The Problem of Animal Suffering
I recently stumbled across a version of the problem of evil (given by Peter Singer – though he is not the first to point it out, it is an especially important matter for him) that strikes me as especially problematic for the Judeo-Christian concept of God. In case you don’t know the basic version, it may be presented as follows:
1. God is omnipotent.
2. God is omni-benevolent.
3. God is omniscient.
4. Evil exists.
The problem is that while each of these propositions are individually acceptable, they appear to be inconsistent – that is, it appears that they cannot all be true at the same time. Virtually no one will deny (4), that evil exists in the world. However, if (1)-(3) are also true, then God knows about the evil, he has the power to do away with it, and being all-good he should want to do away with it – yet evil still exists.
Of course, as I said, it may be argued that these propositions merely appear to be inconsistent and that, in fact, they are not. Some of the typical (and most effective) Christian responses are that evil is the result of (i) free-will, (ii) original sin, or (iii) the fact that evil is necessary in order for us to learn life-lessons but for which evil we are eventually repaid in the afterlife. I find these answers to be prima facie plausible and consistent with Christian teachings.
The problem of animal suffering, however, cannot be resolved by any of the typical responses. We can take the same set of propositions as before, but replace (4) with (4a): Animals suffer needlessly. Once again, God knows about their suffering, he could stop it, and he should want to stop it – yet they still suffer. Virtually no one will deny (4a); it seems clear that animals feel pain. Animals have nervous systems conducive to their feeling pain and they clearly behave as if they feel pain. Anyone who has had a dog , cat, or other animal as a friend surely believes animals can suffer and that we, as moral beings, have some kind of obligation to prevent their suffering.
However, the typical Christian responses to the problem of evil will no longer apply. As for (i), Christianity clearly does not teach that animals have free-will, since free-will is a unique gift afforded to human beings. Regarding (ii), it is equally clear that animals do not suffer due to original sin, since they have no relation to Adam and Eve (and it’s called the fall of man after all, not the fall of animals [although I suppose by this reasoning women would not suffer due to original sin either, so let's call it the fall of humankind {and don't you hate it when I start using nested parentheses! I blame this on my spending too many hours playing with logic proofs}]). Last, it cannot be the case that, as in (iii), animals suffer in order to teach human beings life-lessons; this is evinced by the fact that animals have endured much suffering over the many millions of years that they existed on an Earth devoid of human life. But even today, animals face all kinds of suffering that has nothing to do with human activities (regular things like drought, famine, or being eaten by a tiger); and to top it all off, the animals would get no recompense in an afterlife (since, sadly, all dogs don’t go to heaven). Without appealing to ‘mysterious ways’, the ‘best possible world’ argument, or pleading ignorance in some other fashion, I’m at a loss as to what a reasonable response would be.