Theology Central

God made humans as mediatorial rulers to rule over creation. In the beginning, God made the world at a relatively lower level of order. Throughout creation week, He brought it to higher levels of order. At the end of the week, He delegated the task of further ordering creation to humans, placing the entire world under their feet (Heb 2:8a). The created world can never truly flourish without human oversight.

Nevertheless, as the writer to the Hebrews notes, humans are not presently exercising their dominion in anything like its complete form (Heb 2:8b). While vestiges of human mastery survive, the world is not flourishing. Rather, it is filled with disorder, pain, and death.

The reason for this disparity is described in Genesis 3, the story of the fall. In the original creation (Gen 1–2), God placed humans on probation. This probation consisted of a single prohibition: they must not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:17). If they did eat of that tree, they would immediately pass under sentence of death.

This prohibition seems odd. Why forbid a piece of fruit? The answer lies in the significance of the tree.

On the one hand, it was a literal tree. It had literal fruit (not an apple!) that could be viewed, plucked, and eaten. At this level, God’s prohibition acted as a blunt test of obedience. To obey, humans must abstain from the fruit. To eat was to disobey God’s law and consequently to become treasonous rebels against the king who had appointed them as His mediatorial rulers.

On the other hand, the tree pointed to something more than itself. Its name implies its significance: it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (bad). The “bad” in this designation contrasts with the “good,” and the “good” must be understood in context. Throughout creation week God declared that what He had made was good. How was it good? Not in the sense of moral rectitude, but in the sense that everything God made was useful and beneficial—specifically for humans.

Only once did God say that something was “not good” (Gen 2:18): it was not good for the man to be alone. In other words, God perceived a void or deficiency in His creation. A good was absent. God helped the man to see the deficiency by having him classify or name the animals. This was an exercise in comparison that led the man to realize that he was one of a kind. Then God put the man to sleep, and from the man He made a woman, whom He brought to the man. The man’s reaction was ecstatic, recognizing the oneness between himself and the woman (Gen 2:23). The implication is that when the creation lacks a good, God can be trusted to supply it.

This episode provides a context for the temptation in the garden. The tree of the knowledge of good and bad was not only a literal tree but also a representative case. For humans to eat the fruit would mean that they had chosen to understand or define good and bad for themselves rather than to trust their Creator. This act would represent not only a rejection of the Creator’s law but also an attack upon His very character. Humans would be announcing that their Maker was untrustworthy, and that they were rejecting His provision of the good so they could choose the good for themselves.

When the first couple ate the fruit of the tree, they were declaring independence from God. But God is life, and to become independent of Him was to separate themselves from the source of life. How could the consequence be anything less than death?

The results of that first sin were both widespread and devastating. Two results are of special importance here. First, human sin brought death into the created order (Rom 5:12). Because humans were God’s mediatorial rulers with dominion over the world, the world was changed by human sin. It now “groans and travails” until the second coming of Jesus, when it will be restored (Rom 8:19–23). In the meanwhile, destruction, suffering, and death pervade creation. Sin has introduced a very large element of disorder into the world.

This disorder reaches into the human body itself. The first sin brought the sentence of death, and with death came everything that leads to it: debility, decay, disease, dementia. As Paul says, “even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Rom 8:23). This penalty has descended upon the entire human race.

The second result of the fall affects human character, which has become twisted. As God’s vice-regents, unfallen humans were created in untried, mutable holiness. They were capable of sin but disposed toward God. Since the fall, their disposition has been reversed. They intuitively reject God, and because they reject God they cannot rightly accept those who are made in God’s image. Here is the origin of what poet Robert Burns called “man’s inhumanity to man.”

Many and sharp the numerous ills
Inwoven with our frame;
More pointed still, we make ourselves
Regret, remorse and shame;
And man, whose heaven-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,
Man’s inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn.

As Paul puts it, humans are now “filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them” (Rom 1:29–32).

Every aspect of human nature has been subverted so that all people are now totally depraved. While they are still capable of natural good and not yet as evil as they could be, they nevertheless think, feel, and choose wrongly toward God. In their rebellion against God, they also think, feel, and choose wrongly toward each other and, indeed, toward the created order itself. They have become predators, exploiters in the bad sense of that term. Worst of all, they find ways to wrap their predation in the garments of virtue. They make themselves feel good about their destructive choices.

