Noah's Ark

I was talking to my mom this morning and she told me about an experience I had when I was JD's age. She enrolled me in a preschool at a local church. In addition to play, stories from the Bible were introduced and discussed. One of the stories was that of Noah's Ark. Apparently it made sense to me why people were being killed for being wicked but I questioned why the animals and other living creatures (who had done nothing wrong) had to suffer as well. It's an interesting question.

In Genesis 6:5-7, it says "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenth me that I have made them." Clearly man (aside from Noah) didn't have any redeeming qualities but what about the animals? Again, there's no mention of them being wicked or that "every imagination of the thoughts of their heart[s] was only evil continually." In Genesis 1:24-25, it says "And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the eart after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good." So the animals are made "after his kind" and "God saw that it was good". Still not clear why the animals had to suffer for man's sins.

In Genesis 1:26, it says "let [man] have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepth upon the earth." If man has dominion over animals and over all the earth and man needed to go, perhaps the animals and other living creatures would be irrelevant without man. In military terms, perhaps they would be "acceptable collateral damage" of the mission (flood) to wipe out man (except Noah and his family). Perhaps that's the answer. If so, I don't like it. I believe that animals are God's creatures too and they have souls and go to heaven when they die.

In a Purpose-Driven Life, the author says Earth is a temporary home and that God doesn't want us to get too attached to it. Perhaps the animals' reunion with God was simply accelerated by the flood. Perhaps it was actually a gift in disguise. Not sure, but I like that explanation better than any other one I can come up with. If you can shed some light on this, please let me know.

The thing I find the most interesting about this is that I read these passages in Genesis the other day and this question didn't even occur to me. In Matthew 18:3, it says "Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." Perhaps I had a better chance of finding God when I was four (when I poised this question) than I do now. For more on that topic, see this article from InTouch magazine.