Animals and Pets in Heaven! Why not?

Scripture does not conclusively tell us whether our pets will make it into heaven. However, the Bible does provide us with some significant clues regarding whether animals will inhabit the new heaven and new earth.

First, the Garden of Eden was populated by animals; thus, there is a precedent for believing that Eden restored will be populated by animals also. Author Joni Eareckson Tada said it well...Animals are some of God's best and most avant-grade (creative) ideas. (Holiness in Hidden Places, 133. Joni Eareckson Tada). Thus, it would seem incredible that God would eliminate some of his most creative creations.

Furthermore, the Scriptures from first to last suggest that animals have souls. Both Moses in Genesis and John in Revelation communicate that the Creator endowed animals with souls (Genesis 1:20,24; Revelation 8:9). Both the Hebrew noun (nephesh) and the Greek noun (psyche) specifically refer to the essence of life.

However, because the soul of an animal is qualitatively different from the soul of a human, there is reasonable doubt that it can survive the death of it's body. As noted in Beyond Death, Thomas Aquinas argued that "animal souls function in clear dependence on the animal body. For example, animals functions are tied to sensory experiences, and these in turn depend upon the sense organs of sight, smell, and so on. However, the human soul gives evidence of continuing to exist, in it's own right apart from the body (JP. Moreland, Beyond Death, 107.).

It wasn't until the advent of seventeenth-century Enlightenment and the thought of Descartes and Hobbes that the existence of animal souls was even questioned in Western civilization Ernst Mayr, This is Biology; 8-9; John W. Cooper, Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting 17-22.).

Finally, while we cannot say for certain that the pets we enjoy today will be "resurrected" in eternity, like Joni, am not willing to preclude the possibility. Some of the keenest thinkers from C.S Lewis to Peter Kreeft are not only convinced that animals in general but that pets in particular will be restored in the resurrection. Lewis explains, "very few animals indeed, in their wild state, attain to a 'self' or ego. But if any do, and if it is agreeable to the goodness of God that they should live again, their immortality would also be related to man-not, this time, to individual masters, but to humanity (The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis).

Like Lewis, Dr. Peter Kreeft is convinced that animals will exist throughout eternity. "Are there animals in heaven? The simplest answer is: Why not? How irrational is the prejudice that would allow plants (green fields and flowers) but not animals into heaven!...Animals belong in the 'new earth' as much as trees (Everything you ever wanted to know about heaven, 45. Peter Kreeft)." Regarding pets, Kreeft writes: "Would the same animals be in Heaven as on earth? 'Is my dead cat in Heaven?' Again, why not? God can raise up the very grass; why not cats? Though the blessed have better things to do than play with pets, the better does not exclude the lesser.

We were meant from the beginning to have stewardship over the animals; we have not fulfilled that divine plan yet on earth; therefore it seems likely that the right relationship with animals will be part of Heaven: proper 'petship.' And what better place to begin than with already petted pets?"(46.)



To be continued...