Consequently, human dominion faces a double problem. The first part of the problem is that much of the created order has slipped out of the human grasp, so that creation revolts against humans. The second part of the problem is that they too often view the created world (including each other) either as a thing to be pillaged for the satisfaction of their fallen appetites or else as a God-substitute to be worshipped in His place. Whether there is a solution to this problem will be the topic of a future essay.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Deep Are the Wounds Which Sin Hath Made

Anne Steele (1717–1778)

Deep are the wounds which sin hath made
Where shall the sinner find a cure?
In vain, alas, is nature’s aid,
The work exceeds all nature’s power.

Sin like a raging fever reigns,
With fatal strength in every part;
The dire contagion fills the veins,
And spreads its poison to the heart.

And can no sovereign balm be found?
And is no kind physician nigh
To ease the pain, and heal the wound,
Ere life and hope forever fly?

There is a great physician near,
Look up, O fainting soul, and live;
See, in his heavenly smiles appear
Such ease as nature cannot give!

See in the Savior’s dying blood
Life, health, and bliss, abundant flow!
‘Tis only this dear, sacred flood
Can ease thy pain and heal thy woe.

Sin throws in vain its pointed dart,
For here a sovereign Cure is found;
A cordial for a fainting heart,
A balm for every painful wound.

The creation account of Genesis 1–2 is indispensable for a right understanding of both God as creator and the world as His creation. It is also essential for a right understanding of human beings in relation to both God and the created world. What the Bible teaches is that humans have something in common with God, but they also have something in common with creation.

What they have in common with creation is that humans are creatures, like birds, stones, trees, and stars. If they are creatures, then they are not God. They are not absolute. They are not ultimate. Their being, purpose, and nature does not and cannot exist in themselves. They are the handiwork of someone greater and wiser than they. Someone else has designed them, and their design fits within an even larger design. Human beings can expect to find their fulfillment and joy only in completing their design within the great design.

Human ability to complete their design within creation, however, hinges on what they have in common with God. Yes, people are like other created things in important ways. In other ways they are more like God: out of all His creatures God has made them in His own image and likeness (Gen 1:26–27).

What is God’s image and likeness in humans? The answer to this question is widely disputed. Nevertheless, the verses that narrate the creation of the human race (Gen 1:27–28) offer a clue. Verse 27 offers two descriptions of how God created humans: (1) in His image and likeness, and (2) as male and female. Verse 28 then expresses two blessings that God placed upon humanity: (1) to reproduce and fill the earth, and (2) to subdue the earth and exercise dominion over it. In this structure, being made as male and female is what enables humans to reproduce and fill the earth. Being made in God’s image is what enables them to subdue it and exercise dominion. In other words, exercising dominion is a large part of what it means for humanity to be made in God’s image.

This point is enlarged by David in Psalm 8. In view of the immensity of the universe, David asks why God should even pay attention to humans. His answer is that God has made humans a little lower than ’elohim; He has crowned them with glory and honor (5). Specifically, God has made them “to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet” (6). Commenting on Psalm 8:6, the writer to the Hebrews observes that if God put all things under their feet, then God left nothing in creation outside of human dominion (Heb 2:8).

This dominion over creation is no light thing: God authorizes humans to “subdue” the created world. The term translated subdue (kavash) is a strong word. It means to enslave or to dominate. It is used of Israel conquering the land of Canaan (Num 32:22; Josh 18:1). It is also used of Haman attempting (as Ahasuerus believed) to rape Queen Esther (Esth 7:8). The word has the idea of wrestling someone into compliance against that person’s wishes.

This is the authority that God has given humans over the earth. Evidently, the original creation as it came from the hand of God remained unfinished. God created the world at a relatively lower level of order (Gen 1:1) and then brought it to a relatively higher level of order. Even so, parts of the created world were not yet as God intended them to be. Rather than arranging those parts Himself, God made humans responsible to bring increased order into the created world.

God’s plan was never to govern the world immediately. Rather, He created intermediaries who would do the work of governing on His behalf. He intended to fill the world with these God-like creatures who would continuously bring creation to higher and higher levels of order. These creatures would not have the power to create out of nothing, but they would have the ability to take the pre-existing materials of the world and to arrange those materials so as to force them to become more useful.

