“The Truth About Cats and Dogs”Theologians have authored a humorous way to explore the existence and being of God by using the quintessential polar opposites of the animal world: the dog and the cat. "Dog Theology" goes like this: "You feed me. You pet me. You shelter me. You love me. YOU must be God!" "Cat Theology" goes like this: "You feed me. You pet me. You shelter me. You love me. I must be God!" Though I own a cat, I consider myself to be really more of a dog person, but whatever one’s personal preference in pets may be, I think the principles of the “Dog and Cat Theologies” outlined here are charming and amusing and quite thoughtful. Both theologies here showcase beautifully the two main flaws we ourselves as human-beings tend to exhibit when it comes to our own belief systems in regards to God and the Divine. On one hand we have the Dog’s point-of-view; one that uses ridiculously low standards in order to determine what is Divine and what is not. We see here that the dog will worship anyone or anything responsible for providing them with what they need. The dog places ALL faith and hope and trust in a “God” that is just as easily made as it is torn down and replaced; a disposable God. How many times do we see ourselves and others fall into that exact same trap? We put our trust and hope in the things that perish; we heap up for ourselves teachers that tell us what we want to hear; we start worshipping men and false idols (Matthew 6:19-20, 2 Timothy 4:3), don’t we? There are very few animals less discerning than a dog, which probably explains why they are man’s best friend, because oftentimes I think we, as human beings, finish not too far behind the dog when it comes to matters of discernment. We imagine ourselves to be creatures of great refinement and in possession of a discriminating palate; but the plain truth is that we steal, hurt, cheat, lie, kill and crawl in order to provide and be provided for. A cat’s view of things is much simpler than a dog’s. A cat looking out onto the world sees the same thing it does when it looks in the mirror: only itself. The cat deifies self, and lives to indulge its every whim and fancy. How much different are we sometimes? When we put on Christ we are to be living sacrifices, crucifying self; putting our selfish sinful nature to death just as Jesus himself was put to death for our sin (2 Corinthians 5:17). That is what we should do. But what we really want to do is serve self first; if there is any time left over, God can have that. In the servitude of self we not only forget our service to God, but our service to others as well. Luckily for us, we don’t have to be slaves to our own nature as do the dog and the cat. We are free from the instinctual pattern that pre-determines the behavior of God’s other creations. A dog can’t decide to be a cat, and a cat can’t just start acting like a dog. But we CAN choose to behave like either one of those things, so let’s never find ourselves doing it. — Paul Seely, November 20, 2011 |