Caspar David Friedrich (1798) - Wolves in the Forest in Front of a Cave | Public Domain
I was recently attending an intellectual retreat at the Dominican House of Studies when a question was raised by one of my peers: Does it not seem odd that the good of a fox and the good of a rabbit are contradictory? By the very fact that foxes hunt rabbits, and that their function, in some sense, is to do that hunting well, the good of the fox would seem to require that it kill the rabbit (which is definitely not good for the rabbit) for its own sustenance, thereby fulfilling its function as a natural predator of rabbits.
Ever since we were children we were taught of the food cycle, taught that animals have to kill for their own survival, and later understanding that the fox is not morally culpable for killing the rabbit, because of the type of being that it is.
Let us consider this question raised at the retreat a little more deeply. Does it not, in fact, seem odd that the very natural world, and the mechanisms by which creatures sustain themselves and act instinctively, are so violent and destructive? It does not require much searching through the natural world to find such examples. One need only turn to any number of National Geographic documentaries to witness this violence: a pack of lions ripping a living gazelle to shreds; crocodiles performing a “death roll,” tearing the limbs from their prey; orcas hunting mother and calf whales, positioning themselves over the whales’ blowholes and effectively drowning them; or orcas ramming into dolphins and breaking their spines. The list goes on and on, revealing the violence and utter destruction inflicted upon prey throughout the natural world.
Presuming we are not young earth creationists along with some theory of evolution, we can see how the violence and pain observed today has been the norm for a couple billion years. We can see that the way God chose to bring about biological diversity on earth, came from the killing and destruction of the weak for the sustenance and flourishing of the strong.
It is precisely this violence that makes the original question so difficult to dismiss. Why are the goods of these two animals in contradiction with each other? Saying, "that's just the way it is” doesn't suffice because it could have very well been a different way. God’s omnipotence deems this a real possibility: that the world need not have been created, and need not have been created in this particular way. It could have very well been created such that this violence, destruction, and pain were avoided altogether. So why wasn’t it?
One might attempt to answer this question by appealing to the reasons we commonly give for human pain and suffering. Yet applying these same reasons to non-human animals presents its own difficulties. Us Catholics commonly love to say that pain and suffering are transformative, and they are. The pain we undergo in this life is an opportunity to humble ourselves, surrender ourselves, and unite ourselves more intimately to the condescension of Christ. But this theodicy, along with a free will defense, or a soul-building theodicy, or the existence of greater goods do not have nearly the same weight when confronted with the pain of animals. Under Thomistic thought, animals do not have rational souls, and as a consequence, do not get to enjoy the potential growth in virtue from their pain, or freedom to justify the existence of their pain, or the ability to exercise greater goods such as compassion or forgiveness, so what good is their pain for?
That question has led many to argue that the evidential problem of animal pain is one of the most forceful iterations of the problem of evil against the existence of God. Its existential weight follows from the reasons I have listed before:
Animals experience pain.
Billions of animals have experienced this pain throughout evolutionary history.
God chose natural selection as the mechanism to govern the natural world.
Animals don't enjoy the reasons we commonly use to justify the existence of pain for humans.
Their pain appears gratuitous (1,4)
It is unlikely that God would ordain such an immense amount of gratuitous pain.
Therefore it is unlikely that God would have made a world like the one we find ourselves in. (2,4,5,6)
(I don’t mean for this reconstruction to be strictly valid, I simply intend to give the general line of reasoning for the evidential problem of evil in terms of animal pain.)
If this argument is compelling, then we are left with the question of how the existence of God can be reconciled with the immense gratuitous pain we observe in the natural world not only now but throughout most of our planet's history. I have heard many proposed answers to this problem, and I will list and explain some of them here:
The hierarchy of goods
Things are not created for themselves but instead for something greater. All things are ultimately created for the glory of God. The grass is not created for itself but also to feed the antelope, and the antelope therefore to feed the lion. This upward focused hierarchy of goods justifies the evolutionary pain of animals because it was aimed at something greater, namely the creation of human beings and the flourishing of greater things.
