Talking Beasts :or: Wherein I Disagree With Charles Colson

The Scriptures tell us that animals are soulless creatures and will perish with the rest of creation. We will not see them while our suls rest with God; when Christ returns and our bodies are resurrected, we will live in the new heavens and new earth–where there may be new, not resurrected, animals.

–Charles Colson, Christianity Today “Keeping Pets In Their Place”

Of course this particular article struck a chord with me after the events of last Good Friday. Suffice to say, I disagree with Colson. Not entirely, though. Because I believe in Talking Beasts.

In the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis makes the distinction between Talking Beasts and Dumb [Mute] Beasts. The Talking Beasts interact with and often drastically affect the courses of men. Reepicheep is not just any rodent. There are mice and rats who are ordinary, of course, and they go about their business of doing micely, ratly things. But great events of the story happen through Reepicheep.

Of course I realise that is all fiction, but I do think that Lewis has used the power of story to illustrate the way some folks relate to their pets and, further, a way in which Colson misses out on one of the great points of Mystical Christianity.

Colson’s main argument seems to be that because animals have no souls, they are not redeemed and therefore are not in heaven.

However, if animals have no souls, they did not fall into sin as did mankind and therefore aren’t in need of redemption in the first place. Why, then, would they perish into dust?

But that’s all beside the point–because of the Talking Beasts. I believe that certain animals–those who become pets, for instance–are tools of God. The same Scriptures Colson relies upon to condemn pets to eternal death are full of examples wherein God uses animals to alter the course of humanity. Balaam’s ass and Jonah’s great fish are the two main examples. In both of those cases God directly used an living creature to communicate God’s will to the people involved.

I believe that for many people their pets serve a similar function. I hesitate to say this because I don’t mean to evoke the sort of cheap and tacky pastel puppy-with-angel’s-wings image that has become so popular in dimestore spirituality. Yet I cannot stress enough that I have spent many hours knowing the comfort of God through the comforting ministrations of a pet dog and cat. No, we don’t worship the pets, of course. But we can acknowledge that the God who we cannot see uses an appealing form–a cute puppy, an adorable cat, a wrinkly-nosed rabbit–as a way to let us know we are loved. A way to let us find peace on days without peace, a way to find a brief surcease from pain.

I haven’t been to heaven yet, so I can’t tell anyone what it’s like. But I do know from Scripture (the same Scripture Colson uses) that heaven will be a place where we are reunited with God. Where we see God face to face after years of viewing through a glass, darkly. I often think that pets are part of that dark glass through which God shows God’s face to us on earth. I believe strongly that just as the angels God uses will be a part of eternity so will those beasts which have talked to us on earth.