Man as Redeemer of Beast

To redeem in theology is to rescue and deliver from the bondage of sin and the penalties of God’s violated law. That creation is fallen and shall be redeemed — reconciled — is clear in Romans 8:21-22 and Colossians 1:20. But what can innocent animals in the wild know of sin and God’s law as revealed by the Saviour of Man? Beasts know only the law of the pack or the herd — to kill or to avoid being killed. And yet as part of creation, they are somehow to be redeemed.

What is the relation of Man to Nature? At first glance, a plundering and destructive relation: the sacred grove turned into a parking lot, the steers slaughtered to make hamburgers, the wild beasts hunted for food or sport, fish in the millions netted or hooked. If indeed Man has been given dominion over Beast, then everything he does is either lawful authority or abuse of authority. But I do not say that all I listed in the relationship is always and everywhere wrongful abuse. To replace the sacred grove, Man plants millions of trees and irrigates deserts. The slaughtered young steers if not destined for steaks would have no life at all, never having been born. Many hunters love and replenish the running deer or the crafty fox as the fisherman loves the gleaming trout, and both in their sport may receive intimations of Him who created the trees and birds and grass, even as I did in this momentary glance:

Granting that Nature — all Creation — is fallen, we yet must ask what redemption can possibly mean when applied to animals? How can there be sin, which means knowledge of wrongdoing? Possibly a lone wolf cast out from his pack is dimly aware that he has broken the law of the pack — but that’s mere speculation. The idea of the redemption of Creation may bring to mind sentimental pictures of the lion cuddling the lamb. But, however pleasant for the lamb, it would be a vision of Hell for the lion expected to eat hay like a cow: He would probably be too weak from hunger to lift a paw and smite the lamb. A lion and his lioness devouring a juicy gazelle — or even a tender Christian in the Roman arena — are simply obeying the law of their being, like a fish eating a worm or us eating the fish: In no way could the lion comprehend his lunch as sinful. We may in the night consign the mosquito to Hell, but the mosquito would be amazed: It knows nothing of sin. What can sin mean to a wild creature? We simply cannot know what the redemption of wild beasts will be: or whether it will have anything to do with individual rabbits or robins or roaches.

And yet my thesis is that what Christ the Saviour is for us, we in Christ, knowingly or not, are to some individual beasts: the ones we own and teach and love, the ones who look up to us as we to our Lord — beasts who love us and in love obey. A pet lapdog or cat will not be saved because it is “cute,” but because it has been taught right and wrong and developed a personality. Teaching, which some pet-owners do so poorly, screaming at their bewildered beasts, must begin with “No! ” (thou shalt not). C.S. Lewis (in The Problem of Pain) says: “In so far as the tame animal has a real self or personality, it owes this almost entirely to its master.” And he adds that thus “mere sentience is reborn to soulhood” in and through us. If through us the beast may gain a soul, is it not somehow “saved”? Lewis, in this very Catholic book says further: “It seems to me possible that certain animals may have an immortality, not in themselves, but in the immortality of their masters…. In other words, the man will know his dog; the dog will know its master and in knowing him, will be itself.” Lewis confirms me in my thinking that is based on my own experience with dogs and horses, and I wish to say something about that experience that brought me to believe in the salvation of (some) beasts.

If some animals gain souls and immortality through their masters’ immortality, what of the good dog, loved and loving, of a master bound for the “other place”? Will his dog lick his face in Hell? Or accompany him to Purgatory? I am inclined to agree with Lewis that the dog finds salvation only in that of its master; and since we cannot know with any certainty who will find salvation — and even less what Purgatory is to be — these questions I think must be left in the hands of God.

I used often to ride a horse named Taffy, beautifully schooled though not by me. She had a lovely canter, jumped well, and galloped fleetly, obeying every signal. But galloping across a meadow, if she sensed that her rider was simply enjoying himself and not fully alert, she would swerve slightly to run beneath a tree with a low branch that would scrape him off or brain him. So she did with me, once only. I saw it too late to turn her, but, kicking off the stirrups, I caught the branch and let her run out from under me. Unharmed, I dropped to the ground, caught her, and there was a reckoning. The point is, she had broken the law, she had sinned, and she knew it — she looked as guilty as Eve.

I had a dog named Gypsy, a mixture of collie and husky, well trained by me. But she had been a street dog; I hadn’t had her as a pup when lessons are deeply learned. And then one day on our Virginian farm, Horsebite Hall, she was in the far meadow when I whistled for her. She started to run to me — just as a rabbit burst out of the grass nearby. She continued her run to me for a moment, hesitated — thinking about that rabbit — and turned to chase it. The rifle that would have ended her rebellion was beside me, but I didn’t fire. I hoped she would return to the obedience. When she finally came home, she hung her head, tail between her legs — no glad greeting. She had broken the law, not by chasing a rabbit but by disobeying her master — and she knew it. But she also knew that the sky had not fallen. She was very obedient for awhile, but eventually there was another rabbit. So, unlike her ever-obedient pup, Flurry, Gypsy came to live in a pen. She had lost her freedom to wander her hundreds of acres. Finally on a trip, many miles from home, we stopped to let the dogs out on the edge of a forest — and Gypsy ran, followed by Flurry. I called sharply. Flurry came at once. After an hour of calling and searching, we had to drive on without Gypsy, leaving word with local folk. But no word of her ever again. First she lost freedom at home, now home itself. This story, in more detail entitled “The Fall,” is in my A Severe Mercy, and its theme is “in whose service is perfect freedom.”

