THE HEART OF THE MATTER

Animals and the Incarnation

“The fundamental New Testament assertion concerning the incarnation, therefore, is not that God became a member of the species Homo sapiens, but that God took on flesh, the stuff of living creatures.”

                                                ~   David Clough

            As we emerge from the Christmas season, and in part as a follow-up to my recent post about animals and heaven, I thought it appropriate this week to pick up again with David Clough’s book, On Animals, to consider what he has to say about the incarnation.[1] 

In the incarnation, God became human. What does that have to do with animals? Quite a lot, actually.

Opening Part Two of his book, Clough quite rightly calls “the person and work of Jesus Christ . . . the heart of the matter” in developing a theology of animals.  I believe this is true in two ways; Clough’s focus in on the second.  First, whatever we do as Christians, the person and work of Jesus Christ must be the heart of the matter, and whatever activities we engage in, we must ask ourselves whether we are following where he would lead.  Our relationships with animals and our theology of animals are no different.  But second, in developing a coherent and consistent system of theology, while we may logically start at the beginning with the doctrine of creation, we must quickly conclude that we cannot understand either our creation in the image of God or its corollary our dominion over the animals, without considering that perfect image of God, Jesus Christ, and his dominion over all of creation.   

Guido Reni - Saint Joseph and the Christ Child

        I have argued, as a matter of practical theology, that we must look to Christ, as the perfect image of God, to learn how we are to reflect the image of God outward, into the world.  He is (among other things) our Teacher and our Example.  I have placed particular emphasis on Philippians 2:6, which tells us that Christ did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself for us, beings of infinitely lesser status.  This means that if we follow him, we cannot stand on any perceived status humans may have over the animals to disregard the animals’ inherent value before God or the reality and significance of their suffering. 

            Clough argues, as a matter of systematic theology, that even if the doctrine of creation reveals connections between humans and other animals that suggest other animals may not be as easily dismissed as has been supposed, if Christ came only as a human to save humans, we are back to square one.  If this is true, he says, then the animals are once again relegated to a secondary position and need not concern us theologically.  But, Clough asserts, it is decidedly not true. 

            First, Clough addresses the particularity of Christ’s incarnation and its implications: “God became a Jew rather than a Gentile, a man rather than a woman, an inhabitant of Palestine rather than one of South America, a creature alive in the first century AD rather than the twenty-first, a human being rather than a dog” (p. 83).   While the church struggled at times with what this particularity might mean for the reach of Christ’s work, especially for non-Jews and for women, it has concluded that Christ’s saving work was not limited to Jews or to men (some still oppose the ordination of women, but Clough states that today “few theologians would be prepared to use the doctrine of the incarnation as grounds for gender discrimination” (p. 84)).  In addition, neither the time nor the place of Christ’s birth have been used to narrow those who may be reached by his work.  Yet, “God’s choice to become incarnate as a human being rather than any other creature – in contrast to all the other aspects of the particularity of the incarnation, is still widely considered to be decisive in delimiting the significance of God’s action in Christ” (p. 84).  This inconsistency suggests such a limitation is “structurally flawed” (p. 84).  Instead, Clough says, we must recognize that “’God became an animal’ or, more comprehensively, ‘God became a creature’” (p. 84).

            Turning to scripture, Clough looks to John 1:14, which tells us that the “Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.” Clough considers the Greek word translated as “flesh,” sarx,  as used in the New Testament (John 17:2, Eph. 2:14, 1 Tim. 3:16, 1 Jn 4:2), and its relation to the Hebrew word basar, as used in the Old Testament (Gen. 6:13, Job 34:15, Jer. 32:27), to conclude it is a reference to all living creatures.  Thus, “[t]he fundamental New Testament assertion concerning the incarnation, therefore, is not that God became a member of the species Homo sapiens, but that God took on flesh, the stuff of living creatures” (p. 85).

