A reader named Grace submitted this Spiritual Conundrum to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life:
I lost my 12 year old Lab to brain Cancer last summer. I miss him terribly. Will we see our pets again in heaven?
Thanks for your question, Grace. I’m so sorry to hear about the death of your dog.
Samson
Pets become members of our family—each with a unique personality. However, most pets have shorter lifespans than we humans do. The companionship and joy of sharing our lives with animal friends is tinged with a time of loss and grieving when their lives come to an end.
Death is a natural and inevitable event for all living beings on earth. For our human friends and family, we have the hope and assurance that we will see them again when it comes our time to die (see “What Happens To Us When We Die?”).
Can we have the same hope and assurance of seeing our pets in the afterlife?
Well . . . I have good news, and I have bad news.
First, the bad news: From a Christian perspective, animals do not have eternal souls.
But here’s the good news: That doesn’t mean we won’t see our pets in heaven.
Let’s take a closer look.
Animals do not have eternal souls
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first.
It would certainly be more popular among animal-lovers to say that animals have eternal souls. However, from a Christian perspective, while animals do have souls, their souls are not eternal, as human souls are.
Animals do have souls. Without souls they could not be alive. Our body is not alive by itself. Rather, it is our soul that lives within our body, and gives life to our body. When we die, what actually happens is that our soul leaves our body. Without the soul to give it life, our body is as dead as a doornail. It’s just a very complex piece of organic matter that soon decomposes and is reabsorbed into the earth.
Animals, too, must have souls in order to be alive. When they die, their souls, too, leave their bodies. However, unlike human souls, they do not go on to a conscious existence in the spiritual world. Instead, they are reabsorbed into the spiritual ecosystem just as their bodies are reabsorbed into the material ecosystem.
Animal souls vs. human souls
Surya
Why the difference between animal souls and human souls?
Animal souls consist only of the lowest level of spiritual reality. This level has to do with taking care of basic physical and psychological needs such as food, water, shelter, reproduction, and the companionship and protection of the group in social animals. Animals need these external, earth-oriented spiritual levels so that they can go about their daily lives seeking and obtaining what they need to continue living and perpetuate their species.
Human souls add the higher, more spiritual and heavenly levels of spiritual reality. These levels give us:
- The ability to think rationally and consider not only different possible courses of action, but their various moral, ethical, and spiritual implications.
- The spiritual freedom to make moral, ethical, and spiritual choices, such as whether we will act from love and concern for our fellow human beings or act only for our own advancement and pleasure.
- The ability to think about God and the spiritual world, and make goals that involve more than satisfying material and social needs. We humans are able to direct our life according to the will of God as we understand it, and to act for the eternal wellbeing of ourselves and our fellow human beings.
These are all things that lower animals simply can’t do.
And these are precisely the things that make human souls eternal. In particular, our ability to form a conscious relationship with God is what makes our soul eternal. Even if we choose to reject our relationship with God, the fact that we have the ability to do so means that a human being’s soul will never cease to exist as a conscious, self-aware being.
Animals do not have spiritual freedom or rationality, and cannot even think about God, let alone form a relationship with God. Their souls are focused on the things of this earth, not on the things of heaven. That’s why their conscious existence is limited to this earth. In a sense, this earth is their heaven.
Of course, there are other points of view. For example, most Eastern religions include the idea of reincarnation. Sound good, pet-lovers? Unfortunately, if reincarnation did happen as popularly believed, and the soul of Tiger or Buster continued on, it would be as a whole different animal. The pet you loved would no longer exist. (About reincarnation, see “The Bible, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Reincarnation.”)
Okay, that’s the bad news. You may not want to hear it, but it’s better to speak the truth as I understand it. Of course, you’re free to make up your own mind what to believe. Nobody’s going to heaven or to hell because of what they believe about pets in heaven!
Now let’s move on to the good news.
Despite what I’ve said so far, things aren’t so bleak for those who have loved and lost pets.
There are animals in heaven
Here is the first piece of good news: Just because animals don’t have eternal souls, that doesn’t mean there are no animals in heaven.
All of the animals we see here on earth also exist in the spiritual world—and many more that don’t even exist here!
- In heaven, there are all sorts of beautiful and gentle animals, birds, and fish.
- In hell, there are all sorts of frightful and vicious animals, birds, and fish.
