So Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

When my granddaughter's religion class was told that dogs would not go to heaven because they have no souls, I thought to myself, "A love this pure cannot but be eternal.  Surely, the love of a dog for its master and of the master for the dog must continue beyond this life."  But never did I dream that I would read a treatise on this subject from a spiritual writer. 

Many times in my life have I encountered God's sense of humor -- and surely, this is one of those times.  How else to explain that within a week of the religion class episode, I would download and begin to read The Hope of the Gospel by George MacDonald, a writer I have thought about for years without actually reading?

Here are some of MacDonald's thoughts on the subject:

The teachers of the nation have unwittingly, it seems to me through unbelief, wronged the animals deeply by their silence anent the thoughtless poplar presumption that they have no hereafter; thus leaving them deprived of a great advantage to their position among men.  But I suppose they too have taken it for granted that the Preserver of man and beast never had a thought of keeping one beast alive beyond a certain time; in which case heartless men might well argue he did not care how they wronged them, for he meant them no redress.  Their immortality is no new faith with me, but as old as my childhood.

Do you believe in immortality for yourself?  I would ask any reader who is not in sympathy with my hope for the animals.  If not, I have no argument with you.  But if you do, why not believe in it for them....if the thought be anywise precious to you, is it essential to your enjoyment in it, that nothing less than yourself should share its realization?  Are you the lowest kind of creature that could be permitted to live?....Are these not worth making immortal?  How, then, were they worth calling out of the depth of no-being?  It is a greater deed, to make be that which was not, than to seal it with an infinite immortality.....What He thought worth making, you think not worth continuing made!  You would have him go on forever creating new things with one hand, and annihilating those he had made with the other -- for I presume you would not prefer the earth to be without animals!....then his creatures were no better than the toys which a child makes, and destroys as he makes them.  For what good, for what divine purpose, is the maker of the sparrow present at its death, if he does not care what becomes of it?  What is he there for, I repeat, if he have no care that it go well with his bird in its dying, that it be neither comfortless nor lost in the abyss?....Believe it is not by a little only that the heart of the universe is tenderer, more loving, more just and fair, than yours or mine.

I know of no reason why I should not look for the animals to rise again, in the same sense in which I hope myself to rise again ---which is, to reappear, clothed with another and better form of life than before.  If the Father will raise his children, why should he not also raise those whom he has taught his little ones to love?  Love is the one bond of the universe, the heart of God, the life of his children; if animals can be loved, they are loveable; if they can love, they are yet more plainly loveable: love is eternal; how then should its object perish?...Must the love live on forever without its object? or worse still, must the love die with its object, and be eternal no more than it?

Can you imagine that, if, here-after, one of God's little ones were to ask Him to give again one of the earth's old loves ---kitten, or pony, or squirrel, or dog, which he had taken from him, the Father would say no?  .... What a child may ask for, the Father will keep ready.

MacDonald's reflections go on for pages and pages, and of course they are recommended reading to anyone who has enjoyed this excerpt.  As I read these words, I could not help but recall the words of Jesus that the Queen of Sheba would rise up in the hereafter to condemn those of the present generation who did not recognize that one "greater than Solomon" was among them.  Or His parable about the after-life conversation of Lazarus and Dives, with Dives begging Lazarus to bring him one drop of water to cool his burning tongue.  I wonder if at the Resurrection, all the abused animals will rise up to condemn their abusers, or if the abusers will be begging mercy from those they chained up without food or water until death.