JoJo is reading “The Call of the Wild” for her 7th grade literature class. This novel follows canine protagonist, Buck, through a series of adventures and savage encounters, depicting an inexorable transformation from domesticated pet to wild animal.
More than a few times, JoJo has looked up from the book to contemplate our family’s canine companion, Bonnie, and remark, “She would be dead in five minutes in this story.”
Same species… somehow
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about Bonnie and Buck.
Bonnie is adoring, affectionate, amiably lazy. She must be carefully kept (various allergies require shots, pills, and a strictly non-beef diet). She sleeps on a soft mattress, eats from a bowl, and requires copious soothing whenever it rains or the smoke alarms tweet. Her whole purpose is companionship – Mark calls her “Shannon’s shadow” for good reason. (As I type this, she is asleep on my feet.)
By contrast, the character of Buck is fierce, resourceful, hardworking to the point of collapse. He survives against all odds, killing other dogs and even humans to do so. He sleeps outside, exposed to the extreme Arctic elements, eats whatever he can forage, and maintains his ferocious composure no matter how he is mistreated or attacked. His whole purpose is attaining and maintaining alpha status within whatever pack he runs with.
Though physically Bonnie and Buck might look alike, they could hardly be less similar. It’s hard to think of them as belonging to the same species.
Nature vs. nurture (?)
What differentiates the Bonnies of the dog world from the Bucks?
In “The Call of the Wild”, the answer seems to be “nurture.”
Buck’s personality is a byproduct of his environment. The further from civilization Buck travels, the wilder in thought and deed he becomes.
Interestingly, that is true of the people in the book, as well. Buck’s owners at the beginning of the story – a kindly, prosperous family living in comfort in California – are the human version of domesticated Buck. The murderous criminals in the Alaskan wilderness are the human version of Buck the wolf.
The people in one setting are almost as much of a different breed from the people in the other setting as the pampered pet is from the wolves.
Nature vs. nurture
“The Call of the Wild” is just a novel, but the assertions it makes about creatures and creation reflect the shaping influences of our culture. I would say that the “nature vs. nurture” debate on which the plot of “The Call of the Wild” turns is the contextual frame through which we view almost all legal and political matters today.
Consider:
Project 1619 and Critical Race Theory (people are the products of racist environments who can only be saved by the transformation of those environments – nurture) vs old-fashioned bigotry (people are the products of their genetic code / physical manifestations thereof – nature).
Progressive economic policies (people can only rise if they are boosted – nurture) vs. social Darwinism (people who will rise, will rise, no matter what environment they are in – nature).
Affirmative action (historic wrongs must be accounted for in present day assessments to achieve justice – nurture) vs. pure meritocracy (each person is independently responsible for personal accomplishment – nature).
Gender fluidity (“male” and “female” are social constructs which can be redefined – nurture) vs. “cisgender” promiscuity (biological gender and innate sex drive are determinative – nature).
Darwin vs. Imago Dei
Here is the sticking point for Christians in the “nature vs. nurture” debate monopoly: God made humanity in His image – Imago Dei – and God gave humankind authority over all Creation. Part of the Imago Dei is free will. Nature and nurture must therefore operate as complementary components of human flourishing, as people exercise their free will in submission to God’s will – nurturing the Divine nature within them.
The biblical account describes how God brought order from chaos and created something from nothing. Immediately thereafter, God tasks His special creatures – people – with the ongoing responsibility of imposing order on the rest of God’s creation. That ordering, creating nature defines humanity at the very core. The “civilizing” influence of humanity comes built into our created-in-the-image-of-God nature.
What this means
From a Christian point of view, therefore, “The Call of the Wild” has everything backward. Dogs are more truly dogs as they interact with and are shaped by people, just as people are more truly themselves as they interact with and are shaped by God.
C.S. Lewis puts it like this:
“… (God) is what He is, & His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled, by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labour to make us lovable. We cannot even wish, in our better moments, that He could reconcile Himself to our present impurities—no more than the beggar maid could wish that King Cophetua should be content with her rags and dirt, or a dog, once having learned to love man, could wish that man were such as to tolerate in his house the snapping, verminous, polluting creature of the wild pack.”
Similarly, a Christian point of view reframes the “nature vs. nurture” debates of our age – asserting the authority of Imago Dei nature while submitting to the ongoing nurture of the sovereign Lord in Whose image we are made.
This means that, even as Christians are required to point to the truth of scripture and the permanence of God’s law as constitutive of human nature, Christians are simultaneously required to nurture others made in God’s image as creatures beloved by God.
Members of the Household of God
It has struck me forcefully, mulling over these matters, that Bonnie’s place in our family has much in common with my place in God’s family – particularly in the sense of “nurture” …
- We rescued Bonnie. She could not have rescued herself; it was all about our initiative, capacity and resources. Same as God’s rescue of me – all His initiative, capacity, and resources (and my complete helplessness without Him).
- We provide for Bonnie. We know what she needs, and we make sure she has it. God provides for me, likewise.
- We love Bonnie in ways she can receive – petting her, talking gently to her, playing with her. Same as God loves me in ways I can receive – encouraging me, comforting me, showing me the next step of faith.
- Bonnie belongs because we claim her. Period. I belong to God because He claims me. Period.
- Bonnie’s security depends on our faithfulness to her. My security depends on God’s faithfulness to me. (I have to pause to acknowledge that while we will strive to be faithful to keep Bonnies secure, but God will be faithful forever to me because God IS faithful and cannot be otherwise.)
The difference between Bonnie’s nature and mine, though, is more than a species difference. It’s a difference in responsibility and authority, the difference between God’s chosen steward and that which must be stewarded. The difference between us is at root between her being a “good dog” and my being a “good daughter” … and the levels of accountability are as different as the levels of potential insight. (A rabbit trail for another blog post: this distinction should inform Christian thought on everything from vegetarianism to climate change. Does it?)
We can read so much more than a good adventure story when we pick up “The Call of the Wild” – we can read compelling lies about our own nature and nurture, about purpose, about potential.
That’s true of most of what we read… the news, posts on social media, online chats, etc. … compelling lies are cunningly woven into most of the good adventure stories (and all of the junk).
So, let’s take the lesson from Bonnie and Buck, Friends:
We are not victims of our animal nature, nor are we mindless products of our environments!
Neither nature nor nurture rules over us, nor does anything (or anyone else), unless we choose to submit!
And let’s remember that even in the choice to submit, we demonstrate the truth about our nature and the nurture we need…
Only because we are made in the image of God do we have the power to choose in the first place, and only when we choose to submit to the One in whose image we are made will we be nurtured into our true nature.