- In the “world of spirits” between heaven and hell, there is a mix.
Reuben
However, the animals in the spiritual world are not the souls of animals who have died on earth. Instead, they are reflections and expressions of the thoughts and feelings of the (human) spirits and angels who live in the various areas of the spiritual world.
The reason heaven contains beautiful and gentle animals is that they reflect and express the state of mind of the people there. Different angels and communities of angels will have different animals because angels, like people on earth, are different from one another.
For the same reason, hell contains frightful and vicious animals because they reflect the state of mind of the evil spirits there. In fact, from a distance, evil spirits themselves often look like fierce, predatory animals—because that’s exactly what they are like in character and personality.
In short, the animals in the spiritual world do not come from the material world. Instead, they come into being in the spiritual world based on the thoughts and feelings of the people there.
In heaven we are surrounded by what we love
Here is the second piece of good news: In heaven we will be surrounded by the people, objects, scenery, and everything else that we love.
It’s not that we “create our own reality” as the popular New Age meme has it. What really happens is that God creates surroundings for us that express everything we love and everything we think. In the spiritual world, we inhabit the world of our own mind and heart—and of the minds and hearts of the other people in our community.
- If you love the big city, you’ll live in a bustling city full of different people and ideas.
- If you love wide open spaces, you’ll live on an open plain with big horizons.
- If you love the mountains, there will be plenty of mountains all around.
- If you love the ocean, you’ll live near, or even on, a vast ocean.
The reason for this is not only to give you happiness and pleasure. It is also that the things we love reflect the type of person we are. Cities, wide open spaces, mountains, oceans . . . these all reflect different human states of mind and heart. And the spiritual world is the world of the human mind and heart.
Will we see our pets again in heaven?
Now perhaps you can answer for yourself the question of whether you will see your pets in heaven.
Rex
Do you love your pet? Does your pet’s personality reflect some of your own thoughts and feelings? Do you feel a kinship with your pet? Have you and your pet shared enjoyable experiences together that you still carry in your heart?
I am confident that those who love their pets dearly will see them again in heaven.
It’s not that your pet has died and gone to heaven. It’s that you hold your pet in your heart, with strong feelings of love and companionship. Everything of your pet’s character is recorded in your mind and heart—and also in the mind and heart of God.
And I believe that in heaven, God will provide us with everything we love, and everything that makes us happy.
However . . . I have put Annette on notice that it will not be okay for all of the dozens of cats and dogs that she has owned and loved in her lifetime to sleep on the bed with us in heaven!
This article is a response to a spiritual conundrum submitted by a reader.
You might also enjoy:
- What Happens To Us When We Die?
- Where are my Children who have Died? Will I Ever See Them Again?
- What Does it Mean When My Parents Die? Will I See Them Again?
- Who Are the Angels and How Do They Live?
- Heaven and Hell, by Emanuel Swedenborg
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
This opinion is compatible with my Catholic grade school nun’s teaching.
She told us all things are possible with God so then *heaven will be what you want it to be* Your favorite pets? Sure.
Reliving a favorite Christmas or birthday, eternal happiness with God . No sorrow, pain, or infirmity.
Hi mary gold,
Thanks for stopping by. It sounds like you had a kind and perceptive teacher, which is something to be thankful for!
I need some clarity on your article. When you say our pets will be a reflection of our thoughts in heaven, are you saying they will only be there as part of our imagination or will they really be there because we want them there? I don’t want a false reality or a copy of my pet, I want the same pet I had while on earth. Please clarify.
Hi Susan,
Thanks for stopping by. Your question is a good one, but it’s a little tricky to answer because spiritual reality doesn’t work quite the same way as physical reality.
First the practical answer: Your pet in heaven will be every bit as real, solid, furry, affectionate, and full of energy and quirks of character as your pet is here on earth. You really won’t be able to tell the difference.
Whether it will be “the same pet you had while on earth” is a little trickier. That’s because spiritual reality doesn’t have the type of fixed, objective reality that physical reality here on earth does. Everything in the spiritual world is an outward reflection of our inner states. This includes even our own body, our house, and the trees, rivers, mountains, and skies of heaven. Outward things that reflect settled, stable parts of our personality—and of the character of the community that we live in—will remain stable in the spiritual world. People do live in houses that don’t vanish or radically change from day to day, because their houses reflect their own settled character.
