A Biblical Case for the Rainbow Bridge

A few months ago, my family’s dog passed. It was in many ways both expected and shocking, foreseen and completely out of the blue. For weeks afterwards, I would return home and find myself a little confused when she wasn’t there at the door. It’s a pain that many are familiar with, and one which has led innumerable people to ask that eternal question, “Do dogs go to heaven?”

For centuries, the Christian orthodoxy has held that the answer to that question is a simple and unsatisfying “No”. The typical argument states that animals don’t have souls, and therefore are not eligible for the glories of heaven. Personally, I think that’s a cruel way to think of things, particularly if you believe in a loving God. But the good news is that I can make a scriptural case for animals in heaven regardless what the traditional authorities say.

For starters, I want to begin with the fact that the Bible is not entirely clear on what a soul is or whether they even exist in the first place. Now you may think that’s insane and assume that the Bible must obviously speak about something so pivotal to most peoples’ theologies, but it truly does not have much to say on the nature of souls. In fact, the Hebrew word most often translated as “soul” in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) is “nephesh”, which really refers to the sum totality of a person - body and mind. And in the New Testament, the term most often translated to “soul” is the Greek “psyche” which you might recognize as the root of words such as psychology. “Psyche” really refers to mind or sentience, though, like “nephesh”, it came to be associated with the concept of a soul as we now understand it.

The most essential takeaway here is that while these terms have come to be associated with our modern concept of a soul as a separate and eternal entity, that was not their original meaning. Both words had more to do with the totality of a being, and interestingly enough actually both carry connotations related to “breath” - as in the “breath of life”. The second thing to note here is that the Hebrew Bible uses the term “nephesh” to refer to humans and animals (with the exceptions of bugs, so I guess the jury is still out on whether bugs have souls on a Biblical basis). This use of the same term for humans and animals showcases a certain equality that we tend to downplay or overlook in our current understandings of the Biblical texts.

Another point of equality can be found in Genesis 1:20-22. After God creates animals, He sees that they are good and blesses them with a familiar blessing, “Be fruitful and multiply.” A few verses later, God creates humans and blesses them as well, saying once more, “Be fruitful and multiply.” We often see the second instance of this blessing being used in evangelical and conservative circles as a commandment from God to multiply, typically because reading this as a commandment becomes useful as a weapon against gay folks. But, this is not a commandment. In fact, the text quite clearly identifies these two instances as blessings. In other words, God is wishing these groups well, not commanding them to do anything. The fact that God gives the same blessing to all animals as He does to humans certainly feels important to me.

Next, I want to take us a little further into Genesis. At the end of the story of the flood, in Genesis 9:9-11, God says:

I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.

The story continues in verses 12 and 13:

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.

Typically, when we discuss biblical covenants, we point to the covenant God makes with Abraham or his covenant with the Israelites as a whole, but rarely do we pay attention to his covenant with every living creature on Earth. We are primed to think of God’s covenants as something that occurs between God and humans. We are not often reminded that God has also made a covenant with all living creatures for all generations - another sign of the equality of humans and animals as seen through the eyes of God.

Next, I want to take us to Matthew’s gospel, particularly verse 10:29:

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.

In this verse, Jesus speaks of the relative care that humans hold for sparrows versus the care that God has for them. For humans, sparrows are worth almost nothing, bought and sold for very little. However, God cares deeply for them and not one sparrow will “fall to the ground” without God knowing. Admittedly, Jesus does then go on to say humans are worth far more in the eyes of God than sparrows, which undermines understandings of equality between humans and animals, but I don’t believe that undermines the core argument - that God cares deeply for animals as He does for humans (even if the comparative care for one group over the other may be more).

Unfortunately, the Bible doesn’t speak about animals all that often. In fairness, that’s because it wouldn’t be much use to them unless they could read. The Bible is a book by people to people about the relationship of people to God. Because of this, humans are at the forefront of the narratives and the teachings, but even then we still see occasional signs that God cares deeply for animals. He blesses them as he blesses humans, binds covenants with them as He does with humans, and cares when even the “least” of these animals “fall to the ground”. From what we can see, God’s love for animals, while perhaps less than His love for humans, is not absent from the narrative. God loves humans and God loves animals. And as far as souls are concerned, the Bible isn’t as clear about them as we would necessarily think.

In the end, I don’t really believe in a conscious afterlife. But for those who do believe, whether heaven in their mind is a recreated Earth, a new Jerusalem, a spiritual abode in another realm, or even a mystical union with God (my preferred understanding if I needed to pick one), I simply cannot understand a version of this heaven that does not include God choosing to be united with each and every member of His creation, human and animal alike.

So, to answer that perennial question, “Do dogs go to heaven?” Yes. Each and every one.