Christians, Jews, and even Muslims in a limited way all accept the truth (whether literal or metaphorical) of Genesis, and therefore they are particularly scandalized by Christians like me who question meat-eating on moral grounds. “After all,” they say, “Genesis tells us that God created animals for food.” Well, that turns out to be false. God first created plants, then animals, and then people (at least in the Genesis 1 version). God then told Adam and Eve about the relationship of those three segments of the created order: “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth…You shall have them for food” (v. 29). Notice that at this point humans were not permitted to eat animals – only plants. Surprisingly, God gave the same diet to land and air animals: “And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens…I have given every green plant for food” (v. 30).
So plants were to be eaten by humans and animals, and humans and animals were not supposed to eat each other. This means that the ideal Judeo-Islamic-Christian diet is vegetarian, since Genesis is thought to describe an ideal set of living conditions and God issued a strict vegetarian diet in the Garden. So it seems false that God’s original intention for animals was as sustenance for people. God seemed to think that people would do best by just sticking to plants.
Now, in Genesis 9:2-3, God finally permitted Noah and his family to eat animals. So it’s clear that killing animals is not wrong, at least not in the same way that killing people is wrong. But that does not imply that there are no moral considerations to make when considering diet. Remember, this change happened after the Fall – that is, after things got messed up. So it is clear to me that the carnivorous diet is still not the ideal; the ideal diet is given in the Garden. And of course, being permitted to do something is not the same as it being ideal, as Paul points out. Just because something is permitted does not mean that it is beneficial. There are plenty of good reasons for a Christian to make a moral decision about an issue that is permissible, but not ideal. This is called conviction.
