The domestication of animals stands as one of history’s greatest achievements, even though it doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Had our early ancestors never accomplished that, we would all still need to spend considerable time hunting for food. We would never have had vehicles or animal power to run early industry; farmers would have had to dig up the earth by hand, rather than using a horse, mule or oxen drawn plow. Without those advances, chances are that we would still be walking from place to place and the industrial revolution could never have come.
There’s another effect that the domestication of animals brought about; that of pets. While pets may not be considered an important technological development, they are an important part of many people’s lives. The greatest companion of those who live alone is often a pet, as it is for a child growing up and learning how to care for others.
It’s not surprising that we become attached to our pets. One of the key attributes that God created within each and every one of us is love; we are able to love others and receive their love in return. In many ways, animals are better at love than we are, both teaching us about love and giving us someone to love, when we don’t have anyone else. We can always count on a pet’s love, especially when we are hurting and need it the most.
Along with the good, comes the bad. People hurt when their pets die, just as they do when a family member does. For those who are especially close to their pets, the pain associated with losing a pet can be especially severe, leading to them asking the question, “God, why did you take my pet away?”
Yet we don’t do this when plants die, even though we might own many plants and invest ourselves in the process of helping them grow and flourish. Obviously there is a difference, other than the fact that some are animals and others are plants.
What Makes an Animal a Pet?
In looking at this, we first must look at what makes it possible for some animals to be pets, while others aren’t particularly suited to that place in our lives. Just owning an animal doesn’t automatically make it a pet, although you have to own the animal for it to become a pet.
We humans are composed of three distinct, interconnected parts: our bodies, our souls and our spirits. The soul itself is divided into three parts; the mind or intellect, the will and the emotions. Likewise, animals have more than one part. We can see that they have bodies and we can experience that some types of animals have personalities, a thought process, emotions and a will, making it clear that they have souls. But we don’t actually know if they have spirits or not, as the Bible doesn’t specifically give us an answer to that question and there really is no other source to find out from.
Those animals which we choose as pets are generally those with which we can form a relationship. For that to happen, they must have a soul. I don’t know whether snakes, lizards and tarantulas have souls, so if anyone owns some of those, I’m not actually sure that it is a pet, in the same way that a dog, cat or horse can be a pet that we form an emotional bond with.
It is clearly the emotional bond that makes any animal a pet, of the type which we consider a member of the family. We may have other animals around and we might even see that those animals have different personalities; but just as we choose which people we form emotional bonds with, so too do we choose which animals we form emotional bonds with.
Think of a rancher or farmer. Just because they own animals, give them names and may even be able to tell you about their individual personalities, doesn’t mean that they have an emotional bond with those animals. Considering that most are being raised to be slaughtered for food, it would be emotionally devastating to form relationships with them, then have to see them slaughtered.
Why do Pets Die?
All pets eventually die. Considering that most have a shorter life expectancy than we humans do, most will die long before we do. Death is a normal part of life and all things which are alive eventually die.
If we go back in biblical history, we find that people lived much longer before the flood, than after it. The average life expectancy of those who lived before the flood was 912 years. After the flood, God shortened that considerably.
And the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” – Genesis 6:3
God’s reason for reducing the lifespan of humans has to do with sin. He says in that verse, that He will not contend with man forever. In order to prevent that from happening, He declares that humans will only live 120 years. As we see in recent times, it is rare for a person to even approach that time, showing us that God did what He said He would do.
But just how did God make this come about?
There are at least a couple of theories which can provide insight into this shortening of man’s lifespan. The first and simplest is sin. Sin has corrupted mankind and through mankind, the world. This has given place for sickness to enter the world as well, including grave diseases which can kill, like cancer.
The second theory comes to us from creation scientists. According to them, the pre-flood world was quite different from the world we live in today. Without getting into specifics, their biblical and scientific research indicates that the magnetic field was stronger, the atmosphere was denser and there was much less ultraviolet light from the sun hitting the earth. All of those worked together to create an atmosphere which was much healthier, allowing both animals and people to live much longer.
