Cinnamon’s tiny, limp body lay motionless in my arms. Her heart, which had been failing for several years, had finally stopped. She was gone at age 19, and my heart ached. As I held her, I wondered, Do dogs go to heaven?
I had loved and lost a number of dogs over the years: a beloved Chow named Chang; a cocker spaniel and a collie; several Chihuahuas and Australian Shepherds; quite a few Labrador Retrievers; a hound named Sherlock; and various mixed breeds that wandered into my yard and stayed. I loved all of them.
Dogs had been part of my life for longer than I could remember. And they brought me years of love, laughter and fun.
As I grieved over Cinnamon, my granddaughter gently took her from my arms. Chihuahuas aren’t working dogs in the sense that some breeds are. They don’t hunt rabbits, herd cattle or guard their owners. Their only jobs are to love you and provide companionship.
Cinnamon was attached to me as only a dog can be. She had been with me through two moves, several health scares, early retirement, the weddings of two grandchildren and the births of four great-grandchildren.
With Cinnamon’s death, I was without a dog for the first time in years.
Death, Dogs & Heaven
Several contributors to Patheos have shared their thoughts about death, dogs and heaven:
- Author and theologian Dr. Lee Ann B. Marino offers her opinions in Find Comfort in Beliefs about Animals in Heaven.
- James McGrath, the chair in New Testament language and literature at Butler University in Indianapolis, takes a different approach in his article Revelation 22:15: No Dogs Go to Heaven.
- Author Alia Joy reflects on dogs and heaven in her post All Dogs Go to Heaven: A Reflection on Common Things.
Do Dogs Go to Heaven?
The Bible doesn’t provide the answer, although many biblical scholars say “no” or “no one knows.” They base their answers on centuries-old theological debates about the nature of souls.
Do souls come into existence at conception? Are they created earlier? What is their origin? Are there different types of souls? How are they different?
Debates over the nature of souls could go on and on. Some experts insist that animals don’t have souls, and therefore, don’t go to heaven. Others argue that they have souls, but their souls are not made in the image of God as humans are. Yet, many species of animals have something that makes them special.
Catholics and Orthodox Christians define the image of God as the rational soul. Some point to Isaiah 65, which talks about the new heaven and new earth where “the wolf and the lamb shall graze together.”
Isaiah 65 gives me hope that there is a place for animals in heaven.
The Importance of Animals in the Bible
Bruce Hillman, a religious scholar and former Lutheran pastor, points out the importance of animals in Scripture. They are, after all, mentioned in numerous Bible stories….
- Animals were important to God when he instructed Noah to build an ark. As the story goes, Noah and his family were the only people who survived a great flood in ancient times, and surviving with them were pairs of various animal species.
- Sheep were sacrificed in the Passover/10 plagues of Egypt story. God told the Israelites to smear sheep’s blood on their door posts as a sign for the angel of death to pass over the homes and spare their first born. Other people – including the Egyptian pharaoh – were not forewarned, and the first-born in those houses died.
- The Bible says ravens fed the prophet Elijah when he went into hiding after warning the king of Israel about a coming drought. God told Elijah to flee the angry king and then provided the prophet with water from a stream, as well as meat and bread delivered by ravens twice a day.
- The story of Jonah tells the tale of a man who tried to flee from God rather than preach to non-believers in Ninevah, as God commanded. Subsequently, Jonah was swallowed a large fish and remained in its belly for three days. The fish then spit him out, and Jonah went to Ninevah in obedience to God.
- A young shepherd named David was tending his father’s sheep when God chose him to become the king of Israel.
- Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey only days before his death and resurrection.
A Path to Heaven
Do any of these examples indicate that dogs go to heaven? No. But the Bible does say God loves us and cared enough about the animals in Noah’s time to ensure their survival.
My hope is that heaven is filled with animals, though I would rather do without snakes, lizards, rats and other vermin.
Several years ago, Patheos contributor Jim Coppoc asked whether dogs go to heaven. He began with the assumption that all dogs go to heaven because of their good and loyal nature. But when he was asked to reassure someone who had recently lost a beloved pet, he had no answer.
Several years later, he wrote an article for Patheos in which he gave the answer he wished he had given the grieving dog lover. He explained that the New Testament offers “a dizzying array of options for what Heaven might look like,” ranging from Jerusalem to a celestial sphere… a large house to a shining city or an entire kingdom.
“The fact that there is no settled ‘Christian’ view on what and where Heaven is, let alone what the human experience will be there, means that ancillary questions like the matter of dogs are equally arguable,” Coppoc wrote.
“The Book of Revelation sets dogs outside the gates of Heaven with the unrighteous (Rev. 22:15), but that passage can easily be read as referring to the ritually unclean (cf. v.21:17).”
He also pointed out that theologians such as C.S. Lewis said that domesticated animals, at the very least, should have a path of heaven.
“It is impossible to say with any certainty whether anyone – human or canine – will pass the pearly gates, or even if the pearly gates exist as such,” Coppoc concluded.
It Will Be Perfect, Wise and Good
Bruce Hillman, a religious scholar and former Lutheran pastor in New Jersey, came to a similar conclusion. “As the owner of a beloved German Shepherd myself, Winston, I know the deep love we can have for our animal companions,” he wrote in an article for the non-profit Christian website 1517.
Hillman expressed hope that God will allow our pets to join us in heaven. “If anything, we can rest on two certain truths,” he added. “Whatever heaven is like, and whatever God has decided on this or any issue, it will be perfect, wise, good and without error…. Secondly, God loves animals and uses them to tell his story of salvation….
“Because they mean a lot to God and because he has shared their joy with us, even making us caretakers of them, there are grounds to hope that God will do what our hearts ask, and raise them in the hereafter,” Hillman said.
I hope he’s right. It would be heavenly.
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