Quick Answer: No.
Key Scriptures:
None
really. I looked through all 95 instances
of the word <psuche> as used in the NT.
94 of the uses clearly refer to the soul of human beings. For example, see my note on I Pet 3:20 below.
The 95th use, found in Rev 8:9,
is discussed in the Related Scriptures section and cannot be used to
confidently claim that animals have souls.
Beyond that, I did not find any indication that animals have
<psuche>.
In
addition, I could not find anything that references an animal having a
<pneuma>. Jesus did send the evil
spirits into a herd of swine, but that is clearly presented as an unusual (miraculous)
event. Scripture is about the spiritual
realm and is always about humans, not animals.
I Pet 3:20 “a few…eight
<psuche> were saved by water” – speaking about the people saved on
Noah’s ark. Here, the human souls are
clearly counted even though there were numerous animals of all kinds saved on
the ark. This verse seems to clearly
distinguish the human <psuche> from the life of all of the other animals
that were saved after the flood. This is
an example of how the whole tenor of scripture assumes that human beings are
the only creatures with a <psuche-pneuma>. Only humans can sin. Jesus died only for humans.
Caveat:
I thought
this might be a simple question and not that important. As it turns out, it is both difficult to
answer and has broader implications on Christian beliefs than I initially
imagined. I gave a "quick
answer" of no, but it may warrant further study.
Related Scriptures
and Thoughts:
Rev 8:9…the third part of the creatures which were in the
sea, and had <psuche>, died. Given that there is no other verse that references animals having souls, it is
important to make sure that there is only one logical interpretation to this
verse if we're going to claim that this verse means that animals have souls
(or, more specifically, that fish have souls!).
However, there are at least three logical interpretations of this
verse:
1) The term
"creatures" refers to animals (non-humans) and <psuche> means
"soul" in the unique sense, thus implying that animals - at least sea
creatures - have souls.
2) The term "creatures"
is referring to humans.
3) The term <psuche> is
referring to life in general, not the "soul" in the unique sense.
With
respect to option #2, note first that the point of the verse is not to
talk about souls; it is talking about
death and destruction in the end times.
It could be that the "creatures in the sea with
<psuche>" were all "human creatures". Especially since it seems like the word “in”
could be “on”. At any given moment,
there must be a lot of human beings in or on (mostly on) the sea. Yes, it would seem weird for John to use the
word "creature" (Greek: ktisma) to mean just humans, but not
completely out of the question. That
word is only used four times in the NT.
The other use of the term in Revelation, Rev.
5:13, speaks of all creatures praising God. Even there the word could be referring to
humans only, though it would seem like an odd word choice. I think the general interpretation of the
word is that it means "every created thing", but that would also
include non-living things like rocks, and certainly rocks don't have souls. But, regardless, some words are used in an
unusual way in Revelation, so I don't think we can completely eliminate this
option as a possible interpretation.
I think
the most likely explanation is that the word <psuche> is meant to convey
the idea of "life" and not in specific reference to a soul (option
#3). The verse could be thus
interpreted as saying that "things living in the sea were destroyed",
which is consistent with the context of the verse. As I have discussed elsewhere, there is some
fuzziness about how terms like <psuche> and <soma> and <sarx>
are used in the NT. The question is
whether the word <psuche> is used elsewhere in the NT to clearly refer to
the idea of "life" rather than "soul." I found at least one instance where this is
the case: Luke 12:22.
Luke 12:22 shows that <psuche> is used to mean
life – even physical life – in some cases.
“Take no thought for your <psuche>, what
ye shall eat…” Jesus is referring
to worrying about finding physical food, so the "eating" is physical
eating, which is necessary to sustain physical life. Physical eating doesn't sustain the
soul. Therefore, at least in this verse,
the term <psuche> is used to mean physical life. I think that the term <psuche> is being
used in the same manner in Rev 8:9.
Discussion:
My
conclusion is that non-human animals do not have a supernatural soul. Animals have <zoe> life, which is a
physical life, but not a spiritual life.
They are not responsible for their own actions. The presence of the <psuche-pneuma> is
a distinguishing factor in human beings when compared to all other creatures in
the universe.
I'm sorry
to all you dog and cat lovers out there!
However, a lack of a soul does not mean that there won't be dogs in
heaven. With respect to that issue,
scripture is completely silent. But if
you need dogs or cats or butterflies in heaven in order for it to really be
heaven, then I'm sure they'll be there.
If animals
did have souls, then this would present significant complications. First, where would you draw the line as to
which animals - or living things - have souls.
Most people I know, if they tend to think animals have souls, think of
dogs and cats, but not frogs and bats. And
certainly not spiders and cockroaches.
Or grass and mold. But where
would you draw the line for "soul-possession"? There is certainly nothing in scripture to
guide such a dividing line. Actually
there is: the dividing line is between
humans and all other creatures of any sort.
Humans are unique, and one of the distinguishing characteristics...or
maybe the fundamental distinguishing characteristic...is that humans have souls and no other creatures have
souls.
Is there
room in Christianity to believe that animals sin? It seems that the whole tenor of scripture is
that only humans can sin, but I can't think of a passage that is explicit about
that. Only Adam and Eve are described as
eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The implication is that Adam and Eve were the
only ones to eat from that tree. Any
attribution of moral responsibility to any creature other than humans is
outside of scripture.
What about
animals showing emotions? Certainly we
tend to attribute to our pets a lot of "human emotions". My working hypothesis is this: if animals only have <sarx> and
<zoe>, then any attribute an animal might exhibit must be the
<sarx> in action, not the result of a <psuche-pneuma>. Given this hypothesis, it seems clear that
there are many emotions that span both <sarx> and <psuche-pneuma>
and it is very difficult to tell when, in humans, they have crossed the line
from a purely <sarx> (physical) response to one that is now driven by the
<psuche-pneuma>. Anger is a good
example. Certainly animals get
angry. Humans get angry. Jesus got angry. God gets angry. We are told that not all anger is sin. "Be angry and do not sin." No animal sins by being angry. In the case of anger, there is also a
morally-right anger - we call it "righteous anger". We know righteous anger exists because God
can be described as angry. Thus, it can
be instructive to consider the emotions that animals show, because that can
help us understand where our emotions can be purely "fleshly" and
where they might be more spiritual (or moral) in nature. If there is a moral component to an emotion,
it becomes uniquely human. If there is a
type of anger that is sinful (there is), then that is a type of anger that is
unique to humans. Sexual immorality is
another example. Animals never commit
sexual immorality, but humans do. But
for humans, sex has a moral component that can be good or bad.
I think
that Christians have to be careful about ascribing human traits to their pets. In general these attributions are harmless
and there is no deep meaning intended.
But we have to make sure we keep God's eternal priorities in our minds
if we are to live according to Christian principles. The eternal spiritual state of each human
being is an eternal priority for God.
The eternal state of any other created being is not an eternal
priority. We should not mix those things
up in our own lives.
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