The answer to the question posed lies in what happened after Adam and Eve sinned?
Before sinning, Adam and Eve enjoyed a supernatural existence in which they would have never known death. When they sinned, their FINITE act of sinning caused an INFINITE hurt to God.
Now, some have asked, how can this be?
Man can NEVER commit an infinite act. Why? Because, as a finite being, he can only commit finite acts. But because he hurt God, he caused an infinite HARM. That is because God’s love is infinite. So man was really “stuck”. How do beings capable of only finite acts redeem and atone for an infinite harm? They don’t. Thus, the incarnation of God as Man. As both God and man, Christ was able, with his death, to restore the breach between man and God. This could NOT have been done by man. The redemption was objective in the sense that it benefitted all immortal souls WHO HAD INHERITED ORIGINAL SIN. The redemption was and is subjective in its application to each immortal soul (justification through the grace of God).
All of what I have just stated is supported by Old Testament prophecy, New Testament writings of St. Paul, and dogmatic teachings of the Catholic Church.
We know that after his death, Christ went to preach to the captive souls in purgatory. They had been waiting for his redemptive act to open heaven again, and they were overjoyed at what he had done on their behalf.
Now, for those who say either “animals go to heaven” or “there is no proof that animals do not go to heaven”, you MUST accept that the souls of all animals who died between the sinning of Adam and Eve were in purgatory or hell. They could not be in heaven because heaven was closed.
Here is where the “pro animal in heaven” thesis falls apart.
To be sent to hell, an animal must have committed a mortal sin. That is impossible, as animals cannot sin.
To be sent to purgatory, an animal must have committed a venial sin. That, too, is impossible, as animals cannot sin.
Why can’t animals sin? Because they do not have the capacity or free will to “turn away from God”, which is the simplest, purest definition of sin.
So where, pray tell, were the supposed “immortal animal souls” between the sinning of Adam and Eve and the redemptive death of Christ?
In his epistle to the Romans, Paul teaches that all MEN, Jews and heathens, stand under the curse of sin, and that they are justified by a free gift of the Divine love in virtue of the redemptive death of Christ. “For all have sinned and need the glory of God (= to the grace of Redemption), being justified freely by his grace through the Redemption that is Christ Jesus.”
Paul was clearly teaching ALL have sinned, and ALL needed the redemption. But as even the “pro animal in heaven” group admits that animals cannot sin, then Christ’s redemption cannot be applied to them. Well if Christ’s redemptive death had the function of atoning for a being’s sins (where the only being who could sin was man), how could Christ atone for a being that could not sin? Now, the argument really begins to break down because the “pro animals in heaven” group MUST argue that the souls of the animals who died before Christ died benefitted from Christ’s death. Remember, objectively, Christ’s redemption was applied to ALL WHO SINNED. But we navigate back to the obvious: animals don’t sin.
You see, by elevating an animal to the point of having a soul that was never burdened with even original sin, much less sins committed by free will (which animals do not have), you are elevating animals above man. That cannot be.
Lastly, and I alluded to this in an earlier post of mine in this thread: I am not trying to be “mean” in my statements that people who loved their pets will not be reunited with their pets in heaven.
If you really extend the argument of the “pro animal in heaven” group, you are saying that it is IMPORTANT, for their happiness, to be reunited with their animals.
Don’t you understand how that cheapens the beatific vision? I said this tongue-in-cheek, but I now said it seriously: do you really think that an immortal soul who is contemplating God, in the face, will want to “leave” to go play fetch with this dog? And why stop with dogs? Next you have cats, snakes, hamsters, horses, guppies, pot-bellied pigs - the list is finite only in the sense that we eventually run out of finite beings that could serve as pets. Can you imagine having your “ant farm” with you in heaven? This really becomes absurd.
CAN God allow animals into heaven? I suppose he could. But dogma and the logic of what Christ did for man by dying, cheapens Christ’s redemptive act by applying it to souls that never sinned.
Those who claim that we who contend that animals are not in heaven, are either limiting God, or have the burden of proving animals are not in heaven. This reminds me of the atheist who seeks to show as one “proof” of God’s non-existence, God’s inability to create a 4 sided triangle. Can God create a 4 sided triangle? The answer is of course, no. Why? It is not because God is limited in his capacity - it is because the question seeks an answer that does not exist to begin with. A triangle is, by definition, three-sided. As God is not limited by anything, then God is not limited when we say that God cannot create a 4 sided triangle. There is “no thing” (or, if you will, “nothing”) God cannot do. And a 4 sided triangle is the equivalent of “no thing”.
If someone can demonstrate to me, using the Bible, dogmatic teachings of the Church, and logic of a rational mind (all of which were given to man by God), that a person will be reunited with his pet goat in heaven, then I will reconsider everything I just posted.