If indeed an animal may win an immortality through learning right and wrong through its master, as Gypsy had done, and through loving obedience, the question may be asked: Did Gypsy eventually go to Hell? While I know nothing of her later life, I believe she could win immortality only in the immortality of her master. By renouncing him, she reverted, I think, to soulless wild-beast status: no immortality.

The lion we touched on earlier knew no master and therefore no law. The horse and the dog knew a master, but they yielded to temptation and knowingly broke the law. They both knew that they sinned — just as we know right well that we are sinning. I knew a dog who guiltily yelped as if in agony when merely collared — not struck — when breaking the law. Despite the silly “animal-rights” faddists — equivalent to “man-rights” against God! — I am deeply convinced that a horse or dog (just possibly a cat) comes into the fullness of his being and is ensouled when he has a loving and loved master who teaches him right and wrong: and he chooses to obey. Certain animals in literature may illustrate the point: General Lee’s magnificent horse, Traveller, in the War of Southern Independence (see Traveller by Richard Adams), who, defying all horse-nature, stood like a rock in the terrors of battle, the loved hand on his neck. Or the great collies in Ollivant’s Bob, Son of Battle or Terhune’s Lad and my own Flurry.

We know no more of Heaven than the little (“many mansions”) revealed to us. I very much hope that there will be trees and birds and beasts, though not necessarily the individual birds and running deer that had a life on earth. But, as I have said, I have come to believe that we, empowered by our Master, Jesus the Saviour, can be the saviours of certain individual dogs and horses, ensouled through us — and probably in the same way certain chimps, elephants, camels, perhaps dolphins, even zoo lions or zebras. And as we shall find our Master, Jesus, so these relatively few beasts will find us, their masters.

Having spoken of animals who chose disobedience, I should like now to speak of two who made different choices and the intimations I had from them of dog-salvation. First Flurry, who had both master and mistress. With her, we were visiting kinfolk, and one day a walk was mentioned. Flurry danced. So we set forth, Flurry gayest of all. But, after we had rounded two corners, I ordered Flurry to return to the house. She looked at me unbelieving. “Go!” I said. She plodded off, looking back over her shoulder once. After she rounded the corner, we ran between two houses to see her arrive. She did, climbed the steps to the porch, turned round and lay down — and, all alone, she wagged her tail. She had obeyed and she was pleased to have been good: That’s what the tail-wagging meant. I whistled and she came like a whirlwind.

In another town, years later, I would let Flurry out to play in the evening and a few hours later call her in. One night on the doorsteps as I whistled I heard distant barks of several dogs, including hers, and I thought: “She’s having fun; maybe this time she won’t come.” But I’d whistled and couldn’t retract it. Along moment passed. And then the patter of rushing paws as she gaily arrived, her duty and wishes all one in her loving heart. May we all so respond to Jesus!

One more story, this time of the border collie, Nelly, as loved and loving as Flurry, a story resembling that of Gypsy but with a difference. It was at a country church — when I was still an Episcopalian. Nelly had been taught never to leave the top-down car unless I said, “Abandon ship!” So she, unrestrained, would be faithfully there when I came out of a store or, on Sunday, church. One Sunday in May, after the service, the church had an outdoor lunch. Nelly in the car a hundred yards away watched alertly, ears up, the gathering at the long tables — undoubtedly longing to be there. People kept saying, “Oh, do let her come!” Finally, when lunch was over but the people still there, I put a couple of scraps on a plate and shouted, “Abandon ship! ” She soared out of the car and arrived about one second later to devour two platefuls of scraps the ladies gave her and to be petted by everyone. Her thoughts may be imagined: “So this is what Church is: I’m converted!” Anyhow, the next Sunday I left her in the car with the usual, “Stay!” and went in the church. Five minutes later the Rector and choir came up the aisle, and the Rector whispered, “Nelly has come to church!” And there she was in the procession. She had disobeyed the “Stay!” I called her to me and led her out of the church amidst smiles. Ordering her into the car, I said, “Bad dog!” and a very stern “Stay!” She stayed, but I wondered if she would go the way of Gypsy. But, knowing that she had been wrong, she never disobeyed again. She may, even, in some collie-way, knowing she had grieved me, have repented.

The point of these little stories is animal morality, taught by a master and quite unknown to animals in the wild. Man was taught right and wrong by God — and man, like these dogs and horses, often defied the teaching, and still does. But man takes amoral beasts out of the wild to be his companions and helpers in hunting and herding, and gives them laws and morality — and, in my belief, personality and souls. Although I’m not able to attempt a theology of beasts, it may be that I can suggest some pointers. We individually are gods to our animals; and, like Taffy and Gypsy, Flurry and Nelly, the beasts with masters struggle with the moral codes we have taught them. If we with our dominion over other created life were not ourselves fallen, there might be many more beasts saved through us. If we, some of us, are to be saved through God Incarnate in our Saviour Jesus, so, I believe, some beasts, not amoral but good, choosing good as we have taught them, will individually be redeemed and saved. If so, we are to them what Jesus Christ is to us: their saviours.

An awesome responsibility.

When Flurry gave up her blithe spirit in death — and went eagerly, I hope, to join her mistress, who had died, I wrote a poem about her that implies much that I, her master, have been saying. And I shall end with that.