With vivid prose and an engaging perspective, Ronald Osborn addresses the problem of animal suffering for Christians, whether of creationist or evolutionary persuasions. The book is tendentious (in the best sense of that term), arguing both for and against particular positions with passion and verve, yet it does not in the end come to a clear or unambiguous position on its primary topic, namely, animal suffering.

There are two prongs to Osborn’s argument, which make it, in effect, two books, or at least a book with two purposes, and two audiences. Part 1 (nine chapters) attempts to help conservative Christians move out of narrow literalism in their reading of the Bible’s creation narratives (by “literalism” he means an approach to the text that assumes a simple correspondence between what the Bible says and concrete realities in the external world); this approach tends to be associated with a young earth and the flood as the explanation for the fossil record.

Osborn is uniquely qualified to address this sort of literalism, since he was raised in the Seventh-Day Adventist (SDA) church. It was the founder of the SDA church, Ellen G. White, who popularized the view that flood geology (and not deep time) decisively explained the current fossil record (this having been revealed to her in a vision, in which she claimed to have actually observed the flood). This interpretation of the fossil record, along with its assumption of a young earth and the lack of evolutionary descent, informed the hermeneutics of William Jennings Bryan, the famous prosecutor in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 (Bryan had read SDA literature on this topic). To this day, many in the SDA church are principled defenders of young-earth creationism.

Even for readers who do not count themselves among those who read the Bible this way (like myself), there are some informative chapters in Part 1. These include chapter 2 (“Unwholesome Complexity”), which shows how certain creationist readings end up tying the reader into interpretive knots, and chapter 6 (“The Enclave Mentality”), which is perceptive about absolutism and the demonization of the other often found in fundamentalism. I was particularly taken with the author’s characterization of the anxiety of a literalist reading of Scripture as “a high-stakes game of Jenga” (p. 45), where if one touches one of the bricks near the bottom the entire theological edifice might collapse.

But it is in Part 2 (consisting in five chapters) that Osborn finally gets to the advertised topic of the book, namely, animal suffering. He explains that the critique of literalism in Part 1 “is to a large extent prolegomena” to Part 2, which addresses “the theodicy dilemma of animal suffering and mortality,” which he notes is a problem for both creationists and evolutionists (p. 19).

Just as Osborn’s background in the SDA church equips him for addressing young-earth creationism, so his approach to the problem of animal suffering is informed by having grown up in Zimbabwe as a child of missionary parents, which included many visits to a game reserve. He mentions his awareness of the presence of predatory animals (e.g., crocodiles, jackals) and describes witnessing lions eviscerating a fresh kill with the smell of blood in the air. The world of the game reserve was “deeply mysterious, untamed, dangerous, beautiful and good” and “the danger was part of its goodness and beauty. . . . Herein lies the central riddle of this book” (p. 13). Although Part 2 contains five chapters, the tension evident in the above quote is embodied in the contrast between chapters 12 and 13. So this review will focus on these chapters.

Chapter 12 (“God of the Whirlwind”) explores the vision of the book of Job, where animal predation is part of the world God celebrates. In response to Job’s complaint about his sufferings, God describes in his first speech an untamed, non-human world that includes suffering and death (Job 38–42). Not only does God send rain on a land where no human lives (Job 38:26–28), but God provides food for lions and ravens (Job 38:39–41) and commands the eagle to build her nest on high, from which she delivers prey to her young, who “suck up blood; and where the slain are, there she is” (Job 39:27–30). Those are the closing words of God’s first speech to Job, and I have often thought it is no wonder that Job was struck silent, at a loss for words at such a gruesome image. Yet Osborn is right in emphasizing that God is here delighting in animal ferocity.

This delight continues in God’s second speech, where the creator boasts about Behemoth and Leviathan. Given the mythic overlay of these beasts, I would not reduce them to known animal species, as Osborn does; he wrongly confuses Behemoth with the second beast (pp. 153, 157), presumably because he uses the NEB, which has “crocodile” for “Behemoth.” But his point is well taken that these dangerous beasts are paraded by God as part of a world he is proud of. Predation and danger do not constitute “natural evil” in the book of Job (and in many of the psalms, I might add, as well as in the writings of the church fathers).

With chapter 13 (“Creation & Kenosis”), Osborn explores the other side of his tension, namely, that it does not seem satisfactory to simply affirm the goodness of animal mortality and predation, given the very real suffering evident in the animal world. He calls this a “deep scandal” (p. 157) and so turns to the theological notion of kenosis to address this problem. In the end, his claim is that Christ’s self-emptying and death was for the redemption of all suffering, even that which predates human evil.

I find it difficult to evaluate this chapter since it contains important insights, including that God’s sovereignty works in and through creation. Yet the chapter is often theologically confused, such as when Osborn identifies open theism (a theory of God’s power as generous and inviting) with kenosis (a theory of God’s suffering with and for the world). Similarly, when Osborn asserts that “God creates as he redeems and redeems as he creates” (p. 160), I would instead want to maintain that God’s generous power evident in creation (which does not require God’s suffering) is distinct from God redemptive action to reverse the fall (which certainly requires God’s suffering). I fully agree with Osborn that the kenosis of the cross opens our eyes to see the realities of good and evil; but when he states, “When Christ cries ‘It is finished’ on Easter Friday the creation of the world is at last completed” (p. 165), I must dissent. Otherwise creation and fall are indistinguishable, and God is not a good Creator.

In the end, this book is a strange mixture of great insights and contradictory proposals. Should we accept the testimony of Job (and the Psalms and church fathers) that God views animal predation as good? Or do we go with our instincts that this is all “natural evil” requiring redemption? Perhaps Osborn will take time to think through these issues and write more on the topic. It certainly sets an agenda for my own theological explorations.

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