Statue of Christ, by Thorvaldsen, Vor Frue Kirke, Copenhagen

            In addition, scripture is clear that Christ’s incarnation has cosmic significance; it is not limited to one species on one planet.  Clough cites in particular Colossians 1:15-20, wherein Christ is lauded as “the first born of all creation” in whom “all things in heaven and on earth were created” and whom “all things hold together.”  That Christ’s creative and saving work reaches to “all things,” is echoed in, among other places, Ephesians 1:9-10 and 1:22, Hebrews 1:2-3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, John 1:3, and Revelation 3:14.  Therefore, “God became incarnate in one creature, but this incarnation revealed the meaning and transformed the being of every creaturely life.  In this context, to think of the incarnation as bearing significance only for human beings seems an odd theological oversight . . .” (p. 89).  We must understand the whole creation from a Christocentric point of view, he says; not an anthropocentric one.   In one of my favorite lines in the book, Clough explains that the focus of these texts “is not the humanity of Christ but the universality of his creative and reconciling work:  when our thoughts are being directed to all things, visible and invisible, in heaven and on earth, to become fixated on the species of the creature in which God became incarnate is a clear case of missing the point” (p.89).[2] 

            In addition, as we are told in Colossians 1:15, 2 Corinthians 4:4, Romans 8:29, and 1 Corinthians 15:49, among other places, Christ alone is the unique and true image of God.  Our own ability to image God is imperfect: “we can no longer speak without qualification of human beings as images of God” (p. 101).  This means that, although Genesis might suggest a significant distinction between humans and other animals based on humans’ unique creation in the image of God, when we understand the limitations of that image within us, the distinction becomes less definitive.  Our ability to image God will only be fully realized at the resurrection; we are, for now, works in progress rather than true images of God.  (This brings to mind the early Protestant reformers, who similarly argued that the image of God was something that humans could lose – or had lost – through sin, as noted in my post, Why Has The Church Taken A Different View?.)  When we carry that image so imperfectly, it becomes harder to claim privileges we believe adhere to it.  (Not to mention that, scripturally speaking, to claim privileges based on status is another clear case of missing the point.)

            Humans, then, are unique in that “only humans can serve God in human-specific ways” and, as a matter of vocation, we do that more fully as we more fully follow Christ, the true image of God.  But the real distinction revealed in scripture is not between humans and other animals; it is between Christ and creature:  “The doctrine of the incarnation does not therefore establish a theological boundary between humans and other animals; instead it is best understood as God stepping over the boundary between creator and creation and taking on creatureliness” (p.103).  Like the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of the incarnation has as much to say about our commonalities with other creatures as our differences. 

            While I have argued that our perceived status does not entitle us to neglect our fellow creatures, Clough asks us to reconsider that perception of status altogether.  I want to pause here to note that one objection some Christians have to “animal rights” is the fear that animals will be considered of “equal value” with humans and there will be no basis to prefer one over the other, which they find theologically objectionable.[3]  That clearly is not what Clough is suggesting.  He has stated both in Part One and in Part Two of his book that each creature is called to serve God in its own way and that only humans can serve God in human-specific ways; he does not say humans and other animals are the same, he says we have much in common.  He addresses the concern of egalitarianism among all species directly in Chapter 3 (which I discussed here):  “Such egalitarianism seems to me to be ruled out in a theological context by the occasions where Jesus affirms God’s care for non-human creatures as a way of giving his human listeners confidence in God’s providential care for them” (p. 75).  So, for example, Jesus tells us that God cares for the sparrows, and humans are worth many sparrows. I think what Clough is suggesting is that we have been so theologically focused on our own value, that we have become blind to the value of our fellow creatures and forgotten our commonality with them; we have forgotten that God loves and cares for the sparrows, too.  In so doing, we have restricted our vision and understanding of the incarnation and failed to appreciate the fullness of God’s extravagant love.   

By Alvesgaspar (Own work) CC BY-SA 3.0  via Wikimedia Commons

             Nevertheless, regardless of whether you look to Christ’s example of service to those of lesser status, or whether you focus on the implications of the incarnation for all of creation and not just for humans (these are complementary, not opposing, views), the result is that the incarnation of God in Christ undermines any attempt to rely on our creation in God’s image to justify exploitation of God’s other animals or to fail to extend our mercy and care to them.   Both perspectives require a grander vision of God’s action in Christ, and both call us, as Christ always does, to look beyond ourselves.

            But Christ died for human sin, didn’t he?  How does that implicate the animals?  To be honest, I had hoped to address that question in this post, but I see now that will be impossible.  Next time!

Christ the Good Shepherd

           

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[1] Earlier discussions in this blog of Clough’s work (of which I seem to amassing quite a collection) are A VitalTheological Task, All Creatures of Our God and King, On Humans and OtherAnimals, and In Conversation: Q&A With David Clough.

[2] Clough next addresses the scope of the incarnation in the context of Barth’s work.  For the sake of brevity, I have not addressed that element of Clough’s analysis here.

[3] I have explained my views of human value in this post, On Image and Value.