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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2024
It is often said that the earth and its creatures are God’s gifts to humankind. Animals and plants are understood to have been ‘sent’ for us, so that we may, by and large, do with them as we will. What we must do in return is express our thanks to the Creator for His generosity. We must say Grace over our meals. So John Locke wrote:
The earth and all that is therein is given to men for the support and comfort of their being. . .all the fruits it produces, the beasts it feeds, belong to mankind in common, as they are produced by the spontaneous hand of nature.
In the Christian tradition, discussions on the rights of ownership typically propose definite limitations on the private use of the earth: we may not supply ourselves with luxuries while other persons still lack basic necessities. But no limits are explicitly set on the common human use of the earth. The gazelle, then, would seem to have no right to the land on which she grazes; the lion no right to her prey. Only humans have rights of ownership, even over their own bodies. That anything non-human enjoys food, habitat or life itself is only by the mercy of homo sapiens.
A popular belief drawn from this is that certain animals are simply ‘made to be eaten’. A sheep is walking mutton. Within the Christian tradition this belief tends to be justified by an appeal to revelation.
1 Locke, John: The Second Treatise of Government, (3rd edition. J. W. Gough ed), (Blackwell 1966.)Google Scholar
2 See Moule, C. F. D.: Man and Nature in the New Testament. (Athlone Press, 1964) pp. 5ffGoogle Scholar; Westermann, C.: Creation, (SPCK 1974) pp. 45Google Scholar.
3 Baker, J. A., 'Biblical Attitudes to Nature, in Montefiore, H. (ed): Man and Nature, (Collins. 1975) p. 96Google Scholar.
4 For a similar point from a Protestant angle cf Barth, K.: Church Dogmatics, Bromley, G.W. and Torrance, T.W. eds., (T.& T. Clark 1961), iii, 4, p. 355Google Scholar.
5 See Bruegemann, W.: The Land: Place as Gift, Promise and Challenge in Biblical Faith, (Philadelphia 1977) p.192Google Scholar. cf Job 31:38.
6 For a detailed discussion of notions of territory in non‐human kinds see the collection of papers in A. W. Stokes (ed): Territory, (Stroudsberg 1974.)
7 See, for example, Dante: Divina Commedia, L'Inferno XI, 40f; Vatican II: Gaudium et Spes 71.
8 It is worth noting that the Greek word ‘philos’ appears to have been in origin possessive, and was applied to parts of the body and clothing as well as to wife and child. See Ferguson, J.: Moral Values in the Ancient World, (London. 1958.)Google Scholar
9 Cicero: The Nature of the Gods trans. McGregor, H.P.C.. (Penguin, 1972.)Google Scholar
10 See Locke: The Second Treatise of Government Ch. V.
11 e.g. Nozick, R.: Anarchy, State and Utopia, (Blackwell, 1974) pp. 174ffGoogle Scholar.
12 Locke: The Second Treatise of Government, 27.
13 Locke at one point seems to grant as much, when he writes, ‘the grass my horse has bit, the turfs my servant has cut, and the ore I have dug in any place where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property without the assignation or consent of anybody. The labour that was mine removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.’ (ibid, 28.). Locke calls the labour in each case his own, but only in so far as the servant and the horse are both his, so that their labour may be seen as legally belonging to him. He has conceded that his animal labours, for no labour has been supplied to the grass except from ' his horse.
14 James, William: A Pluralistic Universe, (London, 1909), p. 100Google Scholar.
15 Quoted in Edelen, G. (ed): The Description of England, (New York, 1968) pp. 325fGoogle Scholar.
16 It is this kind of argument which has led the Church to oppose, for example, abortion of a child conceived after rape. The moral status of the child is not dependent on the moral status of the kind of act which brought it into being.
17 Schmemann, A.: For the Life of the World, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press 1973, p.19Google Scholar.
18 Schmemann is a good example of this from the Orthodox tradition. On the Catholic side see, for example. Teilhard de Chardin: ‘The Mass of the World’, The Hymn of the Universe trans. Vann, G.. (Collin, 1970.)Google Scholar
19 See Anderson, A.A.: The Psalms, London 1981, Vol.1 p.168Google Scholar.
20 Compare this with the claim in the Prologue to John's gospel that the Logos has possessed all things from the beginning. (See Bultmann, R.: The Gospel of John. A Commentary, (Blackwell, 1971) p.56Google Scholar.
21 Traheme, T.: Centuries, (OUP, 1960) I, 38Google Scholar.
22 See Doyle, E. O.F.M. : St Francis and the Song of Brotherhood (Allen and Unwin, 1980)Google Scholar and Armstrong, E.R.: St Francis: Nature Mystic, (California University Press, 1973.CrossRefGoogle Scholar)
23 Bloom, A.: School for Prayer, (Darton, Longman and Todd. 1970) p. 15Google Scholar.
24 See F.R. Berger: ‘Gratitude’, Ethics 85, (1974‐5), p.299.
25 Brody's essay is in Helm, P. (ed.): Divine Commands and Morality, (OUP, 1981), pp. 141ffGoogle Scholar.
26 See Ward, Masie: G. K. Chesterton, (London, 1944), p.59Google Scholar.
27 Mirror of Perfection 118; see also Wallice‐Hadrill, D.S.: The Patristic View of Nature, (Manchester, 1968). p.109Google Scholar.
28 For an authoratitive Catholic statement to this effect see Vatican XI: Gaudium et Spes para. 16.
29 Aquinas: Summa Contra Gentiles Bourke, V.J. (trans), (University of Notre Dame Press, 1975). III, II, 112, 13Google Scholar.
30 For a full discussion of what he terms ‘indirect duty’ views towards animals, seeRegan, T.: The Case for Animal Rights, (Routledge, 1983)Google Scholar, Ch.5.
31 T. Traheme: Centuries I. 6.
32 Centuries I, 12.
33 cf Berkeley, G.: Works (Luce, A.A and Jessop, T.E. eds.), (London, 1948‐56), VII, 195Google Scholar.
34 See Eichrodt, W.: Theology of the Old Testament trans, Baker, J.A. (S.C.M., 1967)Google Scholar. Vol. II pp. 131ff.
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