Recently, in First Things, David Bentley Hart criticized Thomists for denying that there will be non-human animals in Heaven. I responded in an article at Public Discourse and in a follow-up blog post, defending the view that there will be no such animals in the afterlife. I must say that some of the responses to what I wrote have been surprisingly… substandard for readers of a philosophy blog. A few readers simply opined that Thomists don’t appreciate animals, or that the thought of Heaven without animals is too depressing.
Do I really need to explain what is wrong with this? Apparently I do. First, for one to deny that there will be non-human animals in the afterlife simply doesn’t entail that one must not appreciate the beauty of a horse or the cleverness of a dolphin or be capable of affection for dogs, cats, or other pets. That’s a blatant non sequitur. Second, that some might find the thought of Heaven without animals upsetting simply doesn’t entail that there will be animals in Heaven. That’s a subjectivist fallacy -- a fallacy of mistaking one’s desire for something to be true for a reason to think it is true. Third, I gave arguments in defense the claims that there will not be non-human animals in Heaven, and that this won’t bother us in the least when we’re in Heaven. A rational and grown-up response would be to try to show what, if anything, is wrong with the arguments, rather than to pout and accuse Thomists of being mean.
Did I really need to explain that?
But there were more serious objections too. For example, some readers pointed out that even if, as Thomists argue, the specific individual animals we know in this life cannot survive into the afterlife, it doesn’t follow that there will be no animals at all in heaven. Now, this is true as far as it goes, though it’s hard to see how it could satisfy the emotions that lead many to want to believe there will be animals in Heaven. If what you’re worried about is that you’ll never see your beloved dog Spot again, what does it matter if there’ll be some other dog in heaven, even one who looks and acts a lot like Spot? You’d still never see Spot himself again.
But leave that problem aside, for there is another problem with the objection in question. Even if there could in theory be non-human animals in Heaven, why should we suppose that there willin fact be any? Some readers appealed to biblical passages in support of this supposition. Hart did the same thing in his article, even accusing Thomists of placing the authority of Aquinas over that of scripture. What he had in mind are passages like the reference in Isaiah 11 to wolves lying down with lambs, etc.
But as Hart well knows, it is no use appealing to purported proof texts from biblical passages that are highly poetical in style, as that passage from Isaiah certainly is. Otherwise we’d have to say, absurdly, that God literally has eyes and eyelids (as Psalm 11:4 would imply on a literal reading), nostrils and lungs with which he breathes (Job 4:9), and so on. The same passage from Isaiah also speaks of babies and children frolicking with the animals. So are we to suppose that there will be babies born, and children raised, in Heaven? Yet as I pointed out in my Public Discourse article, Christ tells us that those in Heaven “neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Matthew 22:30). So where are all these babies and children supposed to come from? (I imagine Hart would agree that fornication wouldn’t be permissible in Heaven any more than it is in this life.)
Obviously, the biblical references to animals, no less than to babies, children, and divine eyelids and nostrils, are intended as merely poetical descriptions. They give us no reason to think that there will literally be animals in Heaven.
And what would be the point of there being non-human animals in Heaven? It can’t be that we will miss the animals otherwise, because if we’d miss any animals at all, it would be those to which we are especially attached in this life. And again, the Thomist argues on metaphysical grounds that those particular animals certainly can’t exist in the afterlife. Furthermore, as I pointed out in the Public Discourse article, Christ’s own teaching implies that we won’t miss romance, lovemaking, and the psychological and bodily pleasures that go along with them. Those are not only much more intense pleasures than those we get from interaction with animals, but they are much higher pleasures, because of their interpersonal character. Sexual love involves a unique fusion of our corporeal nature with our higher intellectual and social nature, by which the spiritual union of two rational souls can find an intimate bodily expression. If we won’t miss even that, then it is quite absurd to think we’ll miss playing Frisbee with Spot.
Some readers suggested that the reason there would have to be animals in the afterlife is that animals are good, and that God would not fail to preserve what is good. But there are a couple of serious problems with this argument. First, it would prove too much. In particular, it would entail that God will preserve forever anything that is good. But we know that that is not the case. Again, marriage is good, but we have it on Christ’s own authority that marriage will not exist in the afterlife. So, if this good will not be preserved in Heaven, why would a lower good like non-human animals be preserved?
Second, the supposition that non-human animals constitute a good too great not to exist in Heaven seems to rest on sentimentality borne of contemplating too selective a diet of examples. One meditates on the beauty of a horse or the faithfulness of a Labrador and asks “How could these creatures not exist in Heaven?” But suppose instead we meditate on a fly as it nibbles on a pile of fecal matter, or a tapeworm as it works its way through an intestine, or a botfly larva pushing its breathing tube through the human skin in which it has embedded itself, or lice or ticks or bacteria or any of the many other repulsive creatures that occupy our world alongside horses, dogs, and the like. These creatures are, in their own ways, no less good than the ones we are prone to sentimentalize. But one suspects that those who insist that horses and dogs will exist in Heaven would be less certain that these other creatures will make it. Flies munching on feces just doesn’t seem heavenly. But what principled reason could one give for the judgment that there will be dogs but not flies in Heaven, if the purported reason for supposing that the former will be there is that they are good and God will forever preserve whatever is good?
Nor is this merely a matter of competing intuitions about the relative goodness of different animals (and appeal to intuition is not an argument strategy I would ever recommend). Which brings me to a third point. Given their nature, the good of living things is achieved at the expense of the good of other creatures. It’s bad for the gazelle when the lion kills it, but it’s good for the lion. It’s bad for the lamb when a tapeworm gets into its intestines, but it’s good for the tapeworm. It’s bad for an animal when tuberculosis bacteria infect its lungs, but it’s good for the bacteria. And so forth.
Of course, some will appeal once again to the biblical passage about the wolf lying down with the lamb, arguing that God will miraculously cause creatures to survive without having to harm other creatures in the process. So, will the tapeworm also lie down with the lamb? Will the tubercle bacillus lie down with the lung? But what on earth will tapeworms and tuberculosis bacteria be doing for eternity if they can’t get themselves into any other creature’s intestines or lungs, respectively? What would be the point of forever keeping these things in existence when they would be prevented from acting in accordance with their nature and thus prevented from realizing what is good for them?
It is no good to respond that God will changethe natures of these things so that the activities in question won’t any longer be good for them. This is muddleheaded, because the nature of a thing is what makes it the kind of thing it is, so that if you “change” its nature, you’re changing the kind of thing it is. Hence if you “change the nature” of a tapeworm so that it no longer is naturally oriented toward invading intestines, you’re not really talking about tapeworms anymore, but some other kind of thing that only superficially resembles tapeworms. In which case it isn’t really tapeworms that God would be preserving forever after all -- which defeats the whole purpose of the argument that God will preserve whatever is good.
So, the biblical passages in question, which are highly poetical anyway, should not be taken to be literal descriptions of the afterlife, any more than talk of God’s breath or nostrils should be taken literally. And thus there simply are no good scriptural arguments, any more than there are good philosophical arguments, for judging that non-human animals will exist in the afterlife.