All Dogs Go to Heaven...Not

Our family owns a lovable 5 year old cockapoo named Maddie. Maddie's favorite activities include chasing squirrels around the yard and playing fetch with her masters. She's a mischievous one as well, stealing food off the counter on a consistent basis. Dogs such as Maddie are great companions, and many people treat their dogs as members of the family. One lady even filed for a tax deduction because she considered her dog "a dependent."

As much as we all love dogs, and all sorts of pets for that matter, we have to recognize that they will not be joining us one day in Heaven. Maybe it is sad, but at the same time, they are not going to Hell either. They, along with the rest of creation aside from humans, go nowhere--their existence is defined by their material body, not anything more.

What I'm getting at is that our dogs and cats do not have souls. The soul, the spiritual element that gives humans our intellect, will, and capacity to love, is unique only to man within creation. The soul is made directly in God's image, and is what elevates human dignity above that of the rest of creation. The Church teaches that after humans die, our souls separate from our earthly bodies, going to Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory (I believe this is discussed in a previous post by atohme). After dogs die, they have no soul to separate from their body.

This is not a terribly controversial issue in the Church. In fact, it is so uncontroversial that people often fail to realize it.

Some do object however. People often insist that their dog can indeed think rationally, and experience emotions. However, these are distinct from human rational thought and emotion. A dog's actions and thought processes are mere products of evolutionary adaptations and consequences involving rewards and punishments. A human, on the other hand, can have complex thought processes, such as pondering God's existence, that a dog could never hope to do (which kind of has a double meaning, because a dog cannot hope).

I love my dog, but the Church teaches that she cannot love me back. Ruff.

-Shoe