SHU Hosts Discussion on Whether Animals Go to Heaven
Speaker explains why she believes all of God’s creations will share in eternal life
Sacred Heart University’s Center for Catholic Studies and Human Journey colloquia series hosted a talk April 14 with Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, “‘You Save Humans and Animals Alike, O Lord,’ (Ps 36:6): Reshaping Our Imagination of Salvation.” The title came from an ancient Biblical prayer that reads in part, “Your steadfast love reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds. You save humans and animals alike, O Lord.” Johnson’s lecture was also the annual Jorge Bergoglio lecture.
Johnson argued that the problem with the Western church’s singular focus on redemption is that it has too often limited itself to human salvation, often in a highly individualistic way and in terms that, at times, paint a picture of an angry God in need of satisfaction. “The prevailing idea among us is that only human beings are saved by Jesus’ death on the cross, an idea captured in the oft-repeated phrase ‘Jesus died to save us from our sins,’” said Johnson.
In Johnson’s opinion, the most important papal encyclical ever written is Laudato Si, issued in 2015 by Pope Francis. Johnson drew from this letter, proposing a reimagining of salvation to include animals and the entire natural world. This new image of salvation includes three steps.
Envisioning the whole community of creation
God created the whole world and everything in it; therefore, humans are kin with animals in one community of creation. When God rested on the seventh day, his creations were all there together. The Western culture has lost sight of this vision, Johnson said.
“We humans—given that we, too, are brought into existence and vivified by the same generous God—share with all others the fundamental identity of being creatures,” said Johnson. “Thus, at root precisely as created, we humans have more in common with other species than we have that separates us. We are kin with the bear, the squid and the bugs in one community of creation.”
Recognizing the suffering of creatures
The Church has taught for centuries that animals and plants were made primarily for human use. “In technical terms, they had instrumental rather than intrinsic value in God’s eyes,” Johnson said of the Church’s teachings. “Consequently, at the end of the world, plants and animals will disappear, since their purpose is to provide for our needs.”
According to Pope Francis, however, we are called to recognize that other beings have meaning of their own. Plants and animals are not subordinate; rather, they have an intrinsic value in God’s eyes independent of their usefulness to humans.
All creatures are moving with us and through us, Johnson asserted. “The daily effort to stay alive also entails suffering and death,” said Johnson. “Eating is essential. The body of one creature becomes a nutrient stream sustaining the life of another. As some scholars put it, the pattern of evolving life is cruciform. There is no creation without sacrifice.”
Without death, there is no new life, but does God turn away and abandon creatures to their suffering and death? Johnson stated that all nature will be saved because of God’s fidelity, and everything dies in God’s sight.
Deepening the idea of Jesus Christ as savior
The Gospel of John reads that the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us. Incarnation, meaning “into the flesh,” posits that “in Christ, God joined earthly life as an enfleshed participant with a personal life story and a death,” said Johnson.
Western civilization often confines the meaning of incarnation to God’s identification with human flesh, unlike the Bible and Eastern theology, which view incarnation as encompassing all living flesh, called deep incarnation.
“As a creature of Earth, Jesus was a complex living unit in the oxygen and carbon and nitrogen cycles,” said Johnson. “The atoms comprising his body were once part of other creatures. The genetic structure of the cells in his body were kin to the flowers, the fish, the frogs, the finches, the foxes—the whole community of life that descended from common ancestors in the ancient seas.”
Therefore, Jesus’ anguish is shared by all who die, and He becomes an icon of the suffering of all life, said Johnson. God’s love for all beings does not quit, and Jesus’ death brings the promise of something more.
Johnson ended the discussion with a quote from Laudato Si, in which Pope Francis envisions where this is all going: “‘At the end, we will find ourselves face to face with the infinite beauty of God.’”