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Maybe a little unbalanced?

Slumberfreeze

Slumberfreeze

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Probably not. But one of my beliefs from early childhood is that what separates us from animals is that we have a soul and they do not.

However I've recently come to see these two verses in a different light.

Leviticus 17:11
For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life.

and

Proverbs 12: 10

A righteous man has regard for the life of his animal,
But even the compassion of the wicked is cruel.


In both these cases, every instance of the word life is "nephesh", which is also the word for soul. And once again this isn't a case of Hebrew having too few words that it has to share meanings. There is totally a word for "life" that isn't nephesh, which leads me to believe that animals totes have souls.

And as far as whether or not animals have spirits, that seems like a gimme:
Ecclesiastes 3:21
"Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?"

So as far as I can tell, animals are "triune beings" in their own right, just like us.

I'm not really an animal lover. In fact I borderline detest them. (uh... I borderline detest an actual lot of things...) but I have had to field questions about whether animals are going to heaven or not and it's nice to be able to say something other than "Your worthless attachment to that sack of animated meat will forever be unrequited, as the particular bundle of nerves and learned responses no longer exists and never will again".

No, now i can say with some certainty that you may one day be re-united with the late Mr. Bigglesworth, as his soul had no stain of sin upon it that can be quantified, as it is not recorded whether any other being besides Man ate of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.
 
I could be wrong, often am! But I have always read it like this:

Nephesh / soul refers to consciousness. Both humans and "higher" animals (mammals etc) are conscious, can think, feel emotion etc. Such animals have souls.

Humans also have spirits. The only reference to animals having spirits is that verse in Ecclesiastes, which doesn't say they do, simply wonders about it. It just poses an unanswered question: who knows if they have spirits that leave and go somewhere when they die? Obviously people have wondered about this for ever, as you have and as Solomon did. And the Bible gives no clear answer, so we too can keep wondering. And since it doesn't actually matter, there's no reason for us to be given an answer.

I wouldn't state anything confidently on this, except that we shouldn't make a big deal of it, as if it were important for us to know we'd be told plainly.

Please correct me if I'm missing an important reference here.
 
Fun conversation. I don't really have anything to add (too busy renovating the new house to research stuff atm), just wanted to let you guys know it's interesting!
 
Okay. You guys have drugged my two cents into this now. If I remember correctly there is something that mentions animals in heaven. Revelations Maybe. But what really blows my mind is things like bacteria. Think about the gazillion bacteria that have lived since creation. Do they have souls or at least a place in heaven. It is my understanding that plants in fact do not fall under this category. Reason being they do not have the Breath of Life. Food for thought maybe.

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FollowingHim said:
The only reference to animals having spirits is that verse in Ecclesiastes, which doesn't say they do, simply wonders about it. It just poses an unanswered question: who knows if they have spirits that leave and go somewhere when they die?
Click to expand...


My case for gleaning the spiritual nature of animals in this meditation is as follows: He is wondering about the destination of the spirits, not whether or not their spirit exists. In the same breath (heh heh) of wondering about where the man's spirit goes, he wonders about where the beasts' spirit goes. If we are to interpret this as a confession of ignorance about whether or not beasts have a spirit at all, it seems that he would be similarly ignorant about human spirits as well.

I would suppose that Solomon would be very well informed about whether or not man had a spirit, having scripture, firsthand dealings with God, and supernatural wisdom to draw from, therefore if he felt comfortable discussing the trajectory of a thing he knew, on what grounds do we say he is now conjecturing the trajectory of a thing that may not exist?

That last bit is a serious question, because Hebrew escapes me entirely. There could very well be a jot or tittle in those words that alters the meanings of those words so as to say just that, and I certainly wouldn't know it if I saw it.
 
Torahlovesalvation: The Strongs definition of nephesh is "a breathing creature". So mammals, reptiles and birds, which have lungs, are nephesh. Bacteria, plants, insects and fish, which respire differently, are not. So no souls.

Slumberfreeze: The word spirit = breath. A nephesh animal has breath. So maybe it is correct to say they have a spirit. Maybe we should make no distinction between spirit and soul, and that distinction could come from Greek philosophy rather than scripture. I am unsure. But lets assume all nephesh animals have spirits since they have breath, for a moment anyway.

