Animals and Eternal Rest

Having already done two posts on our pets and heaven, I'll wander away from scripture and the patterns of traditional theology and more into my own spiritual sense of the eternal destiny of the animals that fill our world. It might be a bit too esoteric to share with your typical seven-year old wondering whether Mr. Barky is in heaven...but then again, seven year olds often surprise you with what they can take in.

My own personal spiritual predilections are pretty intensely mystic in character. Those moments of numinous, ecstatic presence that shook me from a position of alternately cynical and hopeful agnosticism into my current faith in Christ and Creator have left me feeling rather differently about the creatures around me. Meaning, no more Vietnamese steak marinated in red wine and rolled in pepper on a bed of lightly dressed salad, no matter how much that thought still evokes a Pavlovian response.

Ultimately, I believe that the existential barriers of self that we perceive as unbreachable boundaries between us mean exactly diddly squat. With Thomas Merton and other Christian mystics, I see our awareness in this life as deeply limited. Though we do not now directly perceive the harms or joys we cause in the same way as the beings with whom we interact, that lack of perception is a limitation of our temporal and material existence. We are, whether we like it or not, all participants in one another. Once we enter into the unmediated presence of God, we come into the wholeness of what the Apostle Paul would have called our "spiritual body." That, as I have come to understand it, is not just the "us" that we know, but the full fruit of our words and actions as they play out across every relationship in which we have participated.

Every joy caused and every harm inflicted is unmediated and fully us, written forever into the fabric of existence. That standard, as I know it through my faith, includes not just our interactions with the homo sapiens sapiens around us. It also includes the creatures with which we share this beautiful and fragile little planet. If I strike or harm another being, that harm is mine, forever scarring me. If I give comfort to another being, that comfort is a part of my place in eternity.

For simpler creatures that lack awareness of self, this interweaving of being is just part of what they are. The lion will know the death throes of the wildebeest, and the wildebeest will know the contented sleep of the full bellied lion. Feel free to start singing that Lion King song, if you must. Creatures that exist moment to moment are simply living as they must live. They have little understanding of themselves as selves, and even less understanding of the other as a self.

As beings grow in sentience and awareness of self and other, they become more...spiritually complicated. But the interconnectedness remains the same. It is to that interconnectedness that the greatest and only law of the Gospel speaks. We are to be aware that we are part of a glorious something that transcends us and our culture and our species, and to love that Glory with all our heart and mind and strength. As a part of that knowledge, we are called to love the Other as we love ourselves.

The creatures around me are part of the great story that God is telling, just as I am part of it. Our destiny is the same. We move into the presence of God as one.

When I come through the door at the end of a long day, and our little puppy comes galumphing up with her tail wagging in unconditional, exuberant joy at my arrival, that knowledge is a pleasure.

Reezus Reist Ris Ry Rord Rand Ravior

Why wouldn't our lickity pals be able to chase that frisbee through the pearly gates? A heaven without our furry friends would seem like rather less than a delightful place.

But that doesn't mean that there might not be folks out there whose theology is not..umm...dog friendly. As I fished around in my noggin for a hypothetical reason some compulsive Calvinist might deny eternal reward to a pup, I was only able to come up with one. So, here goes:

For many Christians, it is axiomatic that a prerequisite for entry into heaven is professing faith in Jesus as one's Lord and Savior. In fact, that's a pretty standard refrain for those who would consider themselves pure-bred orthodox. If faith in Jesus is a necessary prerequisite for salvation, then dogs and cats and sea monkeys are pretty much out of luck. Just getting Ms. Barkerton not to poop on the rug is hard enough. But getting her to speak and...believe in the salvific power of Jesus Christ? I'm not sure that even the most dedicated megachurch doggie training ministry could pull that one off.

From that radical position, salvation is two things. First, it is intensely anthropocentric. Meaning, about humans, kids. True, deep and right relationship with the Creator is only something that applies to humankind, which is made in the image of God. Other creatures, being less Goddy, are just SOL. Second, the fulfillment of that right relationship with our Creator can only be worked through faith in Jesus Christ. As animals...even the smarter ones...are not capable of having that faith, they're presumably just consigned to nonexistence. Their earnest howling and meyowling isn't part of the heavenly choir.

If your pastor is a heartless pharisaic sunnavabeetch, this is what he'll tell your children when your dog dies. Should that be even a remote possibility, I recommend finding another church.

But this theological position...which is the only one I could come up with...has within it a major flaw. Beyond it's obnoxiousness, I mean. If we are being truly orthodox about the purpose of Christ's saving work among us, we understand that work as undoing the brokenness that was wrought in the Fall. From that second creation story in Genesis, humankind drifted out of the perfect awareness of our place in Creation and with our Creator. We ate of the knowledge of evil...for we already knew the good...and drove ourselves from the Garden. By we, I mean "human beings." From a strictly Biblical perspective, there is no evidence that any other creature other than the serpent shares in our fallen state.

Dogs aren't fallen creatures. Neither are gerbils or hamsters. I'm not so sure about some cats, but we'll give them the benefit of the doubt. And if animals are not fallen, then they are not in need of reconciliation and restoration to be what God meant them to be. We're messed up, sure. We find all sorts of ways to not be the gracious, just, and loving beings we are intended to be. But they already are what they were intended to be. As such, there is no doctrine of sin that could meaningfully apply to them. And if that's the case, well, there's no reason that the pets of even the most rigidly orthodox can't join them in the hereafter.

Of course, this is all working within the framework of orthodox Christian thinking. Though I buy it in part, I'm...well...not quite that person.

So next post, I'll get around to presenting my own spiritual sense of this pressing, pressing issue. ;)