Human beings are those God-like creatures. They are created in God’s image and likeness. They are created to exercise dominion everywhere and over everything within the created world. Nothing on planet earth is exempted from their authority.

Not only do humans have dominion over the whole world, but the world is also made for the benefit of humans. God created the heavenly bodies for signs, seasons, days, and years (Gen 1:14), but only humans tell time. God made trees that were pleasant to look at and good for food (Gen 2:8). Both humans and animals consume fruit for food, but human beings are the only creatures who can derive pleasure from gazing upon the beauties of creation.

At a later point, God even gave humans explicit permission to kill animals for food (Gen 9:3). In other words, human dominion includes the authority to use and even to displace other parts of creation in the interest of human flourishing. This point cannot be emphasized too strongly: God never intended the created world to be preserved in pristine condition. He always meant it to be ordered, arranged, and used by humans, without a priori restriction.

Since humans are made in God’s image, they also have one other privilege. They have the capacity to enjoy their relationship with the Creator. They are granted the blessing of being able to listen to “the voice of the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8). Of all God’s creatures, they alone are more than servants. They are made to trust God, to obey Him, and to commune with Him. As later Scripture expands on this point, it shows that humans are made to treasure God’s perfections and His presence, reflecting praise back to Him in a relationship of worship.

To be made in the image of God, then, is to be oriented in two directions. On the one hand, it involves trust in, submission to, and worship of the Creator. On the other hand, it involves the exercise of dominion over creation, subduing it so that it reaches greater order and utility for human flourishing.

Worship and dominion are the core of the image of God. Humans stand as mediatorial rulers—kings and queens—over God’s world. To damage either worship or dominion is necessarily to damage both, and that is exactly what has happened. God’s image-bearers have rejected their obligation to trust, submit to, and worship Him. Consequently, their exercise of dominion has been severely hampered, though it has not been removed. Understanding how sin has damaged dominion will require another discussion, this one centering on the fall.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

O Splendor of God’s Glory Bright

Ambrose (340–397); tr. Louis Benson (1855–1930)

O Splendor of God’s glory bright,
from Light eternal bringing light,
O Light of light, light’s living Spring,
true Day, all days illumining.

Come, very Sun of heaven’s love,
in lasting radiance from above,
and pour the Holy Spirit’s ray
on all we think or do today.

And now to Thee our pray’rs ascend,
O Father, glorious without end;
we plead with sov’reign grace for pow’r
to conquer in temptation’s hour.

Confirm our will to do the right,
and keep our hearts from envy’s blight;
let faith her eager fires renew,
and hate the false, and love the true.

O joyful be the passing day
with thoughts as pure as morning’s ray,
with faith like noontide shining bright,
our souls unshadowed by the night.

Dawn’s glory gilds the earth and skies,
let Him, our perfect Morn, arise,
the Word in God the Father one,
the Father imaged in the Son.

The opening verse of the Bible has profound implications for a right understanding of God. Its implications for a right understanding of the created world are just as significant. Together with the following chapters, it provides a necessary and adequate foundation upon which humans can erect their view of creation.

The course plan for Foundations of Right Thinking 101 is very simple: God made the world. The created order is His handiwork. He is the Creator. The world and all that is in it are His creatures. They owe their existence to Him. God is eternal. Creation is not. God is infinite. Creation is not. God is absolute. Creation is not. God exists in and from Himself. Creation does not.

The world had a beginning. Once upon a time it did not exist. Then it did. Had God not chosen to create it, the world would never have been. It might not have been. Its existence depended entirely upon God’s good pleasure. Its ongoing existence depends upon the sustaining activity of God. As the writer to the Hebrews states, God the Son is the person who is “upholding all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1:3). The apostle Paul adds that in Christ, “all things consist” or hold together (Col 1:17). The existence of the created order is contingent and derived.

The world is not God. Nothing in the world—no created thing—is God. No combination of created things can ever become God. Therefore, no created thing, and no combination of created things, must ever be worshipped. Such things must never be assigned an importance that is equal to or greater than God. They must never be accorded the kind of devotion that God alone deserves. To worship any created thing is to become an idolater.