To paraphrase Ecc 3:21 differently: "We believe humans have a breath / life-force / spirit that rises upward to YHWH on death, while nephesh animals breath / life-force / spirit descends to the earth instead and does not persist. But who knows if this is true, given Torah doesn't actually say so clearly?"

My point is that even if nephesh animals have a spirit, this one verse does not in any way indicate it is eternal. It seems to indicate the opposite if anything, on my reading of it.

And anyway, all things must be established by two or three witnesses, we can't build a solid theology on one verse.
 
I think I have to allow for a scriptural difference between a soul and spirit based on Heb 4:12. I'm not really sure where to go with that from there, however.

I totally get you about not building theology on one verse. I might build some zoopneumatology on it though! :P

But seriously, if not a solid foundation for a thorough teaching, I would like to be able to comfort grieving pet owners (especially righteous ones who are concerned for the nephesh of their animal) that their animals do indeed have a nephesh, and that God, (being more righteous) is more concerned yet, and that His concern (probably) does not expire upon the passing of the animal's physical form. At least, that doesn't seem to be His pattern.

The only dead spirits that He does not seem to have concern for are the rephaim/nephilim, and He did not regard them while they were alive, either.

Although I don't know I would use that last part. Might be weird.

You don't sound like a big animal person yourself, lol!
 
Not sure what you mean by "a big animal person". I live on a farm. I probably have more to do with animals than most people here, have probably had more pets than most. And I love animals. They're delicious. :D

Remember that scripture was written to farmers. The original readers would have had a pragmatic agricultural perspective, very different to the perspective of a modern townie whose primary animal contact has been their pet cat for the past 10 years, and the cat's just died.

So try to look at animals in scripture from the perspective of a shepherd.

A year ago I had to put down a bitch I'd had for 15 years. That was very hard (particularly because I did the job myself). But she was a good bitch. I don't need to think she's happily bounding around a cloud somewhere to be comforted about her. She was a great bitch, now she's a dead bitch, which is very sad, but I have fond memories and photos.

I had a great pet sheep from when I was 3 to 19, who finally died in a tragic manner, which was also very upsetting - but again, she was a sheep. She was a great friend, but still just a sheep. I eat sheep. Every sheep also has a great personality and could be a friend, and I still love my old childhood pet - but I still eat sheep too. That's life.

If the scripture is unclear, then any comfort being given would be false. You can't say "your pet has a spirit and you'll see them again in heaven" if you don't actually know that they will, just because you think it will make them feel better. That's just dishonest. It's like telling your kids "your pet lamb has gone to stay at a farm, he'll be very happy there. Hey, we've got lamb chops for tea, no idea where they came from...".

Just let them know that the scripture is unclear. Don't give them false hope. However much they're grieving, they will get over it eventually.

Anyway, it's better to be a pessimist, assume the animal is gone for good, and then be pleasantly surprised one day, than to expect to see them again and be bitterly disappointed when you don't.
 
My wife informs me that saying "She was a great bitch, shame I had to kill her" on a polygamy website looks really really bad. :shock: However as I have a dark and twisted sense of humour I'll refrain from editing it. I am proceeding on the assumption that all readers are well aware that a bitch is a female dog...
 
Well there was about 400% more bitch in that post than I expected.....

I think the bitter disappointment part is unlikely. I don't know how I could raise my kid in such a way that he could come face to face with his creator and redeemer, and react by casually inquiring about his former pets.

And then proceed to pout if the pet is not forth coming. You know what would be forthcoming? The back of my hand.

By "not a big animal person" I meant not emotional about animals. Clearly I was off base, as you are both more and less attached to animals than most people I know. I sort of occupy the middle ground of not really caring about them, except that the bible talks about them enough to make understanding them a priority.



"If the scripture is unclear, then any comfort being given would be false." "That's just dishonest." "Just let them know that the scripture is unclear."

I don't really think the scripture is unclear at this point, so I don't think it would be dishonest for me to comfort theoretical bereaved pet owners with my current understanding. I am open to having my mind changed, but I rather have to be impressed by the amount of homework done into the matter. I need to be shown the particular with greater clarity and it needs to fit with the rest of scripture. Like polygamy! Careful attention to detail disproves the arguments against it, and it fits with the rest of scripture.

