Tim Powers writes:
Has the Church definitively said that animals _don’t_ go to Heaven, or at least have some posthumous happy state? They suffer, but they don’t sin. They’re not fallen. Their suffering-&-death is both real and undeserved, which is an inbalance, bad math, unless it’s made up for somewhere else in the equation. After all, we’re told that "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid" and all. Maybe that’s literal!
Maybe, though the literal sense of those texts is that God will send a great age of peace, during which it will be as if all strife–even between animals–will be eliminated. There may be an even more literal fulfillment in the next life–if animals have souls that can survive death–but we don’t have strong reason to think that it will happen in this one.
As to whether animals have a posthumous happy state, the standard position is that they don’t because their souls are unable to survive death. This is not something that the Church has taught definitively (infallibly), but it is the standard opinion among theologians historically.
(Note for those who may want to be cantankerous about animals being
unfallen: Many would say that they suffer bad effects due to our fall,
but that doesn’t mean that they themselves sinned. I also would be
hesitant to say that carnivorism only came into the universe with the
fall of man. I tend to go with Aquinas in saying that human death entered the world through the fall of man, but animal death was already there.)
You’re right, though, that there is a bad math problem here: Many animals do seem to live very short lives in which they suffer more than they benefit, making it look like they come out on the negative side of the equation, which is hard to square with God’s justice and mercy.
This isn’t a problem (or not nearly as much of one) for humans since our souls survive death and so–no matter how much we’re banged around in this life–God can make it up to us in the next.
But how can we solve the equation for animals? How can we make sure that they get more good out of existence than bad? It would seem that there are several possible ways:
- Animals are sufficiently insignificant in the moral order that it really doesn’t matter what happens to them individually and whether they suffer more than they benefit from life.
- Animals actually do benefit more than they suffer, because (despite how it may appear if you’re a baby mouse being eaten by a predator who has discovered your warm, cozy nest) life ITSELF is of sufficient value that any amount of it overbalances whatever sufferings you may experience in it (at least if you’re an animal).
- Animals have excess sufferings made up to them in a mysterious way that we can’t perceive in the last moments of life.
- Animals really do survive death–at least the ones who need some suffering made up to them–but they don’t survive permanently, the way we do.
- Animals do survive permanently the way we do.
Each of these has benefits and problems associated with it. The standard account would presumably go in the direction of #1 or #2.
#5, though, seems to be the most common sensically attractive to many (especially children suffering from the loss of a pet), though it isn’t the way most theologians have gone historically.
An especially creative solution (that comes from C. S. Lewis, if I recall correctly) to what to tell a child who is grieving for a pet is that the pet will be in heaven "if you need it" since God will certainly let us have everything we need in heaven. I’ve used that one myself in answering questions on the Catholic Answers Live kids’ show.
What about the whole recreated heaven and earth part of the post-end times? Maybe they get recreated there?
post-end… there’s a better way to say that.
I tried the C. S. Lewis explanation last week with my students and was immediately asked, “What if you need the company of your unrepentant mother to be happy in Heaven?”
CS Lewis also had some interesting thoughts that just as Jesus Christ, God Incarnate is the saviour of humankind, perhaps human beings were always meant to be the saviour of the animals, that if they are saved they are saved through us. Because as we interact with them they become more like us, as our personality is extended into them. Just as we are meant to become more like God, animals are meant to become more human.
That’s a whole new spin on humanity’s dominion that we see with Adam and Eve in Genesis.
While the purpose of the Scriptures is to reveal God’s plan of salvation for mankind it would seem to me that there are hints that God has a plan for animals, too.
“Are not five sparrows sold for two cents? Yet not one of them is forgotten before God.”
Luke 12:6
Also, Psalm 104 seems to suggest that animals have a permanent place in His creation.
I’ve always thought (while understanding the whole “temporal soul” thing) that animals were also put on earth to give us another opportunity to be kind to something. I would think that kindness to animals is meritorious, just as cruelty isn’t. Well, except for snakes. You can’t be kind to snakes; it’s just…..wrong.
“You can’t be kind to snakes; it’s just…..wrong”. I “ditto” that but would include urban deer, rats, groundhogs, chipmunks, rabbits, mice and most bugs especially Japanese beetles, cabbage loopers and mosquitoes. Time to feed my urban song birds!!!!!
Dave M.:
I think you’re right on. The way this question is so often posed has bothered me for a long time, since it assumes (wrongly) that the ultimate end of mankind is heaven. As Revelation, Irenaeus, Augustine, Aquinas, and the Catechism all clearly state, God’s purpose for man and the world includes the restoration of *all* creation – new heavens and a new earth. See CCC par. 1042ff., perhaps my favorite section of the Catechism.
The question of whether or not animals go to heaven—or the happy hunting grounds—has to depend on if animals have an immortal soul. Animal lovers want to believe they do, but the only One who can give anything an immortal soul is God.
