Do Animals Have Souls?

By Sean McDonough, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

Dedicated readers of this blog (and might the plural, let alone the “dedicated”, be rather optimistic?) will note that the question in the title is a follow-up to a previous post involving the question of human “souls” – and more importantly, the question of how words work. This present piece springs from close observation of my dog at work and play…or more precisely, at rest and play, with the occasional duty of barking at people who pass by the house, and enthusiastically greeting those who enter it.

Now, with respect to humans, I argued that while we cannot expect to isolate an entity called “the soul” somewhere in a Platonic heaven, the word “soul” does mighty good work addressing the interior dimension of our existence. Right from the start, then, we recognize that since humans don’t “have” souls in the same sense that they have bus tokens or a mole on their cheek, we would assume that animals don’t have them, either. This is a crucial point, since without it we can find ourselves split in two by a putative decision tree:

Do animals have souls?

No> Wantonly ridicule, kill and eat them

Yes> Refuse to make any use of them whatsoever, and set up animal focus groups with a view towards creating greater inter-species cooperation.

It doesn’t work that way.

The question about animals “having souls” is really a question as to whether they have an “interior dimension of their existence” that warrants the use of the word “soul”. And here the evidence is a bit mixed. The crucial element in determining the presence and nature of such an interior dimension is, generally speaking, speaking. I use “generally speaking” not only for the delight of having “speaking” appear twice in a sentence, but also because we can assume the presence of the interior dimension of a person who is unable to communicate with words. But generally we know what is in a person’s “soul” because they tell us about it.

Animals do not do this, Doctor Doolittle aside. They can’t tell us whether Eli Manning is an “elite” quarterback, or whether a beautiful sunset can reasonably be termed “sublime”. If the proverbial roomful of monkeys ever did bang out Shakespeare’s works on their monkey-friendly word-processors, it would only be by accident, not intent.

Even as I write this, I can sense the growing wrath of animal lovers. So I hasten to add that even if animals don’t communicate with language which reveals an interior dimension of life perfectly analogous with that of humans, they surely communicate in all sorts of other ways. Pain, fear, anger – a growl or a whine or a nip can get that dimension of their “inner” experience across quite clearly. And while dogged materialists will strive to tell us canines can’t really be sad, as a dog-owner and recent viewer of Benji the Hunted, I feel comfortable in affirming that they can…at least in some sense.

And it is with precisely such equivocation that I want to conclude this brief exploration of the animal soul. We can know quite a bit about what humans are like on the inside. We simply can’t know what is going on with animals with the same level of precision. So using the language of “soul” is probably not the most helpful thing to do. But that hardly establishes an unbridgeable chasm between the animals and us. The Scripture is quite clear that whatever unique qualities humans bring to the table, we are all of us, human and animal alike, part of God’s creation, distinct from the creator himself (Revelation 4, where humans are mixed in with the beasts in the persons of the “living creatures”, is a particularly vivid illustration of this fact). The Scripture also warrants using animals in labor and for food, so I eat my cheeseburgers with a clean conscience.

And if my dog ever questions me about that, I’ll just point out to her that she eats the hamburger, too.

Christian Life as a Work of Translation

By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

I find myself writing this from Misano Adriatico, Italy, at the start of the second week of the 2009 Nida School for Translation Studies, where about 30 scholars from around the world have gathered to discuss various topics related to the general theme of “translation and culture.” We are hearing lectures/presentations on topics like “Translation and Comparative Literature,” “Gender Issues in Translation,” “Linguistic Aspects of Translation: the case of metaphor,” “Translation, American English and the National Insecurities of Empire,” “Translating Hebrew Poetry,” and “Translation Studies and Bible Translation,” along with many other topics related to the translation of literature, comic strips, video games, the Quran, and the Jewish and Christian Bibles. An amazingly diverse set of approaches and issues is being discussed and the stimulation is wonderful. The hope and expectation is that this experience will result in fruitful crosspollination that will benefit both the work of Bible translation and translation studies in general.

Gordon-Conwell is starting a new D.Min. track in Bible Translation and I look forward to the participation of our D.Min. students in the Nida School of 2011 and am sure they will find it to be a stimulating and challenging place in which their own thinking about translation will be enriched.

Spending so much time thinking about translation also reminds me of the numerous ways in which translation may serve as a powerful theological metaphor. As the body of Christ, the church is to continue being built up “until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13 NIV). We are to “to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (Eph 4:24 NIV). That is, we are to become better and better translations of Christ in this world – translations that are undergoing constant revision so as to become ever more perfect (or, better, less and less imperfect) representations of Christ.

We tend to be such imperfect translations of Christ (or perhaps I should just speak for myself) that it is very easy for other people to get the wrong message, to get the wrong idea about who Christ is and what he is all about. By God’s grace and the power of his Spirit, may the world recognize Christ’s people to be (imperfect but) adequate translations through which they may come to know his truth, love, grace and righteousness, giving praise and recognition not to the translation itself, but to the One who has provided such a translation so that he might be known (cf. Matt 5:16).

The Whole World Is(n’t?) Watching

By Sean McDonough, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament

It looks as though we may need to update the old Zen koan: “If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it make a sound?” The new version might go, “If I eat a sandwich but don’t write about it on Twitter, will I still be hungry?”

Now at this point I feel compelled to insert the customary, “Technology has lots of wonderful uses…” and the contractually obligatory, “like allowing people to read Every Thought Captive!” And technology does in fact have lots of wonderful uses. Encryption programs can allow dissidents to report on the atrocities committed by repressive governments with minimized fear of reprisal. On a less dramatic level, you can paste photos of your recent trip to Ethiopia on Facebook without having to email a bunch of people directly (let alone make actual prints and mail them, as we used to do in the late Bronze age).

But the Twitter-ization of communication in the last few years clearly represents the other side of technology’s two-edged sword. Life, I suppose, is always some mix of grandeur and triviality, but the difference now is that your trivia can reach a world-wide audience within seconds. Whether everyone is out there is anxiously awaiting your news (“im typing a thing for evry thot cptiv right now, how cool is that, then im snacking, prb a sweet ‘n’ salty nut bar, ill keep you posted!”) is of course another question altogether. Maybe the whole world isn’t watching.

But there is always the chance that it might be, and that is the problem I want to focus on. One of the most powerful forces that shapes our behavior is simply who we think is watching us. We try to get good grades to please our parents, we tailor our jokes to please our peers, we cut our lawns to please our neighbors. This is all natural enough, but the world-wideness of the Web adds a new dimension to the problem. I can begin to derive significance for my humdrum little life from the assumption that the Global Community is clicking like crazy to read about my latest thoughts about politics, religion, and what color shoes I’m thinking of wearing tomorrow. We speak of “death by a thousand cuts”; we might tweak that to, “life by a thousand tweets”. I came, I blogged, I conquered. I am read, therefore I am.

Most human enterprises end up slogging towards the swamps of idolatry, and the new communication tools look like taking that same sad path. The internet can serve as a surrogate sheltering sky, aglow with galaxies of fellow bloggers and tweeters; a Zodiac of sympathetic stars happy to guide our ways. But like all makeshift deities, it promises much more than it can deliver.

Because at the end of the day, we all live pretty ordinary lives, and continually blogging about them is not going to change that. What makes the difference is recognizing that your ordinary life is in fact lived out in the presence of a very extraordinary God, who knows every hair on your head and loves you limitless concern. With his eyes on you, you don’t need to worry about who else is watching.