Genesis and Animal Rights

God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. —Genesis 1:20-21

It’s low tide and the birds are abundant. I am awake to gulls and sandpipers, in awe of unknowable animal consciousness.

The journey to justice, dignity and rights for nonhuman animals begins in humble contemplation and wonder.

It’s almost always imprudent to make pronouncements about the limits of science. What once seemed inscrutable and hopelessly beyond comprehension has turned out—time and again—to be knowable, accessible and of vast practical consequence. The progress of scientific knowledge and the development of new technologies are so fast and vast that it would be foolish to make predictions even 10 years out, much less than 100, 1,000 or 10,000.

If I had a crystal ball I wouldn’t be surprised to find in the blink of an eye at the end of the 21st century enormous advances in addressing the problems we face today: global warming, overpopulation, degradation of the environment, disease, ageing, world hunger and war. We may have much longer human lifespans, colonies in space, brain-boosting drugs and a world running on energy sources we’ve barely begun to develop today.

Of course, dystopian outcomes are also possible. We may fail to address climate change; we may blow ourselves up with nuclear weapons; we may be wiped out by a virus. We may be too aggressive, xenophobic, reckless or unlucky to survive.

But whether the next century brings us peace and prosperity or misery and megadeath, animal consciousness will remain largely impenetrable to us. What it’s like to be a fox, a bat, a dolphin or a parrot will remain both wondrous and distant.

We may gain enormous knowledge of the psychology and biochemistry of other animals, but we won’t grasp their inner life. The species barrier will remain. Intersubjectivity—communion—is beyond science.

Although we can communicate with animals, we’re too different to share an inner world. We cannot experience camels and eagles or even fellow Great Apes the way we experience other human beings. We don’t share body and mind with other species. Thus, our communion with them is the stuff of intuition, deep empathy and ultimately, the imagination.

But don’t despair. The intersubjective gap can be filled by love and respect. When we stretch our compassion, our imagination and our awareness, we learn that somebody is home in animal sentience. We don’t quite know who or what she feels, but she’s there. On the inside. Sacred. Alive.

When we contemplate living creatures like these gulls and sandpipers we find them lovable; and our capacity for love expands to meet them. That is awe. That is wonder.

Radical wonderment is the message I take away from the Biblical creation myth – not that man has dominion over the animals, but that “God” saw Creation in wonder. “God saw that it was good.”

God—the contemplator-in-chief—saw the sandpipers, the dolphins, the parrots and every creature in the wondrous intuitive light of empathy.

This is a light, I believe, that will eventually guide us to reject dominion over animals and honor their rights. Let there be light.