Dogs Go To Heaven

Started by christulsa, December 16, 2019, 12:52:58 AM

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christulsa

If we are saved, Scripture says God will grant all our desires.

God has the power to re-create your dead dog in heaven.

Therefore, if that's your desire (why wouldn't it be, it's a natural desire), and you make it through the Pearly Gates, then your pet dog Fluffy will be there waiting wagging his tail.

Definitely a consolation to help motivate you to save your soul, especially when your dear dog dies (a horrible loss, like losing a child).

Sensible conclusion?  Heresy?  Foolish fantasy?  Your thoughts?   (btw a professor of Thomism thought my argument was very convincing  ;))

Lynne

Quote from: christulsa on December 16, 2019, 12:52:58 AM
If we are saved, Scripture says God will grant all our desires.

God has the power to re-create your dead dog in heaven.

Therefore, if that's your desire (why wouldn't it be, it's a natural desire), and you make it through the Pearly Gates, then your pet dog Fluffy will be there waiting wagging his tail.

Definitely a consolation to help motivate you to save your soul, especially when your dear dog dies (a horrible loss, like losing a child).

Sensible conclusion?  Heresy?  Foolish fantasy?  Your thoughts?   (btw a professor of Thomism thought my argument was very convincing  ;))

My dog, Penny, was a Corgi and she didn't have a tail...  :)

My goal is Heaven so it doesn't matter to me either way whether my beloved dog is there or not. But what about shedding earthly attachments, which wanting your dog to be in Heaven with you would be?
In conclusion, I can leave you with no better advice than that given after every sermon by Msgr Vincent Giammarino, who was pastor of St Michael's Church in Atlantic City in the 1950s:

    "My dear good people: Do what you have to do, When you're supposed to do it, The best way you can do it,   For the Love of God. Amen"

Daniel

#2
I think the premise is wrong. If you're in heaven, why would you care about anything other than God? You'd be glad that your dog's not with you, because God doesn't want your dog to be with you (otherwise your dog would be with you).

Plus, if the argument worked then we'd have to conclude that damned human souls can be in heaven as well. Because I can imagine a wicked man who dies and goes to hell, and his mother is in heaven and wants him to be with her, and she also wants to be in heaven. What is God to do, except to admit her damned son into heaven?

Also, a re-creation of your dead dog isn't really your dog. So if what you truly want is your dog, and if all you receive is a mere copy, wouldn't you be disappointed? (Though I believe it is Thomism, not Church teaching, that says that dogs's souls aren't immortal. Other metaphysical theories would allow that the thing in heaven really be your dog rather than a copy.)

MundaCorMeum

What if I don't want any dogs in Heaven at all?  How can God possibly grant everyone's desires when it's inevitable that people's desires will be in conflict with each be other.

The truth is, in Heaven our wills will be in perfect union with God's Will.  Our desires will be in accordance with God's Will, then, since we can trust that His Will is what is truly best for us and is what will make us most happy and satisfied. If He wills dogs in Heaven (which I know many people here on Earth hope that He won't), there will be dogs in Heaven and everyone will desire just that - even if on earth some people did not like dogs.  The converse is true as can well.  Our desires here on Earth are really not necessarily an indication of what we will desire in Heaven. 

orate

Quotewhen your dear dog dies (a horrible loss, like losing a child).

I take exception to this statement.  I have had pets and truly missed them when they were gone.  But it is not nearly the same as losing a child--which, thank the Lord, I have not experienced.

Beloved as a pet may be, it is not the same as the loss of a human being.
I love Thee, Jesus, my love.  Grant me the grace to love Thee always, and do with me what Thou wilt.

"Blame yourself, then change yourself.  That's where we all need to start."   Dr. Louis IX (aka "Dr. Walty")

Graham

I want my support dog AND my Nintendo switch with the complete collection of Pokemon games and also the ability to stream all my favourite marvel movies on demand, thanks God

MundaCorMeum

Quote from: orate on December 16, 2019, 09:47:38 AM
Quotewhen your dear dog dies (a horrible loss, like losing a child).

I take exception to this statement.  I have had pets and truly missed them when they were gone.  But it is not nearly the same as losing a child--which, thank the Lord, I have not experienced.

