The Uncomfortable Question of Humanity’s Claim on Divine Favour

For generations, across countless cultures and spiritual traditions, humanity has been placed at the absolute pinnacle of creation. We are often depicted as distinct, specially favoured, made in the divine image, and uniquely possessing the capacity for a conscious relationship with the divine – a potential for “union” seemingly denied to the rest of the living world.

But what if this deeply ingrained perspective, while comforting to our collective ego, is fundamentally flawed? What if it’s a construct born more of our own limited, self-centred viewpoint than of any universal, loving divinity?

This question often arises for those of us who have shared our lives intimately with animals. We witness their capacity for unconditional love, unwavering loyalty, simple presence, and profound innocence. We experience the genuine warmth and uncomplicated goodness radiating from beings incapable of deceit, treachery, or the complex cruelties humans inflict upon each other and the planet.

Compare this to the human story. Our history, and indeed our daily news, is a relentless narrative of conflict, exploitation, environmental destruction, and interpersonal unkindness. We wage war, build systems based on inequality, deceive readily, and often struggle mightily with the very concepts of genuine empathy and selfless love that animals embody with apparent ease.

We justify our ‘pinnacle’ status primarily through our greater intelligence, our capacity for abstract thought, complex language, and technological innovation. Yet, this very intelligence is frequently the tool we use to devise more efficient weapons, manipulate others, and rationalise our destructive behaviours. If intelligence is the sole, or even primary, metric for divine favour, it seems a strange criterion for a loving being to prioritise, especially when that intelligence is so often turned towards darkness.

Furthermore, the argument for intelligence as the sole differentiator is becoming increasingly complex. Research into the cognitive abilities of dolphins, whales, elephants, and even many bird species reveals levels of intelligence, complex social structures, communication, and emotional depth that challenge our long-held assumptions about human uniqueness. If high intelligence is the key to divine favour, are these creatures also candidates for “divine union”? Or is their intelligence somehow deemed less valid because it doesn’t manifest in ways familiar or useful to us?

The idea that a universal, loving divine force would grant the potential for ultimate connection and union exclusively to a species whose defining characteristic (intelligence) is so often used for destruction and whose track record on virtues like kindness, loyalty, and peace is often far surpassed by other creatures, feels inherently egocentric. It assumes that the divine shares our priorities and values our particular form of consciousness above all others.

Perhaps, instead of viewing our intelligence as a free pass to divine favouritism, we should consider it a profound responsibility. If animals, through their innate nature – their capacity for simple joy, their presence, their loyalty, their lack of malice – already walk a path of fundamental alignment with a loving universe, perhaps their way to “union” is simpler, more direct, less cluttered by the noise of ego and complex thought that humans must navigate.

Perhaps humanity, with its greater cognitive capacity, is not divinely favoured above other creatures, but is expected to do more precisely because it can think and choose more complexly. Maybe our path to union is not granted by default for our intelligence, but must be earned through the conscious cultivation of the very virtues – love, compassion, humility, loyalty, peace – that we so often see reflected, unbidden and pure, in the eyes of the animals we share our lives with.

To truly question our place according to divine perspective requires shedding the heavy cloak of human ego. It requires humbling ourselves to consider that the quiet devotion of a dog, the serene self-possession of a cat, or the complex, empathetic bonds of an elephant family might be expressions of existence viewed with just as much, if not more, divine pleasure and connection than the intricate theological debates or technological marvels that define much of human endeavour.

Maybe the path to divine union isn’t a narrow, human-shaped gate at the ‘pinnacle’ we imagine ourselves occupying. Maybe it’s a vast, open field where beings connect through countless forms of expression – presence, loyalty, love, instinct, service, and yes, complex thought – each valid and valued in the eyes of a truly universal, loving creator. And perhaps, it is time for humanity to learn humility from the creatures we patronisingly deem lower, and recognise that their simple goodness might place them far closer to the heart of the divine than our complex, often troubled, minds have ever allowed us to believe.

–

See also: The Incredible Story of Chito and Poco: Man Who Swims With A Crocodile, (2) Serpents as Roommates: Inside India’s Extraordinary Snake Village, (3) Cetacean Intelligence, (4) How Smart Are Crows? Smarter Than You Think, (5) Pigs Are Amongst The Most Intelligent Animals on the Planet, (6) Pigs Are Intelligent and Clean Animals, Actually, (7) Dog Cognition, (8) Cows: Science Shows They’re Bright And Emotional Individuals, (9) Why Sheep Matter: They’re Intelligent, Emotional and Unique, (10) The Smartest Apes in the World.

Recommended reading: Life After Death, by Neville Randall, which presents evidence of afterlife survival of animal souls.