Is My Dog in Heaven? by Robert Hunt

Author:Robert Hunt [Hunt, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781512774825
Publisher: WestBow Press
Published: 2017-04-20T04:00:00+00:00

Barnabas and the Fence

CHAPTER 4

Do Animals Have Souls?

“Animals don’t have souls!”

I’ve heard this statement declared with finality, and I’ve wondered how it became so unquestionable a truth for the speaker. There is no biblical text to affirm it. Yet there are some who believe it and consider it proof that animals can’t possibly partake of eternal life.

The dictum seems more proof of the degree of secularization of some theology. The immortality of the soul as a prerequisite to eternity is not a Christian concept, nor a Jewish one, but more a product of Greek philosophy or Eastern mysticism. It originates in Plato’s teachings rather than in scripture. The Christian basis of eternity rests on the resurrection of the body, not on the indestructibility of an aspect of our being that we call “the soul.” The Christian creed from the beginning has been an affirmation of belief “in the resurrection of the body” (The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, etc.).

The distinction between man with soul and animals without may have been fostered by biblical translators’ choice of words. The King James authorized version of the Scriptures of 1611 translates the Hebrew word nephest in Genesis 2:7 as “living soul”:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breathe of life; and man became a living soul.

Yet when referring to creatures, the same word is translated differently:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. (Genesis 1:24)

It would have been as linguistically valid to translate the former “and man became a living creature” and the latter, “Let the earth bring forth the living soul after his kind.” The difference is in the choice of the translator according to his reading of the context. In the Hebrew text, the words are identical.

This word nephest means in Hebrew “soul, life, person, living being, blood, breath, living creature” and is translated in English versions according to the choice of the translator. It is used of man as in Genesis 2:7 and Genesis 2:19. It is likewise used in reference to animals as in Genesis 1:20, 24, 30 and Genesis 9:12, 15, 16. The English translations sometimes make a distinction that is not necessarily made in the original text.

Translators’ choices together with Greek influence (the immortality of the soul) on Western thought may have drastically contributed to the distinction. A sharp distinction is not clearly defined in the biblical texts.

However, there is an aspect of being that is other than the physical designated in scripture by “soul.” This is apparent in texts such as:

And now, Israel, what does the Lord thy God require of thee but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways and to love him and to serve him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. (Deuteronomy 10:12)

The same distinction is likewise found in the New Testament:

And

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