People worship created things whenever they treat those things as if they were valuable in themselves. The true value of each created thing depends upon its connection to something greater than itself. Ultimately, the value of the whole created order is contingent upon its connection to God. Creation as a whole, and each created thing in particular, is always a means to an end. Only God is the end, the goal, the telos. If we detach any created thing from its proper role in serving God, and if we begin to treat any created thing as if it were somehow an end in itself, separately from or even alongside God, then we turn that thing into an idol. We worship it.

We must love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength because there is one and only one true and living God (Mark 12:28–34). Since creation is not God, we must never love any created thing with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. We must love creation only insofar as we can love it in connection with and service to the God who it was made to serve.

The world is finite, time-bound, and contingent. Nevertheless, it is good. It is good because He who made it is good. It is good because the Maker, reviewing His handiwork, pronounced it good. In the narrative of Genesis 1, God declares His creation to be good no less than seven times. The last, seventh time, He declares it to be very good. Humans must never treat the created order as if it were evil. Neither should they denigrate God’s good creation as if it were unworthy of their attention and involvement. When, on the seventh day, God rested (Gen 2:2–3), He was not “resting up” as if He could be tired of creating. Rather, He was delighting Himself in the goodness of all that He had made. For humans to refuse to acknowledge and appreciate the goodness, beauty, and utility of the created world is to despise the Creator. This, too, is idolatry.

Those who make things leave their marks upon the things that they make. Similarly, God has left the impress of His person upon His poiema—the things He has made (Rom 1:19–20). Even though God Himself is spirit and invisible, His work as Creator makes certain aspects of His character obvious within the created world. These include His eternal power and His theiotēs or divine nature. This stamp of God’s character means that people do not even have to reason backward from creation to Creator; instead, they confront the personhood of the Creator by merely living and breathing in the world. For human beings, not knowing God is not possible, even if they reject that knowledge and invent alternative explanations (Rom 1:21–25).

God’s creation of the world was not meaningless, random, or arbitrary. God had a purpose in creation, and everything He made tends toward that purpose. The creation narratives repeatedly use the language of purpose. When God declared creation to be good, it had to be good for something. Specifically, the celestial lights are for seasons, days, and years. The sun and the moon are supposed to govern day and night. God gave herbs and fruit for food. God placed humans in the garden of Eden for a declared purpose.

The meaning and purpose of the world is not found in itself. It is found in the purpose of the Creator. When the created world is used according to the Creator’s purpose, His creatures will flourish. When it is used contrary to His purpose, their flourishing will be hindered. The word used is important. Creation must be used, and not merely enjoyed, because its purpose is fulfilled in right use. But it must be used rightly, and that right use is tied directly to the presence of humanity within the created order.

To understand the meaning, function, and use of creation, then, one must understand God’s creation of humanity. One must understand where God has placed humans within the created order, and one must grasp the role that God has given humans to fulfill. Consequently, having discussed God and creation, we must next turn attention to the nature, purpose, and destiny of human beings.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Praise the Lord! Ye Heavens, Adore Him

Richard Mant (1776–1848)

Praise the Lord! ye heavens, adore Him,
Praise Him, angels in the height;
Sun and moon, rejoice before Him;
Praise Him, all ye stars of light.

Praise the Lord—for He hath spoken;
Worlds His mighty voice obeyed;
Laws which never shall be broken,
For their guidance He hath made.

Praise the Lord—for He is glorious;
Never shall His promise fail;
God hath made His saints victorious,
Sin and death shall not prevail.

Praise the God of our salvation,
Hosts on high His power proclaim;
Heaven and earth, and all creation,
Laud and magnify His name.

Nobody is omnicompetent. Nobody. At some point, everybody has to rely on somebody else for information, advice, and perspective. The trick is in knowing whom to rely upon.

Most people gain considerable expertise in some one area. I had a friend who was an outstanding delivery driver. He was so good that he eventually was given the job of training other delivery drivers. My brother is a broadcast engineer, and one of my sisters is an emergency physician. Both of them know things that I don’t and probably never will (there won’t be much need for emergency medicine during the Millennium). While I can tinker with cars and make basic repairs, I take my vehicle to a trained auto mechanic. My father-in-law was a farmer, and his experience gave him detailed knowledge of soils, weather, tilling, crop rotation, markets, and polled Hereford cattle. I myself would not be able to earn a living doing any of the above.

