Will There Be Animals in the New Creation? Will Our Pets Be in the New Creation?
(avg. read time: 3–7 mins.)
For us pet lovers, questions about the ultimate fate of our pets often come up, especially after a recent death. Of course, I have phrased the title questions differently than they are usually phrased: “Do animals/pets go to heaven?” Even under the most common Christian accounts of anthropology and the fate of the individual prior to the resurrection, such framing establishes a much less significant and even less answerable question than the question of whether there will be animals in the new creation. On this account, we are, at best, given precious little biblical information to work with when it comes to the intermediate post-mortem state to which “going to heaven” would refer. And if we have so little information when it comes to humans, what conclusions can we hope to form confidently about animals? Of course, for reasons I will need to lay out another time, my own view on what the Bible proclaims about humans and about their state between death and resurrection differs from the most popular account and so I think the assumption that the question “Do animals go to heaven?” is based upon is faulty. Nevertheless, it remains the case that the Bible has more explicit interest in resurrection and new creation. Thus, we will be better served in exploring this question if we reframe it in more biblical terms.
Still, the general lack of apparent biblical interest in some intermediate state has not stopped some from confidently proclaiming that animals do not have souls (or spirits), therefore they cannot go to heaven (this is of course coupled with the fact that the ultimate eschatological hope of those same people tends to be stated as “going to heaven,” rather than as God’s salvation of creation through renewing it and making it a new creation). There are a few problems with such an assertion. One, it is a confident pontification on what is precisely an ambiguous and debatable matter: what is the soul or the spirit? Some might insist that at least one of these terms (soul) should be dropped altogether because of its associations with unbiblical declarations of anthropology. I still use the term for lack of a better alternative and simply insist on a better definition more in line with biblical anthropology. But in any case, two, there is no biblical basis for such a strong statement on the composition of animals that entails that they will, for reasons of composition, have no place in the life of the age to come. Third, if anything, there are indications that animals have an animating life force (what is called “the breath of life” in Gen 1:30; 2:7; 6:17; 7:15, 22) that gives them parity with humans on at least this score. Fourth, though contained in the assertion above, a corollary statement tends to be made to the effect that humans can carry on after death because they are made in the image of God while animals are not, a claim which is in fact irrelevant (and indeed, it is a connection that is never made in the Bible). Though it has been a popular view, the image language does not refer to the soul or spirit, but simply to humanity’s capacity to represent God in creation (and, on a second level of meaning, to represent creation to God, particularly in the context of worship whence the “image” language largely derives its significance).
But we can say a little more when it comes to the more significant question that really matters in Christian eschatology. Will there be animals in the new creation? The answer seems to be “yes.” First of all, it has to be remembered that the entire point behind the program of new creation is to redeem creation, to deliver it from the afflictions of evil and into a new life in which it finally fulfills God’s creative purposes for it. Humans are a key part of that redemption, but the question of the salvation of creation does not only concern us (otherwise, there would be no promise of new creation). And if we affirm that God seeks to redeem creation, surely we would not say he only intends to redeem us and the inanimate objects around us, would we? Why should humanity and the earth be included in the new creation and not animals, since they too are part of creation? The logic of new creation itself seems to indicate that there will be animals in the new creation.
In addition, we see scriptural affirmations of this idea, though none are written to directly address the question of animals in the new creation. The fact is that these passages seem to take their presence in new creation for granted. The two most prominent examples from the OT both come from Isaiah (though also note Hos 2:18). Isaiah 11:6–9 shows that the shalom characterizing the Kingdom of God and the new creation will be such that it extends even to human-animal relationships and animal relationships with each other. This hope is repeated when the notion of new creation is even more explicit in Isa 65:25. In the NT, probably the best passage in this regard is the christological hymn of Col 1:15–20, though Rom 8:18–23 follows the same logic. The Colossians text proclaims that all things were created by and for Christ. He is the one who sustains all of creation. And through his death, resurrection and headship of the Church, because he is God, he achieved the reconciliation to himself of all of creation. We are given no reason to think that this would exclude animals. Further examination of new creation theology and Scripture would only further bear out this conclusion: animals will be part of the new creation.
While we can answer the titular question in the affirmative, there is a more specific question with which those who lose their animal friends are concerned. Namely, “will my pet be in the new creation?” Unfortunately, this question is not directly answerable by Scripture. We are simply never told that particular animals are resurrected. In principle, it is possible, since the biblical account of resurrection does not rely on the notion that the soul is what maintains identity between the one who dies and the one who is resurrected. This is simply a debatable theological inference. Whatever exactly is entailed in maintaining this identity, it is God who accomplishes it, not any aspect of humans that cannot but continue existing. Thus, nothing rules out particular animals being returned to life, and it may be more in line with what I have already noted about the logic of new creation that this is the case. But this idea is by no means biblically secure; it too is an inference that I think has some biblical support at the level of reasoning. Whatever the case may be, what we can say for sure that the God of all creation will do what is just and good for his creation. And remember always that God is a God of surprises. We have assurance based on God’s saving action in history, the guarantees of the future of new creation and God’s sanctifying action even now that this belief is true.
To offer my own opinion on the matter, I believe that our pets will be part of the new creation. I do not think they will be abandoned to death. If God will preserve believers from all time and bring them into his new creation, I think he can do the same for the rest of creation. Could it be that animals will experience resurrection too? Resurrection is only applied to humans in the Bible, and I am not entirely sure one could extend the promise of resurrection to specific animals for any particular reason. What is clear is that they will be part of new creation and they will be equipped properly for it. The means through which that will happen are unclear. Whatever may be, I do believe that God will redeem our pets from death as part of the actions of defeating death and instituting new creation.