I’d like to believe the great animals I’ve owned have immortal souls and we’ll meet across the Divide some day, but how am I to know for certain? It could likely be that the experience of having a great pet is like the experience of having a great spring day, or a great starry night—that a beloved pet is part of creation and ultimately must at the same time cherished as a gift yet never really possessed.
Well put, John.
Addressing the question of animal suffering, it is my understanding that animal suffering is qualitatively different than human suffering. This is because animals lack the emotional and rational faculties that make suffering qualitatively different -even worse– than for humans. When a human suffers, for example, he can look at his suffering in terms of all he has already suffered and how that suffering may continue in the future. She can consider the justice of the suffering, the effect it is having on her family, the response (or nonresponse)of those around her to her suffering, etc. Finally, the sufferer is capable of considering suffering in religious terms as either punishment, a test of character and virtue, or as having redemptive value, even though it may seem otherwise senseless or even cruel. All these qualities are lacking in animals.
I’m not saying this is definitively the case, only what I have been led to understand.
In the Book of Jonas (chapter 4:11), God seems also concerned with the salvation of animals.
Without any tint of disrespect for the Church and its teachings, I think it is the same era of theologians who taught that if one party disagrees with periodic continence, the other must comply with the request for intercourse. Such an attitude completely disregards the question of say a woman for whom pregnancy would be difficult or even life threatening.
I just read such opinions written by Catholic theologian in the mid Twentieth Century. Of course PaulVI began the shift in that thinking when he said such an act imposed on another is not an act of marital intercourse.
My point being that concepts of what is mercy and real love has grown in the Church and hopefully our theology will refect a growth that will at least approach C.S. Lewis.
I know this will incur the wrath of some, but I look forward to any other opinions.
If there are animals in Heaven, that means there will be bugs. Hmmm, but if we are all in a “spirit” state, I assume we will not be “biteable”?? Or in a “glorified” state, we will not itch??
See, call me a heartless scumbucket, but I think that all this hoping for animals in Heaven is us anthropomorphizing certain fuzzy friends and not others. Does anyone really want there to be cockroaches in Heaven? Aphids? Pigeons?
Why do we get to eat the animals? Will we eat the cows in Heaven? What if I can’t imagine being happy in Heaven without a cheeseburger?
This past Sunday’s first reading was from Genesis where God makes a covenant with Noah, his descendents and “all living beasts of the earth and air”. God promises to man and animals that He won’t destroy the earth by flood waters again.
Now, floodwaters destroy trees and grass and all vegetation, as we learned in hurricane Katrina. Yet God does not include vegetation in His convenant. Just man and beasts.
I think it is because both man and beasts have an awareness of suffering that the rest of creation does not experience. Animals suffered because of the Fall, it only makes sense that they are included in the Redemption, in some way.
Yes, Aquinas and most theologians have said that animals won’t be in heaven, and they’re right, but THAT’S BESIDE THE POINT!!! Aquinas also had this to say about the renewal of all creation (you know, that life of the world to come bit we mention every Sunday at Mass):
I answer that, We believe all corporeal things to have been made for man’s sake, wherefore all things are stated to be subject to him [Ps. 8:5, seqq.]. Now they serve man in two ways, first, as sustenance to his bodily life, secondly, as helping him to know God, inasmuch as man sees the invisible things of God by the things that are made (Romans 1:20). Accordingly glorified man will nowise need creatures to render him the first of these services, since his body will be altogether incorruptible, the Divine power effecting this through the soul which it will glorify immediately. Again man will not need the second service as to intellective knowledge, since by that knowledge he will see God immediately in His essence. The carnal eye, however, will be unable to attain to this vision of the Essence; wherefore that it may be fittingly comforted in the vision of God, it will see the Godhead in Its corporeal effects, wherein manifest proofs of the Divine majesty will appear, especially in Christ’s flesh, and secondarily in the bodies of the blessed, and afterwards in all other bodies. Hence those bodies also will need to receive a greater inflow from the Divine goodness than now, not indeed so as to change their species, but so as to add a certain perfection of glory: and such will be the renewal of the world. Wherefore at the one same time, the world will be renewed, and man will be glorified. (ST Supp Tertia Partis, Q91, article 1)
Anonymous Teacher Person,
The answer, “Your pet will be in heaven if you need it,” really is a loaded answer. In heaven one’s happiness is so complete from merely being in God’s presence that nothing more is needed. Not unrepentant mothers in law, cheeseburgers, nor puppies.
>>”You can’t be kind to snakes; it’s >>just…..wrong”.
>I “ditto” that but would include urban deer, >rats, groundhogs, chipmunks, rabbits, mice and >most bugs especially Japanese beetles, cabbage >loopers and mosquitoes. ….
As the owner of two much-loved rats, I protest this !