Problem: I think the problem still remains, why is the very mechanism so gruesome and violent? God could have brought about genetic diversity and human evolution through a means that involved much less pain.
Animals don't really suffer
Animals don’t have the rational capacity to reflect on their pain, and therefore they do not “suffer” in the same way that humans do.
Problem: Yes I believe animals do not “suffer” in a self reflective way that humans do, there will be no “weeping and gnashing of teeth” for animals; yet this is why I was careful with the use of the word ‘pain’ instead of suffering. Anybody who objects that animals feel pain I recommend taking a visit to the slaughterhouse.
Animals will be raised in the general resurrection
Catholic teaching does not exclude the possibility of animals in heaven. While they will not be experiencing the beatific vision because of their lack of a rational soul, nothing excludes the possibility of animals being raised during the general resurrection after the coming of Christ. This state of resurrection would be extended to all creation and creatures that would include the animals that experienced such needless pain.
Problem: While I believe that heavenly compensation is a good start, I don’t believe it justifies animal pain. If I punch someone in the face and then give them $1,000 after I did, my intuitions lead me to believe that I still did something wrong, even though I compensated them after the fact. Apply this thinking to a heavenly resurrection for animals and it still does not properly explain what was the purpose of such immense amounts of animal pain.
Animals will be given greater rational capacity in heaven
Trent Doherty’s book “The Problem of Animal Pain: A Theodicy for All Creatures Great and Small” proposes that God will grant animals greater rational capacities in the afterlife. This would allow animals to participate in the typical soul-building theodicies we are used to using for human suffering. Since animals will then be able to see themselves as part of God’s providential plan in the world. This increased rational capacity will allow them to reflect on their past pain and similar to us, give glory to God through that in some way.
I find this theodicy pretty interesting, and I find little problems other than simply its speculation, but it's certainly possible that it could happen.
God does not select possible worlds based on which one contains less pain
This point argues that it would not necessarily be unlikely that God would choose to actualize a world in which there exists this immense evolutionary pain for animals simply because God could have other more important considerations when choosing to bring about this world over another.
This is a rejection of premise 6 in the simplified reconstruction of the argument above. I like this point, and I will talk about it more in the final possible response.
Animal pain contributes to evolutionary development
Pain serves an important evolutionary function by allowing animals to recognize and avoid threats to their survival. Through natural selection, these mechanisms contribute to the adaptation and development of species, making suffering a consequence of the very processes that allow life to evolve and diversify. Therefore, God may permit animal suffering as part of the evolutionary process through which increasingly complex and diverse forms of life emerge, and this is the greater good that their pain contributes to.
Skeptical Theism
Skeptical theism does not require us to deny the immense pain that animals have experienced, nor does it require us to identify a particular good that justifies every instance of their pain. Rather, it asks us to consider whether our inability to recognize God's reasons for permitting such suffering is sufficient grounds for concluding that no such reasons exist.
Of these proposed answers, I find skeptical theism the most convincing. Since the evolutionary problem of evil is an internal critique of Christianity, we are allowed to use all of the advantages of a theistic framework, in this case, God’s omniscience. Our knowledge cannot compare to infinite knowledge, therefore it is perfectly reasonable to rely on the possibility that God could have many morally justifying reasons to allow for such pain even though we may not have access to them. This proposed solution answers the question of why God chose this world and these natural mechanisms over others. It answers the question with an intellectual and philosophically rigorous “I don't know.”
In conclusion, the question raised at the retreat remains a difficult one. Why should the good of the fox come at the expense of the rabbit? I do not think we can confidently claim to know the answer. But neither do I think that our inability to answer it necessarily means that God could have no sufficient reason for creating the natural world as He has. Perhaps the problem of animal pain ultimately confronts us not only with the mystery of pain and suffering, but also with the limits of our own understanding.
References
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 2415–2418
Dougherty, Trent. The Problem of Animal Pain: A Theodicy for All Creatures Great and Small. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.
Genesis 3:17
Perrine, Timothy. “Skeptical Theism.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2023
Romans 8:22
The Thomistic Institute. “Will My Pet Go to Heaven? [#AskAFriar] (Aquinas 101).” YouTube.