For many people, pets are family. Pets can be more loyal than many people and at times the affection they give often seems more sincere than love from our fellow humans.
In light of this, some people hope to reunite with their deceased pets in heaven. We hear of human beings attaining salvation, but not cats, dogs, birds and turtles.
Do pets go to heaven? If Fido’s really such a good boy, shouldn’t he enjoy the fruits of eternity? Let’s investigate.
Short answer: We don’t know what happens to animals after death.
God hasn’t revealed the fate of animals to us. It’s reasonable to think there will be animals in heaven. While heaven primarily consists of the vision of God, we will be aware of being united with other people and (possibly) animals.
But will they be resurrected pets from Earth or newly created creatures? Either answer — or both — is a possibility.
Why pets may not go to heaven.
Each group of living things has a different type of soul. There are plant, animal, and human souls. Plant and animal souls aren’t spiritual, meaning they don’t carry out operations that transcend the bodily organs in which they take place. For example, a dog’s experience of eating and sniffing is limited to the organs associated with those two acts.
This seems to suggest that when a plant or animal dies, the entire organism passes out of existence.
Humans, on the other hand, have spiritual souls. We have two powers animals and plants lack: intellect and will. While these powers make use of corporeal organs (such as the brain), their activity also transcends those organs, attaining to a spiritual act.
Not being composed of matter, a spiritual soul cannot perish. That’s why we know human souls persist even after their bodies break down.
Animals don’t have spiritual souls. That doesn’t mean God can’t preserve them for the next life in some way, but we don’t know how that would happen.
It’s fine to have hope for your pet’s salvation. Just know that even if it doesn’t survive past death, there will be nothing lacking in heaven. There we will encounter God face-to-face, the fulfillment of all of our desires.