Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

by Boyd Cathey (April 2020)


Woman with Dog, Pierre Bonnard, 1891

 

 

 

 

Several years ago four writers, two from the United States and two from Great Britain, engaged in a conversation from a Christian perspective on the general topic of what happens to “the souls of animals” after death. The traditional Christian faith holds that after physical death, those humans who die in God’s grace will experience “beatific vision,” that is, they will behold and be united with their Creator in Heaven. Leaving aside questions that often divide individual faith communions, these scholars speculated if there were room for the concept that animals, too, might experience some form of afterlife.

 

The conversation that follows includes an initial presentation by Boyd D. Cathey (D.Phil., in History and Philosophy, University of Navarra, Pamplona, Spain), with comments by Timothy Stanley (D.Phil., in History, Cambridge University), Daniel Joyce (D.Phil., in Theology, Cambridge University), and Paul Gottfried, Raffensperger Professor of Humanities (emeritus), Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania (Ph.D. in Political Philosophy, Yale University)

 

 

Boyd D. Cathey: In 1993 theologian Dr. John Warwick Montgomery authored a short essay, “Fido in Heaven?” published in the New Oxford Review. In this short piece, he briefly critiques a slim study by Eugen Drewermann on the subject of the immortality of dogs and animals in general. Drewermann argues that dogs and other animals not only have souls—“animal souls”—but that they are immortal. Drewermann bases his case for animal immortality on pantheistic, evolutionary, and even ancient Egyptian beliefs and reasoning, something that no orthodox Christian could accept.

 

Montgomery’s brief piece raises a number of fascinating questions. Most Christian theologians will agree that animals have “souls” of a certain kind, understood as a life-giving essence, personality, mode of existence, that distinguish them. But Holy Scriptures do not enter a definitive verdict one way or the other as to the immortality of these animal souls.

 

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But the arguments in favor are also strong:

 

 

 

Sixth, God, being All-good and All-perfect, does not punish goodness, understood as the proper functioning of things as they were created to be and to act.

 

 

on a different level, in their own type of Adoration of the Godhead for eternity. This, it seems to me, to be fitting and entirely consistent with traditional teaching and theology, and does not in any way denigrate teaching on the uniqueness of man and the salvific nature of God’s sacrifice at Calvary.

 

 

 

that the soul is present from the moment of conception (St. Thomas implies that ensoulment could come slightly later). So, even though the Angelic Doctor should be revered for his formulations of the faith, in every element he is not without fallibility, especially in those areas where the Church has not formally spoken.

 

 

Boyd Cathey: I mentioned that there could be some qualitative differences between the soul of a Japanese beetle and that of a Labrador Retriever, for instance. It is completely within an Aristotelian and Thomist framework to say that both creatures, as sensate animals, within their particular genus fulfill their inscribed nature, programmed, as it were, by God with a certain degree of specificity and a destiny or object. And thus the levels of intelligence that we observe in canines or porpoises, for instance, would be different than, say, that of the beetle or the cockroach.

 

 

in regards to how they interact with us and complement our existence here on earth.

 

 

Paul Gottfried: The best way to answer the question about the spiritual rankings of different life forms may be, as you suggest, from an Aristotelian teleological perspective, namely to what extent animals serve (huperetountes) and approximate (eikozantes) human beings. Obviously cockroaches are less like us and our divine source than our canine pets, with whom we identify because they are actually our companions, and not simply something that pollutes our kitchens. The ontological hierarchy takes into account qualities other than sensateness, although that may be a starting point for rating life forms as opposed to inanimate objects.

 

 

I once heard a traditional theologian say something to the effect that a worm is superior to a nuclear power station, because it is animate (i.e. has a soul), if that helps? (Whilst I mention this with a smile, it is not a facetious point, for behind that assertion lies an obvious and clear truth. But could that worm be in Heaven?)

 

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Much of the earlier, medieval discussion was in reaction to various strains of Hellenism and Neo-Platonism and later, the Gnostic Cathares. These debates permitted the Church to define more clearly its teachings in the area.

 

Nevertheless, I can find nothing, no formalized teaching that animal souls would cease to exist after death or that explicitly excludes animals, that is, the sentient souls of animals, from adoring God eternally in some form. Certainly, they would not do so as do the Elect for whom Our Lord came specifically and for whom He died upon the Cross. And, they would not enjoy the special creation with equal rational and reflective powers as humans.

 

But they do fulfill their God-created natures, are not infected with Original Sin, and thus would not incur the penalty for sin. Certainly Our Lord did not die and rise from the grave for them. But, then, He had no need to.

 

The essential differentiation, I believe, comes in the unique Divine Love of God for man, for men who are chosen to be sons of God, and for whom Our Lord was crucified, thus granting to us special graces to repair our fallen and sinful natures, and the Beatific Vision of Him in Heaven.

 

 

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Boyd D. Cathey was educated at the University of Virginia (MA, Thomas Jefferson Fellow) and the Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain (PhD, Richard M. Weaver Fellow). He is a former assistant to the late author, Dr. Russell Kirk, taught on the college level, and is retired State Registrar of the North Carolina State Archives. Has published widely and in various languages. He resides in North Carolina.

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