Beloved as a pet may be, it is not the same as the loss of a human being.

Agreed.  People raising pets to "child" status is a real problem in today's society

Heinrich

Quote from: orate on December 16, 2019, 09:47:38 AM
Quotewhen your dear dog dies (a horrible loss, like losing a child).

I take exception to this statement.  I have had pets and truly missed them when they were gone.  But it is not nearly the same as losing a child--which, thank the Lord, I have not experienced.

Beloved as a pet may be, it is not the same as the loss of a human being.

I recently lost a dog and it hurts. Really hurts as he was my little Tuetonic muscle man miniature pinscher. But he was a dog, and I am over it. My youngest almost fell out the back of a moving truck 15 years ago. Still an indescribable feeling. Incomparable to a beast.
Schaff Recht mir Gott und führe meine Sache gegen ein unheiliges Volk . . .   .                          
Lex Orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
"Die Welt sucht nach Ehre, Ansehen, Reichtum, Vergnügen; die Heiligen aber suchen Demütigung, Verachtung, Armut, Abtötung und Buße." --Ausschnitt von der Geschichte des Lebens St. Bennos.

Gardener

According to Aristotelian metaphysics, the animal soul, its form, ceases at death forever.

In ST/Supp/Q91/Art5, we read:

From the contrary, in part:
QuoteIf plants and animals are to remain, either all of them will, or some of them. If all of them, then dumb animals, which had previously died, will have to rise again just as men will rise again. But this cannot be asserted for since their form comes to nothing, they cannot resume the same identical form.

In his Answer, St. Thomas writes:

QuoteI answer that, Since the renewal of the world will be for man's sake it follows that it should be conformed to the renewal of man. Now by being renewed man will pass from the state of corruption to incorruptibility and to a state of everlasting rest, wherefore it is written (1 Corinthians 15:53): "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality"; and consequently the world will be renewed in such a way as to throw off all corruption and remain for ever at rest. Therefore it will be impossible for anything to be the subject of that renewal, unless it be a subject of incorruption. Now such are the heavenly bodies, the elements, and man. For the heavenly bodies are by their very nature incorruptible both as to their whole and as to their part: the elements are corruptible as to their parts but incorruptible as a whole: while men are corruptible both in whole and in part, but this is on the part of their matter not on the part of their form, the rational soul to wit, which will remain incorrupt after the corruption of man. on the other hand, dumb animals, plants, and minerals, and all mixed bodies, are corruptible both in their whole and in their parts, both on the part of their matter which loses its form, and on the part of their form which does not remain actually; and thus they are in no way subjects of incorruption. Hence they will not remain in this renewal, but those things alone which we have mentioned above.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5091.htm#article5

Any animal which has died is gone forever. Its form is ceased. It cannot be identically recreated, and would no more be the same than a copy is the original -- at least according to St. Thomas utilizing very basic Aristotelian metaphysics.

Whether or not there will or will not be animals in heaven, in general, I'm not sure St. Thomas ever addresses that in particular.

However, if one wanted to abandon Scholasticism for Scho-Lassie-ism, I suppose anything's possible.
"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe

christulsa

#9
There's another extreme to be aware of, Manicheism creeping into our traditional Catholicism.  In heaven there will be a new earth, so it's reasonable to think there will be animals there, like possibly your pets (no, not the same as children).  It's easy to think of physical things, and creation itself, as an evil worldly attachment to be avoided, that God's design is just spiritual for us is not also material.  As if in heaven experiencing the Beatific Vision, we will just be spirits in an ethereal space, like cherubs sitting on a cloud looking up at God.  That would be a worse heresy than thinking some foolish thought that dog's have immortal souls.

Heinrich

Your fidoelity to Logic is asthounding,  G.
Schaff Recht mir Gott und führe meine Sache gegen ein unheiliges Volk . . .   .                          
Lex Orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
"Die Welt sucht nach Ehre, Ansehen, Reichtum, Vergnügen; die Heiligen aber suchen Demütigung, Verachtung, Armut, Abtötung und Buße." --Ausschnitt von der Geschichte des Lebens St. Bennos.

christulsa

#11
Quote from: Gardener on December 16, 2019, 12:14:28 PM
According to Aristotelian metaphysics, the animal soul, its form, ceases at death forever.

