This is another reason, beside the ignorance of the gospel, that mystics like St. Francis drive the Calvinists crazy. They think we have an animal soul, and the animal world around us reminds them of the fallacy of their pathetic theology.
As I said earlier, all living things "exchange gases" while they are alive, and that is by definition "breathing." When they die, they stop breathing and fall apart. This has nothing to do with being an "animal," of course, except in the literalistic minds of some Protestants.
By convincing themselves that only men (I would even venture to say & #151; only the elect) have a "soul," they can demean the rest of Creation and treat it without compassion or respect, as something inferior, as "things." After all, their own theology of complete depravity seems to me as the antithesis of humanism that is so clear in Christ.
I really can't see how such a mindset can obey the commandment to "love your enemies."