ABSTRACT
I used to enjoy going on very long runs. Over the years I encountered a surprisingly wide range of animals as I ran: bobcat, eagle, osprey, armadillo, crocodile, wild turkey, owl, coyote, rattlesnake, tarantula, deer, and falcon. Twice I met a bear. But the strangest encounter of all happened on a fire road in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. Coming round the corner I was suddenly faced with a wandering flock of sheep – in urban Southern California! I had never met sheep before and wondered what they would make of me. They were largely unconcerned. Philosopher and theologian Herbert McCabe asks us to consider the similarities
and the differences between the ‘world’ of sheep and the ‘world’ of human beings by comparing our respective responses to the presence of a predator, say a wolf.1 As far as a sheep is concerned, a wolf is dangerous. As far as a human, alone in the wild, is concerned a wolf is also dangerous. ‘Danger’ is the meaning that the wolf presents to both the sheep and the runner. Because we share this meaning, both the sheep and I would react in similar ways: pulse quickens, nostrils flare, eyes widen and we both flee to avoid the danger posed by the wolf. When we run, we can both be said to act for the same reason. Acting for a reason is one way to describe the world of meanings shared by
mammals. In large measure, this kind of ‘world’ is one that can be described from the outside. A biologist can describe the similarities between the sheep’s perception of Canis lupus and the human’s perception. These similar bodily responses in the presence of a growling wolf are part and parcel of what it means to say that the sheep and the human act ‘for the same reason’. However, human beings also inhabit a ‘world’ of a higher order than that which
we share with other mammals. While both the sheep and I act for a reason, unlike
the sheep, I, as a human, can also be said to ‘have’ a reason for acting. Having reasons means that the wolf becomes significant to humans in ways not available to the sheep. How a sheep reacts to danger is largely (if not entirely) determined by genetics. And while the human has similar genetically determined reactions, the wolf holds added significance to humans because humans share a linguistic world. As a speaker and reader of say, English, I understand that Canis lupus is one of the small number of meat eaters that hunts in daylight and hunts in a pack. So while both the sheep and I run for a reason (to escape the sharp fangs of the wolf), I do not run directly away from the wolf but at an odd angle because I also have a reason the sheep knows nothing about, namely I suspect the unseen presence of the rest of the pack. The sheep cannot conceive facts from books. It can only react to what it perceives here and now. When the rest of the wolf pack becomes perceivable, it will be too late for the poor sheep. Language users share a higher-order world of meaning than animals can conceive.
But language users, being bodily critters themselves, are able to imagine something of what it is like to be a sheep. In fact, in an important sense, human beings can only inhabit this higher-order world of meaning because we are critters who already inhabit the lower-order world of bodies. Now consider: St Paul says that ‘if anyone is in Christ: it is a whole new world!’ Taken at face value, Paul seems to be saying that there may be an even higher-order world of meaning that eclipses both linguistic and animal worlds and yet remains somehow entangled with them. These interconnections give warrant to one theologian’s rough and ready definition of theology as ‘the task of working with words in the light of faith’.2