In ST/Supp/Q91/Art5, we read:

From the contrary, in part:
QuoteIf plants and animals are to remain, either all of them will, or some of them. If all of them, then dumb animals, which had previously died, will have to rise again just as men will rise again. But this cannot be asserted for since their form comes to nothing, they cannot resume the same identical form.

In his Answer, St. Thomas writes:

QuoteI answer that, Since the renewal of the world will be for man's sake it follows that it should be conformed to the renewal of man. Now by being renewed man will pass from the state of corruption to incorruptibility and to a state of everlasting rest, wherefore it is written (1 Corinthians 15:53): "This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality"; and consequently the world will be renewed in such a way as to throw off all corruption and remain for ever at rest. Therefore it will be impossible for anything to be the subject of that renewal, unless it be a subject of incorruption. Now such are the heavenly bodies, the elements, and man. For the heavenly bodies are by their very nature incorruptible both as to their whole and as to their part: the elements are corruptible as to their parts but incorruptible as a whole: while men are corruptible both in whole and in part, but this is on the part of their matter not on the part of their form, the rational soul to wit, which will remain incorrupt after the corruption of man. on the other hand, dumb animals, plants, and minerals, and all mixed bodies, are corruptible both in their whole and in their parts, both on the part of their matter which loses its form, and on the part of their form which does not remain actually; and thus they are in no way subjects of incorruption. Hence they will not remain in this renewal, but those things alone which we have mentioned above.
http://www.newadvent.org/summa/5091.htm#article5

Any animal which has died is gone forever. Its form is ceased. It cannot be identically recreated, and would no more be the same than a copy is the original -- at least according to St. Thomas utilizing very basic Aristotelian metaphysics.

Whether or not there will or will not be animals in heaven, in general, I'm not sure St. Thomas ever addresses that in particular.

However, if one wanted to abandon Scholasticism for Scho-Lassie-ism, I suppose anything's possible.

No, that would be according to Aristotelean PHYSICS, not metaphysics.  ;)   St. Thomas' argument is that corruptible forms cease to exist in the created order, but they don't cease to exist as forms in the mind of God.  St. Thomas himself teaches every created form originates in the mind of God, and continues there.  The idea of Fluffy still continues in His mind.  And if you think He can't re-create that specific individual form if He wanted to, whenever or wherever He wanted to, then you deny that God is omnipotent.  Which of course you don't, so that reading of St. Thomas would not prove, conclusively at least, that a pet can't be re-created in heaven, even though in general he is saying individual animals and plants do not continue in heaven.  In the physical order, a pet dog's material soul ceases to exist at death.  But metaphysically, in God's power, He can re-create the dog in heaven.

christulsa

Quote from: Heinrich on December 16, 2019, 12:20:40 PM
Your fidoelity to Logic is asthounding,  G.

Okay, which part of my argument is not logical?

Heinrich

Quote from: christulsa on December 16, 2019, 12:52:02 PM
Quote from: Heinrich on December 16, 2019, 12:20:40 PM
Your fidoelity to Logic is asthounding,  G.

Okay, which part of my argument is not logical?

These are puns, Putz.
Schaff Recht mir Gott und führe meine Sache gegen ein unheiliges Volk . . .   .                          
Lex Orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.
"Die Welt sucht nach Ehre, Ansehen, Reichtum, Vergnügen; die Heiligen aber suchen Demütigung, Verachtung, Armut, Abtötung und Buße." --Ausschnitt von der Geschichte des Lebens St. Bennos.

Gardener

Quote from: Heinrich on December 16, 2019, 02:18:01 PM
Quote from: christulsa on December 16, 2019, 12:52:02 PM
Quote from: Heinrich on December 16, 2019, 12:20:40 PM
Your fidoelity to Logic is asthounding,  G.

Okay, which part of my argument is not logical?

These are puns, Putz.

In this age of misspelling, such things are often liable to go over one's head like a woofleball.

"If anyone does not wish to have Mary Immaculate for his Mother, he will not have Christ for his Brother." - St. Maximilian Kolbe