How is it possible that a Creator, so full of love, created a world and nature, where animals can live only by killing other animals?

08-21-2005, 08:38 AM

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is it possible that a Creator, so full of love, created a world and a nature
where animals can live only by killing other animals that have to endure
terrible pain and suffering ? Nobody can give me a satisfactory answer. If men
kill each other, it is sin; they need not.
But, animals cannot live without killing the other animals for food. What do you
say ? We are anxious for your
opinion.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------God's
love for the created universe knows no bounds; He cannot be held responsible for
the experiences of created beings.
God does not punish or reward anyone in a personal way; it is one's own actions,
sinful or good, that works as the cause of experience here.
As the human being is endowed with moral sense and as he is invested with the
consciousness of doership and responsibility, he imposes this sense of morality
and responsibility of action on sub-human beings also. The defect, therefore,
lies in man and not in the animals which act without any consciousness of
ethical conduct, and spontaneously, free from the responsibility connected with
doership or agency.
No action can produce a retributive effect unless it is done with the
consciousness of personal doership and responsibility.
Man shall be punished by retributive justice, for man has the freedom to act and
he is responsible for what he does.
But animals have not been endowed with such a freedom and power of understanding
and reason; so what they do is just the expression of the instinctive natural
promptings in them and this is included in the scheme of the universal nature.
Nature is beyond moral laws. Moral conduct is only for man, meant to restrict
his behaviour and lead him on to universal consciousness through gradual ascent
along the evolutionary ladder.
All things born must die.
And there should be some immediate cause for the destruction of things. This
cause of destruction may be another animal, an earthquake, a thunder-stroke,
flood, disease, storm or any such thing.
These should not be clothed with moral and ethical values except when these are
concerned with human agency.
(From Swami Sivananda's Book, "May I Answer
That?")------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------