Do dogs go to heaven (or cats)? What happens to our pets when they die? Will there be animals in the new creation? All of these questions press close on the hearts of those who have formed meaningful connections with their pet companions. They are also prompted by a vision of the afterlife alluded to in the creation narrative—animals were made by God and enjoyed a unique relationship with humans before the fall. Carnivore diets, predation, and other forms of hostility between people and animals does not appear to be part of God’s original design.
So what does it mean that the wolf and the lamb shall dwell with and graze with each other? (Isaiah 11:6; 65:25) Is this simply apocalyptic language that is not to be read literally? In this Seven Minute Seminary episode, Dr. Andy Miller III explores the question from a biblical perspective. He offers a compelling vision for what may be a surprising twist on the Christian afterlife.
C. S. Lewis writes in The Problem of Pain:
If, nevertheless, the strong conviction which we have of a real, though doubtless rudimentary, selfhood in the higher animals, and specially in those we tame, is not an illusion, their destiny demands a somewhat deeper consideration … Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beasts, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise, or a sacrilegious abuse, of an authority by Divine right. The tame animal is therefore, in the deepest sense, the only ‘natural’ animal – the only one we see occupying the place it was made to occupy, and it is on the tame animal that we must base all our doctrine of beasts. Now it will be seen that, in so far as the tame animal has a real self or personality, it owes this almost entirely to its master.
See Andy Miller III on What Happens When We Die, or On the Christian Afterlife.
View also, “Will Our Heavenly Bodies Be Immaterial?” by Ben Witherington.
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