However, plants and animals in heaven do go through changes that reflect our changing thoughts and emotions. So sometimes trees and animals do appear and disappear there because the thoughts and feelings of the people in the area go through major changes.
As for pets, since most people have a settled, ongoing relationship with their pets that reflects ongoing feelings within themselves, I believe that pets will be among the beings that have a stable existence, and don’t appear and disappear based on fleeting emotional changes.
Does this make them “real” in the same way our pets are “real” here on earth? Not exactly. They don’t have their own existence separate from our thoughts and feelings. But since they do reflect real thoughts and feelings that are a part of our own personality, they will remain just as solid and real to angels in heaven as our pets are to us here on earth.
I know this may be hard to wrap your head around. That’s why I said it’s a tricky question to answer. But as I said, spiritual reality works differently than material reality in that it directly reflects the character, thoughts, ideas, and emotions of the angels who live there. This doesn’t make things there less real. In fact, they will be even more real to us because they connect directly to who we are as a person.
And back to the practical: Your pet will be every bit as real to you there as here.
Here I see is the problem with Swedenborg… He could have settled for “I don’t know if animals get an afterlife, it doesn’t concern me or my regeneration” but instead he chose “no animals get an afterlife because I didn’t see any while I was up there”. This is almost as unbelievable as his claims that ‘human’ aliens exist on every planet in the universe (it would be more realistic to say that at least non-human life existed on every planet, he ignores animals and has been known to eat eels and other such exotic creatures).
You might dismiss my opinion since your views are already set (you wouldn’t have written this article if you didn’t firmly believe this) but this only tells me that Swedenborgs rosy view of the hereafter is greatly influenced by Christianity and the science of his time.
Yes there is an afterlife, we know this and it can’t be disproven. But Swedenborg makes a fatal error by forgetting love does not die. People are the only ones with love. This is something that a child understands but it escapes the wise and well learned such as Swedenborg and theologians. I wouldn’t be suprised if much of Swedenborg’s books are just his own beliefs injected in to seem like it was divinely inspired.
Swedenborg has lost me, a longtime follower. My only belief is that “you only need to know love” (as said in an NDE that I saw) and that there is an afterlife (the latter belief is necessary to not be caught in atheism/nihilism/pessimism which aren’t the best way to use your life)
Hi Jake,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
However, I must admit, I’m a bit confused. As covered in the article, according to Swedenborg there are animals in heaven, and love is the substance and reality of heaven. This makes me wonder if something else happened in your life that has caused you to go sour on Swedenborg. If so, I’m sorry to hear it.
I agree with you that Swedenborg was mistaken about intelligent, human-type life living on every planet. I think he did meet people from other planets in the spiritual world, but that he was mistaken about what planets they came from. We now know that none of the other planets in our solar system is now or ever was inhabited by advanced, intelligent life. But in Swedenborg’s day, modern science was in his infancy, and very little was known about the conditions on other planets. The science of his day certainly did affect his understanding and expression of the spiritual and divine truth he was (I believe) receiving from God via the spiritual world. For more about life on other planets, please see: “Aliens vs. Advent: Swedenborg’s 1758 Book on Extraterrestrial Life.”
And about Swedenborg’s writings in general, and the influence on them of the science and general knowledge of his day, please see: “Do the Teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg take Precedence over the Bible?” The conservative followers of Swedenborg who think that every single thing he said in his spiritual writings must be absolutely true and divinely revealed—even the scientific, historical, and cultural parts—are very much mistaken. Yes, he delivered an eternal divine message. But it had to be delivered in human, time-bound clothing, or no human being would have been able to understand it.
Thanks again for stopping by. I hope the linked articles—especially the second one—will be helpful to you.
Godspeed on your spiritual journey.
That we can’t tell the difference between our pets and spiritual image of our pets sounds illusory and negates the concept of a loving God. The loving God need not resort to trickery. When our pets greet us in heaven, they are the same ones that shared their love with us, not our imagination of them.
Hi Petsareawesome,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
My response is that a loving God has given animals their heaven right here on earth. Animals are focused entirely on the joys and pleasures of this material world: seeking out the food they enjoy, mating and rearing their young, engaging in social interaction with others of their kind—and in the case of pets and domesticated animals, with human beings. They have their heaven here on earth because the things they love and enjoy are the things of this earth.
