinghorne allows that pets will be resurrected because of their favoured status with people, but he suggests that only representatives of most species will be present: ‘animals are indeed to be valued, but more in the type than in the token… I think it likely, therefore, that there will be horses in the world to come, but not every horse that has ever lived.’ Whatever the unique status of humans in the place of redemption (and I do think there is one) to stress it to the degree suggested by Lewis and Polkinghorne risks leaving the issue raised by the suffering of non-human animals unaddressed. Other theologians have addressed the question of non-human resurrection more closely in relation to the theodicy problem. Foremost amongst these are Jay McDaniel and Christopher Southgate.

McDaniel suggests a new creation for those animals who have not experienced flourishing in their earthly existence. To make his case, he points out the particular plight of the ‘insurance chick’ of the white pelicans. White pelicans lay two eggs each reproductive cycle, but the second-born is usually pushed from the nest by the older sibling to starve or be consumed by predators. In rare circumstances, the firstborn dies or is killed and the second chick is raised instead, thus ensuring a chick is raised each cycle. Yet, in general, the second chick’s life is a brief experience of pain, neglect, and death. McDaniel suggests a ‘pelican heaven,’ a new life where animals who have had no flourishing can experience a full life. Southgate picks up McDaniel’s suggestion of new life as an answer to non-human suffering, but also roots his hope of creaturely redemption in the descriptions of biblical texts and the sense that ‘human life at its richest will be set in the context of relationship with other creatures.’

While these two thinkers helpfully provide a context in which the theodicy question can be addressed, they also raise another question about whether redemption should be thought of as compensation for suffering. If redemption is primarily thought of as compensation, then it does not need to be universal or eternal. McDaniel comes to precisely this conclusion: ‘The hope is not necessarily that all living beings live forever as subjects in their own right; rather, it is that they live until they enjoy a fulfillment of their needs as creatures.’ Southgate also emphasises that a new life is most important for those animals who suffer, though he suggests that redemption might be more universal than the requirements of compensation because of the generosity of God.

Others have critiqued the notion of resurrection as compensation, most notably David Clough, and I agree with him that such a strategy is hedged with peril. Clough argues that redemption as compensation risks misunderstanding the nature of the God-world relationship. He writes:

Creatures are called not to be inquisitors of their God but instead to offer thanksgiving and praise. God must be understood to be the redeemer of all creatures, human and other-than-human, because God has determined to be gracious and faithful to them in this sphere, as well as in their creation and reconciliation, not because they would otherwise have a legitimate cause of complaint.

One has to both agree and disagree with Clough. It is right to say that to act as God’s inquisitor may be an unhelpful stance. At the same time, the Psalms and the Christian tradition more generally, do not shy away from asking what God is up to, and why God allows suffering. Moreover, if creatures are subject to unjust suffering, creatures should have the right to protest. Enquiring of God—even standing initially as inquisitor—can be an important part of the journey of the soul towards thanks and praise, as is so often exemplified in the Psalms. I do not share Clough’s worry that compensation risks misconstruing the nature of the God-world relationship, but rather that it underestimates the nature of redemption. To look only for mere compensation is asking for vastly too little.

The nature of redemption is not simply the renewal of individuals to their former nature, but the transformation of individuals into something far greater than they ever were. If what is promised is far beyond what is possible now, simply fulfilling an earthly life (as Jay McDaniel hopes for) is too small a vision. While I do not know if John Wesley’s vision of the ‘brute creation’ gaining the rationality of humans is accurate, I think the impulse behind it is right.

Following the same line of thought may solve another thorny problem. If we meet the objection that non-human creatures cannot properly benefit from redemption—because they cannot understand it—by speculating that their capacities will increase, we may be able to do a similar thing with the question of predation. A sharp disagreement arises between Clough and Southgate over whether non-human predators will still be predators in the new creation. Clough argues that the peaceable descriptions of the new creation deny us this possibility. Southgate argues that a leopard without its hunting instinct, sharp claws, and sharp teeth would lose an essential part of its identity. Southgate therefore imagines, drawing on James Dickey’s poem ‘The Heaven of Animals’, a type of heavenly hunting in which there is no pain, suffering, or death for the hunted, but where predation still exists.

Perhaps there is scope for imagining that all the skills and instincts that inform hunting now will still exist, but that there is some reality beyond predation to which these skills will be then pointed: some entirely new relationship between lion and lamb. A rather limited analogy might be how the human skills normally used for hunting (fast reflexes, strength, strategy, accuracy, etc.) are all engaged in games of sport. All the original hunting skills are put to use but without intention of bloodshed or death. So too, the instincts of the lion may be brought to a new use, and even perfected, without the victimisation of the lamb or loss of identity. A more poetic reflection might be that the target of the heavenly hunt becomes God alone, and all creatures co-operate in the pursuit of the divine, with all pressing ‘further up and further in’ with all the skills and powers at their disposal. Whatever redemption will be, it must be the completion and never the diminution of being.

We are brought back to a second problem with Polkinghorne’s ‘type and not the token’ argument: the focus of redemption is wrong when we calculate the odds of redemption. The focus of all redemption has to be theocentric. God alone is the motivation, source, and end of redemption. Polkinghorne would say that primarily only creatures who were known by humans will be raised as individuals. The rest will simply be represented by a few members of their species. Yet is it plausible that God, who knows and loves every creature more than we have ever known or cherished even the most beloved pet, only values non-human creatures for their type? If redemption is the work of God, and emerges out of the motivation of God’s universal love, then we should expect redemption’s scope to be as far-reaching as that love. Redemption, for all animals, is not just freedom from suffering, but the embrace of a new capacity for union with God. The individual fully enjoys God, both knowing and being completely known by divine love. God too, made vulnerable to creation’s ‘otherness’, finds love’s endeavour fulfilled. To overlook the non-human world in redemption is to not only have an impoverished vision of the new creation, it is also to be insufficiently theocentric.

In light of God’s generosity and love, I hold the view (alongside Jürgen Moltmann and Elizabeth Johnson ) that all non-human creatures will be raised, fulfilled, and exalted. The suffering (that we have good reason to believe the non-human world experiences) will be healed. This is not only a far more satisfying theodicy and a more exciting vision of the new creation, it also turns the focus on redemption back to where it ought to be: on God. It is for Christ that all things were initially created, and in Christ that all things hold together (Col 1:16-17). It makes sense, then, to root the logic and scope of the new creation in Christ as well, rather than in compensation. It is in the self-giving love of the Trinity that the meaning of all things cohere, whether of mice or men, whether in creation or redemption.

I have argued that there is a need to re-evaluate where we place the boundaries of human uniqueness: it cannot be found in either the capacity for suffering or redemption. The deep commonalities between human and non-human animals do not eliminate human uniqueness, but they may increasingly turn our definition of uniqueness to one of role rather than of capacity. I have found the work of Joshua Moritz and his reflections on the Imago Dei as parallel to the election of Israel helpful in this regard. Although throughout Christian history, non-human animals have often been considered incapable of real suffering and were thought to be without the capacity for resurrection, in light of scientific findings, particularly from neuroanatomy and psychology, the former assumption has been strongly challenged. The reality of suffering then brings a new urgency to the question of redemption as part of an evolutionary theodicy, extending once again the commonalities between the human and non-human world into the hope of the new creation.