Can animals get into Heaven?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lisa4
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
As a scientific classification yep! As a theological classificatino we are immortal souls who are made in the image and likeness of God Himself and our free wills allow us to be with Him forever if we unite our will to His. He also came down to earth as a God, and a Human. Fully God and Fully human, suffered for all humanity and loved all humanity. Yes, I am quite certain He loves His creation too. But they are not Human, they are not His children, his Beloved.
 
f5ec55231c8b39937e93d5c6cd19e5d4bbf51f09.gif


3b105f9ae984b87f17eedc190c422b4962992e04.jpeg
 
I’ve told this story here before, but my mother, father and niece each heard their newly-deceased dogs in the house a few hours after the dogs had died. My mother heard the dog bark right next to her bed at 10 pm, my father heard the same dog bark loudly right next to the chair he was sitting in about 1 am the same night, but in a different room. My niece heard her dog walking across the hardwood floor after everyone had gone to sleep. She heard the dog’s tag jingle, too.

No one truly knows about the afterlife of animal souls. It’s all speculation until we get there. It’s fun to think about, though.
 
best answer.
you will find aruments on both sides, simplest answer, the church has not spoken definitively because we just don’t really know. some saints also were inclined to think so, others didn’t. there can also be scriptural support for both sides.

I like to trust God with the fate of their existence. after all, he created them, he loves them even more than we do, so if he chose, he could return the
 
No matter how much we love fluffy, or bowser, they are absolutely nothing - zip, zero, nada - in comparison with standing in God’s presence. A question to ask is: is God not enough?
 
po18guy said:
A question to ask is: is God not enough?
Click to expand...
No matter how much I loved my dead human friend, a question to ask is: is God not enough? Why should I even care if I see my friend or family member again in Heaven in that case?

Of course God is enough, God is always enough, including here on earth. If I lived my entire life in a solitary confinement cell and never had a loving relationship with any creature on earth that whole time. God would still be enough. But He sends us loving friendships and relationships on earth, including with animals, as a way of showing us His love, and the idea that these earthly experiences just vaporize or cease to matter at all when we join ourselves to God does not seem to take into account the fact that God gave us the gift of the companion in the first place. It’s not an either-or where you choose between your dog and God. God’s love permeated the whole relationship you had with your pet because God created that animal and sent you the gift of its friendship on earth. Whether God allows you to keep experiencing that gift after death or has another plan is up to Him.

I realize many people on here seem to really like the idea of a Heaven where all we do is sit and focus on God all day and no experience, relationship or loving bond we ever had on earth matters any more, but to me and probably to other people reading, that idea of Heaven sounds about as pleasant as a lobotomy, and I also don’t think God means to just erase from our consciousness every bond we had on earth or he would not let us experience such bonds in such a deep and meaningful way.
 
Last edited:
Not implying any such a forced choice. The trend in our age is to want our pets with us. Could they be there? Sure, but I almost think that desire springs from our materialistic age. An age of neuroses and anxiety. Rather than the commonly referred to heaven on earth, it seems that some long for earth in heaven.

Just saying.
 
God created the earth, and it was good, so it’s not a bad thing for us to like the best things about it.

It’s also not terribly strange for people to think of Heaven in earthly terms when earth is all they know. We don’t have any other frame of reference. God might or might not choose to reveal a new frame of reference to us after death.

God is going to re-create the earth one day, so if we don’t see all the creatures we love in heaven, we may well see them on the “new earth”.
 
My goto response to this is: “If you need your pet to be happy, your pet will be in Heaven.”

I don’t personally think they will be, since they don’t have immortal souls.

My hope is that after the general resurrection we won’t so much have pets as we will be able to freely interact will all the creatures of creation. I won’t have a pet cat, but I’l be able to take a walk with a tiger, or something like that. Go swimming with sharks and whales…
 
ProdglArchitect said:
I won’t have a pet cat, but I’l be able to take a walk with a tiger, or something like that. Go swimming with sharks and whales…
Click to expand...
The problem is people don’t want to just interact with animals generally. They want their pet specifically. I don’t care so much about running around with wolves (although that would be cool) as I’d like to walk with my dog in the woods on a nice sunny day.
 
Last edited:
Our family has had too many rather astonishing experiences with pets who have died for me to say anything other than yes to your question.
 
Tis_Bearself

8h

po18guy:
A question to ask is: is God not enough?
Click to expand...
No matter how much I loved my dead human friend, a question to ask is: is God not enough? Why should I even care if I see my friend or family member again in Heaven in that case?