It is similar to some strands of Judaism, represented in the New Testament by the Sadducees, which hold that there is no afterlife, but that God blesses the good and curses the evil during their lifetimes here on earth, and also in the lives of their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Though I don’t agree with that view when it comes to human beings, when it comes to animals I do believe that God gives animals their joys and pleasures here on earth, since those are the joys and pleasures that animals seek.
Humans, however, are able to seek out and enjoy higher things, such as a conscious relationship with God, the joy of ideas and learning, the joy of developing into a morally and spiritually aware being, and of acting toward our fellow human beings from moral and spiritual principles, and so on. These are spiritual joys and pleasures, which animals do not have the capacity to love and enjoy. That’s because humans are designed by God to live in the spiritual world, with only a brief gestation period here on earth, whereas animals are designed to live in the natural world.
The animals in the spiritual world, then, are reflections of the loves and pleasures of the human beings—angels and spirits—who inhabit that world. They are not merely illusory images, but rather spiritual creations of God, through the lens of the minds and hearts of the inhabitants of the various parts of the spiritual world, reflecting what is in those minds and hearts. So they are not merely our imagination, but are real, solid, spiritual creations. We don’t literally “create our heaven” as some hold. Rather, God creates our heaven for us, including the scenery, plants, and animals that reflect the thoughts of our minds and the joys of our hearts.
That, at any rate, is my belief. You, of course, are quite free to believe otherwise.
Oh Lee what a can of worms this topic is. I hope nobody has any pet worms.
I think for me my heartache is that I do love my pet, always will, and we all feel our pets are a part of our families. Really. Full members. Included in the family photo even. Major emotional ties. Especially if we have them as children.
Nobody wants to hear Grandma doesn’t exist anymore. To some pet owners that’s kind of along the lines of what they are hearing because it’s such an emotional issue, such a bond created and nurtured. Love is so strong. Raw emotion tied to love can override rationality, even in Swedenborgians. We often see our pets as individuals because they have personalities, and to a deeper degree see them as extensions of our selves. And in some cases, people that cannot have children love their pets so deeply as if they were children. More often than not we cry harder for an animal that died in a movie than we do for the star. To lighten it up for a sec, my dog growing up would run to the hamper and get the dirty socks/underwear of whichever member of the household pulled up into the driveway and then wait by the door to greet them. So cute, right?
In the comments I make on your blog you may start to notice that I bring up the connection and interaction between the spiritual world and the natural world, earth. That’s because it fascinates me to no end. I’m no expert and that is why I post, so we can all gain more perspectives, knowledge, and understanding.
So with that preface, I’ve always felt like the spiritual sphere we carry around us and treat our pets with is very much an influence on these pets. Hard to mistreat an animal and have Angels around. Hard to be kind to an animal and not make evil spirits disinterested and leave our presence. (Could that be the key to the power of a therapy animal?)
It makes me wonder what Angels are around. What are the attributes that these Angels have? Since this is Love that connects us do I share some common loves with the Angels that are present? And if I met these Angels in Heaven would I feel a mysterious kinship with them? Would they know or remember me? Might we even live in the same community?
And to further upset people reading this blog, I’m so sorry, but members of our family are not always going to live in the same community in Heaven. So who gets the dog? We all do right?
A dear friends mother passed away recently. She was afraid that her mother would call their family dog up to Heaven because her mother loved that dog more than anyone else did. I could only reassure her that her mother was busy discovering the wonders of Heaven and that she would not call the dog before his time because the family still needed him. True and incorrect, I believe. But I don’t think any real harm done. I guess as soon as her mother thought about that dog he came barreling in licking and wagging… even though he is still here.
My thoughts progress and this leads me to wonder, once we get to the other world… I’m not sure we will need our pets like we think we might. I myself plan on spending a lot of time finding and being with my soulmate 🙂 I think the love of Use and the love for my fellow Angels will dwarf my love for even my most favorite of favorite pets, which will not diminish at all, no, it’s just I do believe our capacity for love will increase exponentially. Or by ten fold. Or by some number of cubits, however the biblical saying goes. Yes, the more emotional the issue the more my humorous defense mechanisms pop up.
