What makes humans different than animals?
Yes I know we have the “image of God” but what does this mean?
Posted Feb 3, 2019, 9:59 PM UTC
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Cognition, affection, volition. Or another way to put it, an intellect (a thinking mind), a will (desires), and action.
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What do you mean "action"? (Humans don't have free action... we can act only as God allows us.)
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but what does this mean?
From the Natural Law perspective: having a rational soul and a supernatural destiny.
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I would say that some animals are rational.
Also, I can buy “soul” and “supernatural destiny,” but I want to know of something that can be looked at empirically in reality.
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Also, I can buy “soul” and “supernatural destiny,” but I want to know of something that can be looked at empirically in reality.
Alright. Give me an example of what the sort of thing you're looking for would look like? What would some empirical yet relevant difference be?
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I will be glad to.
Design. I once thought that we as humans had the most optimal and perfect physical and mental design. One that would reveal to God that cared about us since we are in his image. Then I grew to learn that we have an immense amount of flaws that are not conducive to our environment. We also have unnecessary body parts. Our senses constantly fail us and deceive us. We have unnecessary body parts (wisdom teeth, male nipples, Darwin’s tubercle, etc).
The mind. I once thought that we had a superior mind to animals. Then I learned that animals just have a little lesser-evolved version of our very same mind. They experience guilt, shame, playtime, joy just like we do. We have a mental language that we translate into verbal speech, and they have a mental language too—It’s just translates into barking or squirming. There are videos of animals bobbing their head to the beat of the music. This is a high mind process.
Consciousness. This goes hand-in-hand with The previous paragraph. We have an awareness over our thoughts and emotions. We dream and hope. I will concede that this would be a great argument; you believe that animals are not conscious —which is fair. However, we really have no way of proving that they are not conscious… In fact, some scientists have submitted that certain “high mind” animals like dolphins most likely are conscious. Do animals have free will? No matter how you answer that question, you have to ask the same thing of humans…
Community. Uh, I mean it’s very clear that animals socialize and work together in groups.
The ability to think ahead. I’ve heard some apologists posit this. But again, do we REALLY know that animals can’t anticipate things?
Honoring the dead/Death rituals. Elephants to this. Some chimpanzee tribes do this.
Art. This was an interesting one. And before you dive into it, you have to come up with a working definition of the word “art.” But we have examples of animals creating things and imitating others.
Sacrifice. This was an interesting one too—especially since there could have been some symbolic ties to Jesus. But there are examples in the wild of animals sacrificing themselves for other animals
(Any of the examples I’ve provided above can be found via a simple Google search)
THINGS I’M CHEWING ON NOW:
Suffering. Yes, humans and animals both experience pain, but do they suffer? Again, this requires a word and definition of the word, and also there’s a lot of commonalities between this and the mind paragraphs above, but it’s something I’m thinking about lately
Purpose/Consideration of Life after death. This goes hand in hand with consciousness. This would be a really good one, but again, do we really know for sure that animals don’t think about their purpose in life or life after death?
———
I want to believe that there is something that special about us...I really that would make reconciling the rest of my theology SO much easier. It would be the last missing link.. But given all these things I don’t know how we’re not just a random animal that’s caught right in the middle of the evolutionary process. Without some kind of “thing” that separates us from animals, we can’t point to anything or describe something and say THAT—THAT’S the image of God.
Sincerely, Struggling
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Yeah, here's the problem.
Nothing you listed was empirical. Your design speculation isn't empirical - it's a subjective or philosophical judgment call. Your talk about the mind and consciousness isn't empirical, it's entirely speculative and outside of the empirical realm, or saying "Well do we REALLY KNOW..?"
And that seems to be the key. You want a guarantee that isn't open to question. Surprise: it's not possible. And I don't mean "doesn't exist" - I mean literally not possible. You don't get certainty with questions like these, because these are not empirical questions, and even 'the empirical' relies on non-empirical assumptions. Not even atheists get it, and in fact they have it worse than anyone.
So if you want certainty, sorry. No one's offering it, except people trying to con you.
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Wouldn't the acknowledgement and denial of the supernatural be human exclusive? It's not an extension of death rituals as you might think.
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Humans are in the image of God because we have will and intelligence. We have a rational soul and animals have a sensitive soul. Animals do not have will nor reason.
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Please see my above reply
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[deleted]
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Please learn how to reply correctly so people can follow the actual conversation. The person you're replying to is also unlikely to even see your reply otherwise.
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“You don't get certainty with questions like these, because these are not empirical questions, and even 'the empirical' relies on non-empirical assumptions. Not even atheists get it, and in fact they have it worse than anyone.”
Could you elaborate on this? I don’t think I understand
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If humans are made in God’s image, then humans are made in God’s image whether you can see it or not. Knowing and having faith in God is not based on what humans can see or prove i.e empirical evidence. (Hebrews 11:1) If you want verses speaking that humans and animals are different, then 1 Corinthians 15:38-44 talks a little about it.
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As for comparing humans to animals:
- Humans have an immortal soul. Animals' souls cease to exist when they die.
- Humans have a rational soul. Animals cannot reason abstractly.
- Humans have free will. Animals are deterministic.
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Humans have an immortal soul. Animals' souls cease to exist when they die.
Impossible to know.
Humans have a rational soul. Animals cannot reason abstractly.
Valid point, but I would prefer to use the word "mind" as opposed to "soul".
Humans have free will. Animals are deterministic.
Impossible to know.
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Imagination and stewardship are arguably unique to humans. You really don’t see animals creating/admiring art or establishing governments.
You could say that the ant and aphid relationship makes the ants stewards.
That is just factually wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uypIj_BYzAw
The elephant is in captivity. Humans taught the elephant how create “art.”
You mean like art school? You know a school where human children are sent to be taught things.
How is it factually wrong for me to say that imagination is arguably unique to humans and that you really don’t see animals creating/admiring art? The example of the elephant doesn’t prove anything as fact. The elephant was trained to use the paintbrush for human entertainment.
“...elephants participating in this activity are not actually “painting” in any meaningful sense of the word: They aren’t engaging in any form of creativity, much less abstractly making free-form portraits of whatever tickles their pachydermic fancies at the moment; rather, they’re simply actors performing in tourist trap attractions in Thailand, where they do nothing more than outline and color specific drawings they’ve been painstakingly trained to replicate...” ( https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elephant-painting/ )