A few days ago, I was faced with the difficult decision to put my cat to sleep or to continue to let her live. Since she was suffering, I ended up saying goodbye to her. As I was looking into her eyes at the moment of death, I was wondering whether she has a soul. If she has a soul, where does it go after death? On Facebook, I saw a post from someone who also lost her cat. She said: “How can I deal with this loss? Where does my cat go after death?”
As animal lovers, we hope that pets go to an afterlife. We hope that after death, we can see our beloved pets again and live with them forever. But is this the case? Do animals exist beyond their time in this world? Perhaps we should first ask, do humans live forever after dying in the body? If both humans and animals can go to heaven, then what makes us any different from them? The wise Solomon had the same question:
21 Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?”
Ecclesiastes 3:21
This is a concept that scientists and religious people have grappled with for centuries. Join me as we unpack the philosophical implications of this debate and as we try to find an answer to the question: what makes people different from animals?
Firstly, the Bible tells us that human beings consist of three distinct entities: a body, soul and spirit.
23 May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23
The Bible also says that the body has an absolute predestination: it is surely going to die.
27 Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,
Hebrews 9:27
But, of course, as human beings, we do not naturally have an urge to die and to end in nothingness. In fact, our bodies have an innate instinct to avoid danger and death. This makes sense. As the Bible tells us, God has given us the desire to live forever:
11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
We also see this human longing to exist forever in literature, science-fiction and fantasy films, and in real-life scientific projects. The race of Elves in Tolkien’s classic, The Lord of the Rings, are immortal beings that dwell forever in “undying lands”. Humans are fascinated with vampires, as we can see by the popularity of movies like Twilight, Interview with a Vampire, and many more. We even entertain the idea of people that come back from the dead and live forever: Michael Jackson’s song, Thriller, which includes zombies, is a classic hit.
In science-fiction films, like Ghost in the Shell and Blade Runner, human beings make androids that never die. We fantasize about the idea that our minds can be transferred into synthetic bodies and live forever. In Ghost in the Shell, even though The Major’s body is destroyed, her mind continues to exist on the Web. This longing for an existence that is not reliant on the biological body is intriguing, because if we didn’t have bodies, we’d never have to die.
More Bizarre are real-life eternity projects like cryogenics. There have been experiments in which people who became terminally ill before their time froze their bodies in the hopes of resurrecting in a few decades. The government stores their bodies for thousands of dollars to bring them back to life when there is a cure for their disease.
is there a part of us that lives forever?
The Bible’s answer to this question is, yes, there is.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
1 Corinthians 15:42-44
If we continue to read 1 Corinthians 15, Apostle Paul tells us even more about the part of us that is “imperishable”:
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
1 Corinthians 15:50
Finally, Apostle Paul gives us the answer we were looking for:
53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
1 Corinthians 15:53
From these scriptures, it indeed seems that there is something very unique about human beings: there is a part of us that is immortal. Since we know that the physical body must die, according to Hebrews 9:27, we can be certain that the immortal part is the spirit.
Next, let’s look at what the Bible says about animals. From the beginning of creation, God made animals and said that it was good.
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Genesis 1:24-25
God then commands Adam to rule over the animals and says that He gave all the plants for the animals to eat:
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” 29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
Genesis 1:28-30
God also tells the Israelites to let their animals rest on the Sabbath, and to take care of them.
10 “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused. Then the poor among your people may get food from it, and the wild animals may eat what is left. Do the same with your vineyard and your olive grove. 12“Six days do your work, but on the seventh day do not work, so that your ox and your donkey may rest, and so that the slave born in your household and the foreigner living among you may be refreshed.
Exodus 23:10-12
The Bible clearly asks human beings to value and care for animals. However, nowhere does the Bible mention that animals have an “immortal” part, like humans do. We see many scriptures about people’s souls and spirits, but almost none about animals. We see even less scriptures talking about plants, unless they are in parables.
humans are unique in god’s creation
Throughout the Bible, it is clear that God’s focus is human beings. This is not to say that we should not value animals, and that we shouldn’t take care of the Earth that God gave us. Rather, it means that we have a unique relationship with God, which is that we can live with Him forever.
Instead of worrying about my cat’s soul, I need to worry about my own. Perhaps we will see our beloved pets again in the afterlife, but this is not the core. What the Bible suggests is that humans have a longing to live forever, because God made us to live with Him for eternity.
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