Question: Whether our pets will be in heaven?

[BlaiseBollig07]

Wait, edit what out? Oh, the laughing face...there. Umm...Joseph? Did you notice that since you quoted what I said, I can't edit that off...uh-oh

[Agnes Steuben]

Hello you all! Just a reminder to keep your posts on topic. Thank you very much

-Agnes Steuben

[Gianna Bollig]

Oh sorry

[Joseph Gulding]

Yeah. sorry!

[Rachel Mushtare]

I agree with Blaise. God never gave us any reason to believe that pets go to Heaven.

[Agnes Steuben]

I also agree with Blaise. A lot of people argue saying that people love their animals and would want to see them in Heaven. But in Heaven we will be perfectly happy, so would not need animals.

[Adrian Steuben]

I agree with Blaise. God never gave us any reason to believe that pets go to Heaven.

A priest once said, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence".

[Adrian Steuben]

1. Pets do not have souls or reason. The actions of pets teach us that they do not think about what they are doing. Animals are governed by instincts. They are not capable of thinking about the difference between right and wrong. Pets can be trained to do what we want them to do, but are they really figuring out that they should do this, or are they simply following our commands?

All animated creatures have souls, although humans are the only ones with immortal or infinite souls.

[Joseph Gulding]

1. Pets do not have souls or reason. The actions of pets teach us that they do not think about what they are doing. Animals are governed by instincts. They are not capable of thinking about the difference between right and wrong. Pets can be trained to do what we want them to do, but are they really figuring out that they should do this, or are they simply following our commands?

All animated creatures have souls, although humans are the only ones with immortal or infinite souls.

What makes you say that?

[Adrian Steuben]

What makes you say that?

Here are some articles that support my belief:

“Animals have souls--and so do plants. Does this answer sound like something out of the New Age movement? Don't worry--it isn't. Rest assured we're notsaying animals and plants have souls like ours.

The soul is the principle of life. Since animals and plants are living things, they have souls, but not in the sense in which human beings have souls. Our souls are rational--theirs aren't--and ours are rational because they're spiritual, not material.

Animals and plants can't do anything which transcends the limitations of matter. Although some animals seem clever, they don't actually possess conceptional intelligence. They can't, for instance, conceive of the abstract notion of justice.

Animals and plants also lack a moral sense. When you scold Spot for chewing the carpet and tell him what he did was "wrong," you aren't assigning guilt of sin to him, since he can't commit a sin.

Animal and vegetable souls are dependent entirely on matter for their operation and being. They cease to exist at death. (There's no "doggie heaven.")

Human souls, by contrast, aren't material. They're spiritual. Only a spirit can know and love, a spirit's two chief faculties being the intellect (which knows) and the will (which loves). We know human souls are spiritual since humans can know and love.

We also know human souls are immortal because spirits can't decompose. They have no parts: Only a thing with parts can fall apart. A spirit is a unit. It has no top or bottom, no left or right, no inside or outside.

Every bit of matter, even the smallest, has parts. The human body can decompose--it's made of matter, after all--but the human soul can't. That's why we say it's immortal.

A good discussion of the differences between human beings and animals is available in Mortimer Adler's The Difference of Man and the Difference it Makes.” - Catholic Answers

https://www.quora.com/Do-animals-have-s ... atholicism

“Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity.” – CCC 364

In order to answer this question, one must first know what a soul is. A soul, on its most basic level, is the “life principle” or “animating principle” of a body. In other words, the soul is what gives life. Thus every living being including plants and animals have souls.

While plants, animals, and anything living contains a soul, the human soul is unique. In man, the soul has not only vegetative powers (as plants have) and sensitive powers (as animals have) but also rational powers. It is this rational power that separates us from other living beings in this world. The reason our souls are rational is because our souls are spiritual. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church point out we are “animated by a spiritual soul” (CCC 364). It is this difference which makes human beings understand abstract concepts like morality and justice while animals cannot.


Another difference between the soul of a plant or an animal with a human soul is that the souls of human beings are immortal. They (the human soul) do not cease to exist when they get separated from the body at death but will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection.


St. Paul while writing his first letter to the Thessalonians talks about human beings being made of spirit, soul and body (1 Thessalonians 5:23). It is to be noted that both soul and spirit are the same and this “distinction does not introduce a duality into the soul” (CCC 367). Soul when distinguished from spirit means that which gives life to a body. Spirit when contrasted with soul simply means those aspects of human life and activity that transcend our bodily limitations and so open the soul toward the supernatural life of grace (spirituality). The CCC is clear about this: “Spirit” signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God (CCC 367).

http://catholic.cafe/2020/01/08/are-hum ... nd-plants/

The Stoics taught that all existence is material, and described the soul as a breath pervading the body. They also called it Divine, a particle of God (apospasma tou theu) — it was composed of the most refined and ethereal matter. Eight distinct parts of the soul were recognized by them

https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14153a.htm