My doctor’s degrees do not qualify me to offer advice in matters medical or legal. One doctorate is in systematic and historical theology—I do know a bit about that. The learning that I acquired while earning that doctorate also gives me significant competence in related biblical disciplines, plus a kind of trailing expertise in cognate disciplines such as philosophy and intellectual history. I can also bring the tools of my discipline to bear upon other humanities such as languages, literature, various historical studies, and the liberal arts. My training also provides some tools for criticism in the fine arts, particularly where they overlap with esthetics, as well as a platform for interacting with the social sciences (which are more like humanities than sciences). Other than helping to order the mind, however, my preparation in theology gives me little insight into what have been called the “servile arts” (business, finance, accounting, and related fields), and none at all into the formal, natural, and applied sciences.

You have heard that it has been said that everybody has a right to an opinion. That is not true. The only opinions to which people have a right are informed opinions. An opinion that is not backed by informed perspective is sheer presumption and bigotry. That is why I cannot offer legal and medical advice beyond, “See a doctor,” and, “Talk to a lawyer.” Indeed, if I were to hang out a shingle advertising myself as available for legal and medical advice, I would expect a visit from the authorities rather quickly.

The truth is that what I know is only a drop in the ocean of all that can be known. That’s how it is with all of us. We are forced to rely upon other people who know things that we don’t. We trust people in their areas of expertise. We have to.

Some people want that trust without having earned it. The most egregious offenders are actors and athletes. Actors make their livings by pretending to be what they aren’t. The fact that they can pretend well gives them no qualification whatever to offer observations about any serious matter—unless you consider pretending to be a serious matter. The same is true of athletes. When it comes to the weightier matters of life—the permanent things—why should anyone credit the opinion of a person whose sole contribution to the world is the ability (borrowing Garo Yepremian’s phrase) to “kick a touchdown”?

Other people try to erect alternative frameworks of trust. For example, a person who can’t make it through medical school can still advertise and practice some form of “alternative healing.” Commonly, such a person will claim to possess esoteric knowledge that has been neglected by traditional medicine, while at the same time attempting to call into question the credibility of the medical profession itself. This person’s claims will not typically be backed with rigorous research or double-blind studies, but with ephemeral correlations, anecdotal evidence, and personal testimony. The same sort of mentality in the religious sphere results in cultic thinking. In the political sphere it bolsters conspiracy theories.

Sometimes a figure who has gained credentials that merit trust might abuse that trust. For various reasons, experts might place their reputations at the disposal of political and social forces that promote policies they ought to know are mistaken. Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that key individuals did exactly that in the face of the COVID pandemic. They knowingly withheld vital information and even lied to us while claiming to be following the science. One expert even claimed to be the science. The result is that many people will distrust governmental pronouncements about diseases for a long time to come.

Yet we must trust someone, even if we do it critically. And we ought to know whom to distrust: journalists, shills, demagogues, conspiracists, sensationalists, blogs of all sorts, social media sites, and anonymous sources (including those that start with Q). We must trust, but we ought to try not to be gullible.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Lord, When Thou Didst Ascend on High

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Lord, when thou didst ascend on high,
Ten thousand angels filled the sky;
Those heavenly guards around thee wait,
Like chariots that attend thy state.

Not Sinai’s mountain could appear
More glorious when the Lord was there,
While he pronounced his holy law,
And struck the chosen tribes with awe.

How bright the triumph none can tell,
When the rebellious powers of hell,
That thousand souls had captive made,
Were all in chains like captives led.

Raised by his Father to the throne,
He sent his promised Spirit down,
With gifts and grace for rebel men,
That God might dwell on earth again.

Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, recently stirred up controversy when she admitted in print to shooting an unmanageable dog. The story is in her new book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward (Center Street). It is one of multiple stories that involve Noem killing farm animals.

Predictably, the story provoked hysteria from liberal pundits. What Noem probably could not have guessed, however, was how harshly leading conservative figures would judge her. Writers at National Review have singled her out for repeated excoriation. The incident puts a serious cloud over her aspirations to become Donald Trump’s pick for Vice President.