Ok, I belong to the “yes, they’ll be there” school – I can’t back it up with heavy theological research, it’s true. But I know how much sincere joy and pleasure my dogs have brought me over the years, and how – unlike the “unrepentant mother” mentioned by another poster – they have never, to my knowledge, actively chosen the way of sin or turned away from God. While it’s true that, if I am both fortunate enough and blessed enough by the Grace of God to reach heaven, I won’t *need* anything -there’s nothing I could need as much as God – I cannot imagine God refusing something that would provide me with so much love and joy and that would never ask for me to sin or turn away from God.
That’s just my opinion, anyway.
Aquinas’s argument depends on the animals’ sole purpose being to aid us.
But in Romans:
“For creation awaits with eager expectation the revelation of the children of God; for creation was made subject to futility, not of its own accord but because of the one who subjected it, in hope that creation itself would be set free from slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”
Which is to say, our salvation is of benefit to creation, which includes animals.
I cheerfully disclaim any interest in George MacDonald’s essay on the immortality of animals except to say that his analysis has its interesting points.
(My current view on animal immortality is agnostism.)
My husband used to say, “the dog is the only creature that lives with his god” In that case, if I was only half as devoted as the wonderful dogs I’ve lived with, I’d probably be a saint.
Dear Nonanonymous: Do you mean to say I can’t have a “Cheeseburger In Paradise”?
If you want to construct a scenario in which the second heaven and the second earth contain animals, it would seem you are free to do so. But that doesn’t mean that the animals there need have any existential relationship to the animals that are alive on the earth today; in fact, they cannot. This differs from us humans — the same soul that animates our bodies will bask in God’s presence until the end of time and then be reunited with our glorified body after the final judgment.
But this can’t be for animals, since their souls are corruptible. The animal’s soul must be corruptible, because it is permissable to kill animals. Were the animal possessed of an immortal soul, it would share in the image and likeness of God that man does, and its life would be afforded the same respect and sanctity. But both the permission to kill and eat the animals, and the unique relationship that God establishes between men and beasts (that of dominion, a term not used to express, for instance, the relationship of the Israelites to the king), clearly indicates that beasts have a purely finite existence.
And just because animals exist to serve man and man is permitted to derive service and pleasure from their existence does not mean that they perform no other function. Creatures, like all creation, glorify God through their mere existence, because they have been wrought by Him and reflect His goodness. Of course God is concerned for them, because they are good and He has created them — were God not to be concerned about something, it would cease to exist. Likewise, we are to treat animals in a way consistent with their innate goodness and their intended end of aiding us — once again as with all creation, we are not possessors but stewards. But none of that means that they go to heaven — it just means they’re supposed to help US get there.
Were the animal possessed of an immortal soul, it would share in the image and likeness of God that man does,
How do you know this?
it just means they’re supposed to help US get there.
What do you think it means then, that creation will “share in the glorious freedom of the children of God.”?
Yes, how do we know that animals don’t have immortal souls?? We think we know, but then, we think we know a lot of things.
I have one standard answer to this question, whenever I hear it from a fellow animal lover, one who has just lost a beloved pet in death:
I have no idea how this matter was handled prior to December 23, 1949; but that was the day my father–animal lover extra-ordinaire– died, & as of December 24, 1949, he has been personally letting them in.
Because you see, he was one man who really would always be unhappy, even in Heaven, without his animals around him.
It does seem that a glorified Creation would have to include plants, animals, and other living things. And while they might be generic examples of the species… well, God created everything and remembers everything, so it would scarcely be beyond His power to just say “And now, everything non-souled that ever existed in fallen Creation is alive again in unfallen Creation!”
I mean, obviously God is a think-big kind of guy. Filling the paper all the way up to the corners is His thing.
Certainly, recreating from memory the beloved individual pets or gardens or space bacteria of His people would not be beyond Him. We wouldn’t need it, of course. It’d just be for pretty, and for lagniappe. But God is nothing if not overflowing with love.
Maybe, though the literal sense of those texts is that God will send a great age of peace, during which it will be as if all strife–even between animals–will be eliminated.
Er. No. What you mean here is that the meaning of the passage is certainly metaphorical. Which, to be sure, it is. Lions, leopards, lambs, kids — even if the beasts will literally exist, they will be part of, and symbolically represent, that peace.
The literal meaning is what the passage actually says not what it actually means, even if that meaning is demonstrably false or makes no sense.
Perhaps opnly animals capable of receiving and giving love will survive death. A snake, no matter how “domesticated”, will never show affection for its owner or even fellow snakes. A dog famously will. The Pope recently reminded us that God is Love. Animals capable of love (caritas) should experience some degree of immortality–like a drop of water returning to its sea source. At any rate, I can’t imagine a heaven without the comfort of my short-lived Spaniel. So–dogs, yes; oysters, no