Even so, both before the flood and after, animals and people died. Living longer doesn’t mean that one doesn’t die; it just postpones the inevitable. How long it postpones death varies from case to case.
Our bodies, and that of our pets, deteriorate over time. Whether this is a result of sin or just natural processes is something that can be debated; but the answer is probably a bit of both. As we age, various systems in our bodies stop working as well, we feel more aches and pains and things like our blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol go out of whack. There’s no reason to think that doesn’t happen with animals as well. Eventually, enough things stop working properly that the body dies, even without disease there to help.
It is Unfair to Blame God
Blaming God for a pet or a child dying is rather unfair to God. In a sense, it falsely accuses God of murder. Yet, if anything, God is a preserver of life, not a murderer. Jesus addressed this in the gospel of John:
The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. – John 10:10
The thief mentioned in this verse is commonly understood to refer to Satan. It is he who kills, whether through sickness and disease, speeding up the natural decay of our bodies, causing accidents or encouraging evil people to do evil things, like murder. But Jesus came that we might have life; not only that, but that the life we have might be more abundant in every way.
Saying that God is responsible for death hearkens back to the pagan religions that predate Christianity. Much of mankind’s understanding of the spirit realm was limited to deifying nature and worshiping it. Hence, we find that many ancient religions had a sun god, a moon god, and gods for many of the forces of nature. The Mayan religion even had a god called Hurricane (although they spell it differently).
This has carried over into modern life, with people and institutions (especially insurance agencies) referring to natural disasters as “acts of god.” Yet those acts don’t properly reflect the personality and character of God, as shown through the pages of the Bible. In fact, they show the exact opposite, making God out to be one who kills, steals and destroys, rather than the one who has given us life and who makes our lives more abundant.
About the only way that death can be attributed to God is that it is He who created the natural laws which cause our bodies and those of our furry friends to decay over time. That natural process is what brings about death, not a malevolent god who sits on his throne, lightning bolt in his hand, waiting to strike someone down. That was Zeus, not Jehovah. There is nothing in the Bible which describes God in that way and anyone who attributes that to God is projecting Greek mythology onto the Bible, rather than reading its message.
Do Animals Go to Heaven?
There was a movie once, entitled, “All Dogs Go to Heaven.” I haven’t seen the movie, but the title contains a basic premise that many people believe; that all dogs do actually go to heaven. Yet, the Bible is amazingly silent about this point, as it is about many other details about heaven.
Dogs are interesting in that the Bible actually says some rather negative things about them, equating some people with characteristics of dogs. This is not to say that dogs are bad though; but rather, to illustrate some things that people do, which are more along the lines of what animals do, rather than what people should do. They are not things that are sin for the dogs to do, but merely part of the character of dogs.
We find in the first chapter of Genesis that God created animals before He created man. Obviously, He thinks animals are important, or He wouldn’t have bothered creating them. But that alone doesn’t mean that they will be found in heaven, although we can infer from that the possibility that they might be.
However, there is one passage in the Bible, which shows horses coming from heaven. In the book of Revelations, Jesus returns from heaven, mounted upon a white horse. If that’s not enough, he is followed by an army who are also mounted on white horses:
Now I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. 12 His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. 13 He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called the Word of God. 14 And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. – Revelations 19:11-14
We know that this refers to Jesus, because He “is called the Word of God.” That name comes from the beginning of John’s gospel, where Jesus is first referred to as the “Word of God” and “the Word became flesh.” So, Jesus not only has a white horse, but enough white horses to mount his entire army.
With that being the case, it is likely that other animals are in heaven as well. Just how many and of what types we don’t know and probably won’t know until we get to heaven. I would think that it would be limited to animals which have a soul, leaving out snakes, scorpions, flies and mosquitoes. But if those are left out, what will the birds who eat those flies and mosquitoes eat? Who will pollinate the flowers that mosquitoes pollinate? We just don’t know.
It is safe to say that things will be considerably different in heaven and it is quite possible that God will provide some other type of food for the birds and others who would otherwise eat those insects. But again, we just don’t know. All we do know is that heaven is a much better place than the one we live in now, and it is likely that we will see our pets once again, waiting for us there.