2/24/24 word count – 1,062 reading time – 4.75 minutes

I was in a campground recently, sitting by the street chatting with a neighbor. Another camper was walking his dog on the street and approached us. Suddenly, in a flash, the dog belonging to the fellow with whom I had been chatting viciously attacked the dog that was being walked. It was a violent and shocking incident that left me a bit stunned. Fortunately, the owners got the dogs separated before much damage was done.

As I work to process the event I realize that the attacking dog was reacting to a natural instinct that has not been genetically manipulated out of the creature. It reminded me that violence is a natural component in the makeup of most, if not all, animals. Either imposing violence or reacting to violence is an integral part of surviving, or thriving, in the natural world.

Animals rely on violence to feed themselves, protect their reproductive processes and guard the resources they have come to rely upon. It has been the primary problem-solving mechanism across the broad spectrum of earth’s species for as long as we have been recording interactions. But, although it is a significant impulse, it can be manipulated and minimized through breeding. It is called domestication. And man has been breeding animals to be less violent and more compatible with humans for a really long time.

But, who domesticated man? It is reasonable to assume that, since man is an animal, mankind should have a similar penchant for violence. And clearly we do. But even though the headlines are rife with reports of the violence men are perpetrating on other men, there is still a great number of us who would rather figure out how to solve our problems through means that, if they don’t do away with violent solutions, they at least remove those violent solutions out of our line of sight.

Sadly, even though a large section of mankind has been very clever in finding ways to respect life and still manage to survive. We still haven’t completely figured out how to handle conflicts and solve problems without killing each other. That’s one of the main reasons why we still need God.

From a Christian perspective, its easy to recognize God as the One who initiated the refinement process in mankind. Its difficult for me to attribute this process to nature. I know there are people who believe that building and maintaining these vast complex societies is a natural process that provides advantages in protecting the reproduction and food gathering process. I have 2 questions about that theory. First, why are we so far ahead of all the other species on earth in our development of these societal units? Why are our societies so much more complex and broad reaching than those of any other animals on earth? Certainly, there are other species who have found an advantage in maintaining a group. But ours is lightyears ahead of any other group in terms of its systems, organization and complexity? Secondly, If our skill at developing complex societies for the purpose of protecting the basic necessities of life, nourishment, procreation, protection from the elements, what explains our desire for art, music, beauty and all the other things that are not essential to basic survival?

No, I can’t believe that the level of sophistication we have achieved in our society is the result of a natural process.  And, while I have to acknowledge that we often seem far from perfecting a respect for living things, I also have to admit that we are far from the savagery of the natural world, at least sometimes. And it is because we are in that middle ground, teetering between self-actualization and self-destruction, that we desperately need God to provide the clear and most direct path out of the violent, animalistic ways of problem solving that is characteristic of the natural world.

God calls us to a higher purpose and an existence that not only transcends our mortal, natural lifespan but promises an amazing experience that doesn’t end. With our physical connection to the natural world, with its pain suffering and violence, our natural instincts are to rely on the survival mechanisms and problem-solving instincts that are stored in our lizard brain through generations of life as purely animal. Our connection to God provides an opportunity to take advantage of His understanding of the spiritual being that is also part of our make-up.

As physical beings we are hardwired into the materialistic, carbon-based realities of planet earth. Our physical brain is designed to experience the world as a molecular structure. As the impressions of light sound and pressure, governed by the natural laws necessary to maintain material life, are received they might be filtered through our basic emotional matrix. We are compelled to react in some fashion. Fight or fight, or some degree between. Eat, reproduce, sleep, whatever seems appropriate to the input. This is the machine that our physical animal bodies are.

Our understanding of pleasure, in its endless variety, our desire to create and appreciate art, dance, literature, good food, natural beauty, excellent music, the company of good friends and our love of travel and sense of adventure, our insatiable quest for learning, all speak to an aspect of our being that is not trapped in the strict, mundane confines of our need to survive. These things speak of an aspect of our beings that can only be related to something spiritual. They are so far detached from our gut felt survival reactions that it is hard to believe they emerged from our animal self.

I think these pleasures are there to give us a sense of what the spiritual realm can be like. Although the spiritual world also contains the evil that perpetuates tremendous suffering, these tokens of the spiritual experience show us that the good included in the spiritual realm is a source of magnificent joy.

The Bible explains that God is a God of good and in direct opposition to evil. God invites us to bypass the evil that exists in the spiritual realm, where we all will eventually find ourselves. By relying on the instructions and opportunities offered by God through the Bible in this material world we can align our spirit self, our soul, with the astounding benefits available in our life after we give up, or are torn from our life as an animal.