In the past few decades, there have been a number of authors who have engaged in discussions of animal theology. Much of this engagement has been from outside the evangelical theological community, and also has been from an engagement between science and theology. Moreover, the theological arguments usually lack a consistent biblical foundation. The thesis of this paper is that engaging this discussion from a progressive covenantal view has the potential to aid and clarify this discussion.
This paper will begin with an overview of some of the major theologians (Linzey, Clough, Moritz) and some of the major ideas to situate this paper in the literature. I will show how these writers engage in a number of themes, and how these themes lack a consistent biblical foundation. These themes include theological anthropology, the human-animal distinction, animals in relation to God, and notions of morality in animals and whether animals are in need of redemption.
The main part of this paper will be my engagement with these ideas from biblical theology, specifically from a progressive covenantal view. I will look at some of these major themes through each of the covenants in their contextual, epochal, and canonical horizons. I will trace these themes through each covenant to show how a “whole-Bible” theology better accounts for an answer to these themes than the approaches by most writers in this field. I will also show how some elements of typology (such as animal sacrifices in the Old Covenant that are the ectype for the archetype of Christ’s work initiating the New) from a progressive covenantal view provide a better framework for how to view animals in the Bible.
In the final part of this paper I will pull together the above elements to show how the progressive unfolding of God’s revelation unfolds God’s plan for his creation and encapsulates God’s dealings with animals.