In Christian theology, the wages of sin is death. Sin is the decision of a person to commit an act that is wrong and contrary to the wants of God (through the 10 commandments and other edicts in the Holy Bible). I personally have broken all the top 10, unless you count “Thou shalt not kill” only towards my fellow man. If “Thou shalt not kill” pertains to all life in existance, indeed, I am fucked.
So, why do plants and animals die? Does Fido and a houseplant have a soul? Can a dog or a houseplant commit sin of any kind? But yet they die. Do animals have a soul? Is there a doggie/cat-houseplant heaven when these beings die?
While the passage says that the wages of sin are death, it doesn’t say what else can result in death.
If I were to say that the reward for a successful bank robbery is a million dollars, would you assume that everybody who has a million dollars must have pulled off a bank robbery?
I beleive not, in fact. Most Christian commentators would have you look at the Gospel of Matthew (forget verse, sorry) wherein Jesus specifically states that God values human lives more than any beast or plant. He said something like:
Don’t worry about the future. AFter all, God takes care of the sparrows, who neither toil nor labor, and “…you are worth many sparrows.”
In other words, animals are literally less than human, less important to creation. One might, if one were to assume that God built them to last, state that animals might, in fact, go to paradise. Though they might simply not ever note that their surroundings have, in fact, changed. Such is life. Its not a very important mystery, anyway.
I might have a little nitpick with your definition of “sin” – Leviticus 4 deals with sacrifices for unintentional sin (see verses 2, 13, 22, 27). You can offend God knowingly or unknowingly, it would appear; but that’s another topic.
About the critters…
Why does Fido die if Fido can’t sin? A couple of points here…
1. Humanity’s sin was all to took to screw up the ride for everyone and everything. The Apostle Paul in Romans says something about all creation groaning for redemption. Nowadays, the only way the lamb will lie down with the lion is if you bring in fresh lambs now and again. Humankind is seen as the apex of creation, and we all know that the nasty stuff rolls downhill. Thus sin infects the animal kingdom, the plant kingdom (weeds, etc…), and on down the line.
2. Genesis 9:5 is interesting… “Surely for your lifeblood I will demand a reckoning; from the hand of every beast I will require it, and from the hand of man…” Later on we get the law of the goring ox (Exod 21:28) “If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, then the ox shall surely be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox shall be aquitted…” Maybe animals can sin!
Do animals have a soul? Some Christians make a distinction between the “soul” and the “spirit” – animals have a soul (they can think, and have emotions) but lack a “spirit”(uniquely given to humans).
In the book of the Prophet Joel, there’s this verse: “The beasts of the field cry out to You (ie, God)” (1:20). Hmmmm. Could that be construed as a type of prayer? Also note that in Jonah 3:7, the Ninevite herds and flocks participated in the fast of repentance. Again, Hmmmmmmm.
I’m told that John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, maintained that animals would be included in heaven, and that he expected to see his faithful horse there.
If you take the “soul” out of a human and s/he falls to the ground inanimate, or vanishes altogether, then how could it be that a bird can exist without one?
If I need a “soul” to walk and eat, a bird needs a soul to fly. If I need a soul to perceive myself, a rock needs a soul to be perceived.
How can something with a soul interact with something without one?
If I am my perceptions and not just this body/brain and I have a soul then my soul is every where I am, for it is me.
Well… there is still all that matter to go around. WHy should a rock have a soul when the underlying bedrock has one not. Should this breeze have one and yet the stratosphere not? Arbitrary lines…
I was taught in the Christian school that I attended (albeit unwillingly) that the verse “The wages of sin is death” refers to spiritual death, not physical. Unless sin is “paid for” and forgiven, the soul will be sent to hell, which is “eternal death.”
The Bible also states that if a man, well, err . . ., makes love to an animal, the man, and the animal as well, must be put to death. (One of the first death penalty cases here in the US involved a boy caught boinking a chicken. In a later case, a donkey was spared the death penalty after a man was caught having sex with it because all of the townspeople vouched for the donkeys “good moral character.”)