Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering

by Michael J. Murray

While the problem of evil remains a perennial challenge to theistic belief, little attention has been paid to the special problem of animal pain and suffering. This absence is especially conspicuous in our Darwinian era when theists are forced to confront the fact that animal pain and suffering has gone on for at least tens of millions of years, through billions of animal generations. Evil of this sort might not be especially problematic if the standard of explanations for evil employed by theists could be applied in this instance as well. But there is the central all or most of the explanations for evil cited by theists seem impotent to explain the reality of animal pain and suffering through evolutionary history. Nature Red in Tooth and Claw addresses the evil of animal pain and suffering directly, scrutinizing explanations that have been offered for such evil.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Religion, Christianity, Nonfiction, Animals

220 pages, Hardcover

First published June 19, 2008

About the author

Michael J. Murray oversees the programs and evaluation departments of the John Templeton Foundation. Before joining the Foundation, he was the Arthur and Katherine Shadek Humanities Professor of Philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College. Dr. Murray received his B.A. in philosophy from Franklin and Marshall and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Philosophy of Religion: The Big Questions (with Eleonore Stump), Reason for the Hope Within, Philosophy of Religion (with Michael Rea), Nature Red in Tooth and Claw: Theism and the Problem of Animal Suffering, The Believing Primate: Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Reflections on the Origin of Religion (with Jeffrey Schloss), Divine Evil?: The Character of the God of the Hebrew Bible (with Michael Rea and Michael Bergmann), and On Predestination and Election.

Reviews

[Sarah Myers · Rating 4 out of 5]

No lie, I read all 200 pages of this book in one sitting. I wouldn't call it a definitive last word on theistic defenses in light of animal suffering, but it was a good first step in a sadly neglected area of philosophy of religion. As another bonus, it would also be very accessible even to a reader unfamiliar with contemporary theodicy, providing a nice intro to the entire subject.

[Declan Ellis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed treatment of the topic. It included several defenses applicable to Pre-Adamic animal suffering, which is really what I was looking for. It was as technical as it needed to be, while still being readable.

Highly recommended.

[Damian Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I felt this was a really fair assessment of the arguments for and against the problem of animal suffering. He made a lot of room for people who didn't agree with certain ideas. The first chapter summary of the problem of evil was also well done. Really enjoyable and would recommend.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balanced Overview of the Problem of Evil

The author goes to great lengths to show both sides of the arguments and fairly treats each. The one complaint is that you don’t clearly see what the author believes until the final couple of pages. I also wish he had spent a little more time on the issue of whether sentient animals are capable of experiencing morally significant pain. Otherwise it was outstanding and I plan to read again.

[Joshua Duffy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good one; I would hesitate to call it great simply because I was unable to understand most of it.

[Fernando · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a layman, the suffering that resulted from tryng to understand the sophistication in this book was sufficiently outweighed by the satisfaction of learning about the numerous explanations for animal pain and suffering.

[Spud Boy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Detailed but not compelling for an atheist

[Frank Peters · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit of a surprise; likely based on my not reading the description carefully. I was expecting to find a book that was based on science or theology, but instead found myself reading an academic philosophy book. For Christians who believe in a young earth and who believe that Romans 5 refers to physical death, this book is mostly irrelevant and may even be insulting. But as a Christian who believes that the world and earth are ancient, the topic interests me and is important. If the world is ancient, this creates a theological problem due to the amount of death that is suggested by the fossil record. The Romans 5 passage can be interpreted as referring to spiritual death, or even physical death just for Adamic mankind, so this isn't the main point. Rather, the millions of years of creatures living, suffering and dying may be hard to explain or justify. This is the point of the book. The book presumes a God created, neo-Darwinian view of origins, which I struggle with for scientific reasons. However, the arguments provided are relevant for alternate old earth views, so it was easy enough to ignore that bias. In spite of this disagreement, I think the author did a brilliant job writing the book. The book was surprisingly readable for this non-expert who has only read one other philosophy book (Moreland and Craig’s Philosophical Foundations of a Christian World-view). Then again, I cannot really say that I enjoyed reading it. So, I apologise to the author for my rating; but ultimately I cannot say anything stronger than that I liked it.

[Chris Kalbach · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book! I recently took a course in the problem of evil, this book I found as I was writing my term paper and it was extremely useful! It is full of the relevant data and still written at an easily accessible level.