Of course God is enough, God is always enough, including here on earth. If I lived my entire life in a solitary confinement cell and never had a loving relationship with any creature on earth that whole time. God would still be enough. But He sends us loving friendships and relationships on earth, including with animals, as a way of showing us His love, and the idea that these earthly experiences just vaporize or cease to matter at all when we join ourselves to God does not seem to take into account the fact that God gave us the gift of the companion in the first place. It’s not an either-or where you choose between your dog and God. God’s love permeated the whole relationship you had with your pet because God created that animal and sent you the gift of its friendship on earth. Whether God allows you to keep experiencing that gift after death or has another plan is up to Him.

I realize many people on here seem to really like the idea of a Heaven where all we do is sit and focus on God all day and no experience, relationship or loving bond we ever had on earth matters any more, but to me and probably to other people reading, that idea of Heaven sounds about as pleasant as a lobotomy, and I also don’t think God means to just erase from our consciousness every bond we had on earth or he would not let us experience such bonds in such a deep and meaningful way.

Great answer…
 
LawyersGunsAndMoney said:
The problem is people don’t want to just interact with animals generally. They want their pet specifically. I don’t care so much about running around with wolves (although that would be cool) as I’d like to walk with my dog in the woods on a nice sunny day.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this is on the same level with people who say, “You won’t need your spouse or child specifically in Heaven. We’ll all be united in love of God, so hanging around with some stranger is going to make you just as happy as if you were hanging around with your spouse.”

While this may very well turn out to be true, I’m not knocking myself out to get to Heaven in order to hang out with total strangers. I want to see my parents and my husband again and I think most of us who have lost loved ones feel the same way.

Again, I trust that God is going to provide for all this in ways only He knows.
 
Sometimes I think we get too attached to the things we will take with us to heaven. We take our earthly comforts and cant imagine heaven without them. But we buy and own animals. We extend to them love. And then we argue over if they can be either us in heaven? It’s weird.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
God created the earth, and it was good, so it’s not a bad thing for us to like the best things about it.

It’s also not terribly strange for people to think of Heaven in earthly terms when earth is all they know. We don’t have any other frame of reference. God might or might not choose to reveal a new frame of reference to us after death.

God is going to re-create the earth one day, so if we don’t see all the creatures we love in heaven, we may well see them on the “new earth”.
Click to expand...
And the One seated on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” Then He said, “Write this down, for these words are faithful and true.”

Revelation 21:5
 
I don’t know, but I do hope to see my beloved childhood dog there. And my cats too.
 
I agree with Saint Francis of Assissi, who believed animals would be in Heaven, his quote on this is on the lines of: Would God uncreate something He had breathed life into? Certainly not,

Also the New Testament states:
‘ALL OF CREATION is groaning in the birthpangs for the New Heaven and New Earth.’

Book of Isaiah vision of Heaven: animals will no longer eat each other; ‘The lion will lie down with the lamb. The wolf with the oxen.’

Also: there are many accounted visions of heaven mentioning animals and plants there,
 
Last edited:

Biblical Images of Heaven​

Isaiah includes animals in his description of the new heavens and new earth. He describes it as a place where “the wolf and the lamb shall pasture together, and the lion shall eat hay like the ox” (Isaiah 65:25). St. Paul suggests that all of creation which shared in the punishment of corruption caused by sin will also share humanity’s future glory and freedom. It states:
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 (Romans 8:19-21).
Click to expand...
Accounts of creation both open and end the Bible. Genesis, the first book of the Bible, begins with the story of God’s creation, with Adam and Eve living in a garden, the garden of Eden. God declares creation as “good” and views all of creation as holy. The Bible ends with the account of a new creation. The Book of Revelation describes God’s eternal kingdom in heaven using the images of a new heaven and a new earth (Revelation 21:1-22:5). It is not described as a garden but as a heavenly city in which God dwells among his people in peace and understanding. He is their light and will wipe every tear from their eyes. Like the image of the kingdom of God as a banquet, this image describes heaven as a community of sisters and brothers who live together with God, seeing them in God and God reflected in them.

Pope Francis states that we are all journeying towards the new Jerusalem, our eternal and common home in heaven. He reminds us of Jesus’ declaration, “I will make all things new” (Revelation 21:5). Pope Francis describes the nature of heaven in Laudato Si’. He states:
Eternal life will be a shared experience of awe, in which each creature, resplendently transfigured, will take its rightful place and have something to give those poor men and women who will have been liberated once and for all.
Click to expand...
He also mentions that in the end, “the very flowers of the field and the birds which his human eyes contemplated and admired are now imbued with [the Lord’s] radiant presence.” The perfection of the kingdom of God will somehow transform and renew the rest of creation also.

Are There Animals in Heaven? – Catholic Stand

catholicstand.com catholicstand.com

‘One day we will see all our animals again in the Paradise of Christ. Heaven is open to all of God’s creatures.’

Pope Paul VI
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top