Pets in Heaven

Introduction
By D. Adams 04/20/2010

After the recent passing of one of my pets, I found myself somewhat depressed. I began to wonder if pets would be in Heaven. I have had several pets throughout my life, but never really questioned if I would see them again in Heaven. While searching for some possible answers, I ran across an alleged answer from Rich Deem from the God and Science website. http://www.godandscience.org/doctrine/pets_in_heaven.html#n05#n05 Within this article about pets; Mr. Deem suggests many things about the nature of God within that article, but needless to say I would disagree with his approach and thus his conclusion on this matter.

Before going further, within this article, the goal is not to take away from Rich Deem’s knowledge, his Christian faith, or his work within his website—but to share what I believe to be a realistic and holistic approach to finding a possible answer. I must admit there are no definitive scriptures about pets in Heaven, and there are equally no scriptures about babies or mentally disabled people (neither of which can hear nor understand the word) in Heaven for that matter. I seriously doubt you would find a Christian that would postulate babies not being in heaven based upon no scriptural evidence, and I also would use this same reasoning about our pets. Also, we need to be careful as to not becoming too dogmatic or too fundamental in our approach to find answers where scripture seems to be silent.

You can read more about Richard Deem and his positive contributions to the Christian faith from the website: Reasons to believe

Finally, this topic should be handled with utmost care. Perhaps you lost a pet in the past, perhaps you lost your pet today, or perhaps you may lose a pet in the near future. People can come to know Christ by argument, and by experiences, and by the same token people can be pushed further away from Christ by arguments and by experiences. I feel that triggering conditions (or perhaps stumbling belief forming mechanisms) are much more enhanced or elevated when someone is in depression or despair, so with that I hope to present this subject in a positive uplifting manner that will help the believer achieve a sense of peace and bring them closer to the faith, hope and love we have in Christ.

I will begin by addressing the three points made in Deem’s article by breaking my responses into three corresponding yet separate sections.

1. Why are we here on Earth?
2. The purpose of Heaven.
3. How do pets fit in?

Coming Soon...