Philosopher and Christian apologist William Lane Craig – in an October 2011 debate with philosopher Stephen Law – claimed that even though animals experience pain, they are not aware of it. This claim was a response to Law's concerns about animal suffering that Law believed, in addition to other concerns regarding human suffering, form “very powerful evidence against the existence of Professor Craig's God.” William Lane Craig recently clarified his position regarding animal pain awareness on his website. Craig's response, though, does not seem to adequately answer the concerns of those who maintain that animal suffering is incompatible with the Christian god.
Craig notes, “there is an ascending three-fold hierarchy of pain awareness in nature.” Craig describes three levels of pain: level 1: aversive reaction to noxious stimuli shown by insects, worms and invertebrates, level 2: mental states of pain shown by vertebrates and level 3: awareness that one is oneself in pain (shown by great apes and humans).
Most animals, Craig writes, do not experience level 3 awareness. This, Craig notes, “magnifies the mercy and goodness of God.” Craig explains, “God has shielded almost the entire animal kingdom throughout its history from an awareness of being in pain! […] [T]his is a tremendous comfort and a cause of praise to God for His goodness and wondrous, even ingenious, care of creation.”
Craig's “ascending three-fold hierarchy of pain awareness in nature” suffers some problems.
Craig does not deny that animals experience pain, but rather argues that animals are not aware that they experience pain. Would an all-loving god want pain to be experienced even if animals are not aware that they are suffering? Animal suffering, whether or not animals are aware that they are suffering, seems to demonstrate evidence against the existence of God.
In his debate with Craig, Law noted, “Each day, millions of animals are similarly forced to tear each other limb from limb to survive. And this has been going on for hundreds of millions of years. This might, in many ways, be a beautiful world. But it's also a quite staggeringly cruel and horrific world for very many of its inhabitants. […] Unavoidable, unspeakable horror on an almost unimaginably vast scale is built into the very fabric of the world we find ourselves forced to inhabit.” Even if it is the case that most animals are not self-aware, nature hardly seems to be the product of an all-loving, all-knowing and all-powerful god.
Additionally, there appears to be a lack of consensus regarding whether animals are aware that they are experiencing pain. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “...there remain critics from both sides [regarding questions of animal consciousness]: on the one hand are those who still think that subjective phenomena are beyond the pale of scientific research, and on the other are those who think that science and philosophy have not moved far enough or fast enough to recognize animal consciousness.”
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