Animals in Heaven

I've often been asked, "Will my dog be with me in Heaven?"

Peter Kreeft, one of the great theologians of our day, says "Yes." [reference needed!]

Animals have souls

The perennial philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, which is favored by the Church as the best tool for understanding her doctrines, is derived from Aristotle, who taught that the soul is the form of the body.

From this perspective, all living things (plants and animals) have souls. Humans are a special kind of animal because God personally gives each one of us our identity, intelligence, and free will at the moment of conception. Those spiritual qualities of the human soul, in turn, make us immortal persons.

Animals are not persons in that sense. They have an identity (this dog is not that dog), but they do not enjoy the power of personal immortality in the same way that we do. They are not destined by God for the Beatific Vision in the same way that we are.

This does not mean that there is not some other mode of eternal life granted to animals.

Animals have no sin

Animals are in no need of a Savior because they do not share in Original Sin and are incapable of personal sin. They cannot know the good yet choose what is evil, as we can. Animals are always morally innocent. They act according to their nature and their conditioning, without having any freedom of choice on par with ours.

Animals, therefore, do not need forgiveness of sin. Since we can understand the difference between a "good" animal and a "bad" animal, we may need to take steps to change an animal's behavior or, unfortunately, to kill an animal that cannot be rehabilitated, but that kind of "goodness" or "badness" is not a moral issue but a practical matter measured by the standards that we set for the animals.