Not that I think she would make a good selection. Noem is the Republican governor who vetoed a bill that would have kept biological males from participating in women’s sports. People who believe in protecting actual women and girls find this veto incredible, and that is an issue of substance.

What is not a substantial issue is Governor Noem shooting the dog. The canine in question was a 14-month-old wirehair that had been raised for hunting. According to Noem, the dog not only wouldn’t point game, but actually disrupted the hunt. Furthermore, it attacked and killed a neighbor’s chickens. When Noem attempted to restrain the dog, it turned on her and tried to bite her. Subsequently, Noem took the dog to a gravel pit and killed it.

Several observations should be offered here. First, many of Noem’s critics are castigating her for shooting a “puppy.” In certain respects, a 14-month-old dog is still juvenile, but it has substantially reached its adult strength and stature. To call this dog a puppy is the equivalent of calling an armed 17-year-old gangster a child. The emotional content of the word does not match the reality of the case.

Indeed, this case is about emotion versus reality, and misplaced emotion at that. People are not wrong to love dogs and other animals. Quite the contrary, there is a proper degree and kind of love for everything that God has made, as there is for God Himself. The problem arises when people begin to love things to an improper degree—either more or less than God loves them—or with a wrong love. The result of a wrong love is either brutality, which occurs when we love a thing too little or too coarsely, or sentimentalism, which occurs when we love a thing too much or too sweetly.

An example of brutality occurs in individuals who abuse animals and do not care about their pain. An example of sentimentality occurs in individuals who anthropomorphize animals, treating them as if they had human value. A century or so ago, brutality to animals may have been the more common problem. Now sentimentality clearly is.

Typically, sentimentality in one area leads to a corresponding brutality in another. For example, a civilization (if it can be called that) might grow indignant at the swift and painless killing of beasts but defend as unalienably right the butchery of partially-born infants. Predictably, when animals are elevated to near-human status, certain human beings will be demoted to the bestial.

I suggest that the reaction against the killing of Kristi Noem’s dog is sentimentalism run amok. Furthermore, I suspect that the hue and cry against Noem has been raised by people who have little experience of rural life. In farm country, animals are not usually pets. They are property. Often, they are tools. Dogs in particular are tools, used for hunting, herding, and guarding.

Treating animals as tools is unquestionably moral. God Himself killed animals to acquire their skins. He gave animals to humans as food after the Flood. He required the blood of animals in sacrifice. Jesus recognized the right of humans to own and control animals when he prepared to ride the donkey’s colt into Jerusalem—which was itself a use of an animal as a tool.

Kristi Noem’s dog proved to be a severely defective tool. It would not perform the task for which it was intended. Furthermore, it became destructive, not only to Noem but to others as well. When a dog in farm country starts to kill stock, there can be only one outcome. The dog is never going to stop on its own. If that dog turns vicious with its master, then it becomes a threat to be eliminated.

The task of humans is not to preserve the natural order but to improve it. To do that, they need tools. Sometimes they make tools out of inanimate materials. Other times they use animals as tools. In either case, the tool must perform or it will be scrapped.

What Kristi Noem did is an aspect of human dominion within the natural world. She eliminated a threat to her neighbor’s property and to her own personal safety. Might she have found an alternative way to deal with the problem? That is only an important question for those who have already anthropomorphized animals. Every imaginable alternative would have been more costly and time-consuming. The alternative that she pursued was cheap, painless, quick, and effective. To argue otherwise is to commit oneself to an untoward sentimentalism.

This essay is by Kevin T. Bauder, Research Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary. Not every one of the professors, students, or alumni of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.

Lord, What Was Man

Isaac Watts (1674–1748)

Lord, what was man when made at first,
Adam the offspring of the dust,
That thou should’st set him and his race
But just below an angel’s place?

That thou should’st raise his nature so,
And make him lord of all below;
Make every beast and bird submit,
And lay the fishes at his feet?

But, O, what brighter glories wait
To crown the second Adam’s state!
What honours shall thy Son adorn,
Who condescended to be born!

See him below his angels made,
See him in dust amongst the dead,
To save a ruin’d world from sin;
But he shall reign with power divine.

The world to come, redeem’d from all
The miseries that attend the fall,
New-made, and glorious, shall submit
At our exalted Saviour’s feet.