So I need to know that the nuts and bolts of the Ecclesiastes verse tend away from animals having a spirit, instead of it's English appearance that they do, and I'd like to see how it fits with the rest of scripture. The paraphrase of Ecc 3:21 is interesting, but I need to be convinced that your paraphrase is a valid one.

Especially because a spirit's descending into the earth is equivalent to "not persisting" in your paraphrase. Whereas I know it to be true that Samuel was called out of the earth by the witch of Endor, so again, why does Samuel ascend from the earth with personality intact, but animals personalities dissipate?

And like I said, I'm not an animal person in any sense of the word. Or a person person. I'm not against hard truths and telling a crying kid to rub some dirt in it and walk it off. But at this point I think I would be doing so against the flow of scripture.
 
Keep talking guys. Having always had the same perspective as FH it never occurred to me to deeply question whether animals have spirits or not. I have walked in FH shoes of having to put a trusted animal down.
It would be even harder if I thought the animal had a spirit same as a human. Which begs the question would killing an animal constitute murder..?

I think Scripture speaks of humans as having a never dying soul. Will try to look that up.

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Slumberfreeze, I think you miss my point a little. I'm not trying to convince you that animals don't have eternal spirits.

The question is simply:
Is the interpretation I have proposed plausible?
Is the interpretation you have proposed plausible?
Might there be other plausible interpretations?

The answer, as far as I can see, is yes to all three.

Therefore the scripture is unclear. We're just not told this clearly enough to firmly conclude anything. So both assuring someone their pet will be waiting to meet them AND assuring them their pet is gone for good are both misleading. We just don't know. We may have opinions, that's fine, but we don't know. However firmly you hold an opinion on this, that still doesn't make it necessarily correct.

We shouldn't assure someone of something we cannot be sure of.
 
On a different note, my mathematical brain keeps reminding me that for the four bitches in my post to be 400% more bitch than you were expecting, you must have been expecting me to write 0.8 of a bitch, which I suppose would be an itch.
OK, I'm weird, just ignore me... :)
 
Well I always expect it to be sub-vocated, at least! Which I take to be approximately .8 of a word.

Ok, I catch your drift FH. Thank you for trying to keep me grounded, it may indeed bear fruit.

--

Yoder!

First off, I would highly encourage you to keep to FH's attitude about animals, even if you become convinced that animals have spirits and/or souls. He clearly respects them and cares for them, while retaining the knowledge that they are animals. Their lives are, in point of cold fact, worth LESS than ours (Matt 10:31, Luke 12:7), and are to be at our disposal (Gen 9:3) especially. Both of these points are either from the mouth of the Father, or the Lord Jesus, and as such are incontrovertible.
(However I guess on the basis of Romans 14 that even if you did decide to honor God by taking no animal life nor consuming their flesh that God would accept that as legitimate worship.)

I look at it as analogous to the hierarchy that the Father has imposed. The Father has power over the child to do whatever he wants (within limitations) likewise the master over the slave, king over the subject, husband over the wife, teacher over the student (theoretically), even Jew over the gentile to an extent. All of them enjoy freedoms and certain liberties with their inferiors, always within fairly well fleshed out limitations. The same precept is at work between the human and the animal. We may enslave them, and kill them and eat them and wear their skins as we please without rebuke, but we are not to show them cruelty, drink their blood, or have sex with them.

It is likely to me that most, if not all of these relationships are temporary power exchanges, as in Christ their is neither Jew nor Greek, slave or free, male or female. In the Resurrection I do not expect to be shown any favoritism due to my status as a man and free man. (FH disagrees about my free status, but for the sake of argument....) Will we eat meat in the Resurrection? Jesus had no qualms about eating fish... does that count as meat? If so, will animals mind being eaten, or will we all be vegetarians alike? It is also likely to me that we will no longer see the appeal of killing and eating and eating an animal, even as we will no longer see the appeal of marrying a woman!

Second?... off? As far as interesting things related to animals goes: God is accustomed to answering their call (Job 38:41, Psalm 147:9) Job 38:41 is especially interesting. The source of the claim, and the particulars are very intriguing to me.
 
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