We are not in Heaven yet. We have to deal with the here and now. So I think it could help to consider that because of how we treated and loved our pet, we have contributed to making the universe a better place, that we have elevated the baseline so to speak, by exposing our pets to love and consequently drawing Angels near. Does that make sense? If not, what is the opposite, what happens if we all were kicking and abusing and shouting nonstop at our pets?
I struggled with a loss years ago. All dogs don’t go to Heaven? Blasphemy! To cope and to put it in perspective I knew that people truly were more important than animals. But it was hard, my emotion and my ego told me they should be equal. So I tested myself with a mind exercise, Ok make a choice, a car is coming, 80mph… either my beloved pet will be run over, or a strangers child will be run over. I can only save one. Tough pill to swallow even considering that question, but that horrible and offensive exercise brought the rational back to my mind. Tempered my love for my pet, put it in perspective and reminded me that those of us with eternal souls, well, we’re kind of the point, we’re kind of a big deal. And that brought me peace in the idea that the Use that pet provided was to nurture my love and empathy for all things good and small. She made me a better person.
Sorry to bring up that painful exercise so I hope I brought it around sufficiently, so to speak. The tears are near.
Tough topic. I can still remember my last walk with Sammie. I knew it was our last. I could sense a peacefulness in her and Angels all around as I scooped her up and carried her the rest of the way. Aww, man, I just made myself cry.
We are certainly allowed to miss them.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for your thoughts. I agree that our pets provide opportunities for us to grow in love and thoughtfulness for other sentient beings just as our fellow humans do. Sometimes we shower more love and affection on our pets than on the people with whom we share our homes, our workplaces, and our communities. It’s all good practice for heaven. Though it would be nice if we could get at least as good at loving our fellow human beings as we are at loving our pets.
And as for those who abuse animals, I think there is a special place in hell for them, just as there is for those who abuse children, or adults, or any other being, or even the earth. Then again, thankfully, it’s not my job to decide who goes where.
Personally, I’m not a big pet person, though the pets seem to like me. I do mostly give them affection—along with an occasional swat when they get into something I don’t want them getting into. They are then annoyed with me for about . . . five seconds before coming back for more love.
Annette is the pet person in this household. She tells me she’s going to have all her pets with her in heaven. And I tell her that in heaven, we are not going to have twenty-five cats and a dog sleeping with us in the bed!
On many of these things, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens once we get there. We don’t even know where we’ll be and what we’ll be doing five years from now right here on earth. I’m sure there are even more surprises awaiting us in the spiritual world.
I believe we will see our pets after we die! Even if its hundreds or even thousands of animals I think that if we have had a strong love for all of them then we are attached to them by this love and that kind of love can never be broken!
I love my pets more than I have loved any human! And they have given me more love than any human!
So I don’t believe the stupid religions in the world. Who are they to say anything about anything!? I’ve never heard Jesus say that we don’t see our pets after we die. So please don’t believe everything you hear. They are probably wrong!
Hi Paula,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment. Yes, I think people give, and gain, much love from their pets. And isn’t that what life is all about? Giving and receiving love?
I don’t necessarily agree that life on earth is animals’ heaven. How about all the animals that are abused, killed or slaughtered cruelly. Was their life here on earth really heaven for them? I think not. I believe that if animals and humans exist here on earth together and there is a bond between them here on earth, that bond is continued in heaven. There’s enough room in heaven for us and all our beloved animals.
Hi Janelle,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your thoughts. Yes, for some animals life here on earth is quite hellish, unfortunately—mostly because of human mistreatment of them. In nature, their lives are generally fairly good, and their deaths are usually quick.
In the first place if you read and listen to what Thousands of people that never even knew each other – who have been pronounced clinically dead – no heart beat , no breathing, no brain activity and then brought back to life (NDE’s) they ALL say the same thing – there is NO hell – contrary to what the bible says and teach’s in order to “keep people in line” . So as far as believing what people that Do believe in a Hell have to say about an animals soul – you really have to think twice
Hi Bob,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
In fact, quite a few people have experienced hell in their near-death experiences. It doesn’t get as much press as the much more common heavenly NDEs, but it is a real phenomenon. Here is just one link to some people who experienced something of hell when they had a near-death experience:
https://ndestories.org/category/hell-hellish-realms/
However, an overly literal interpretation of the Bible common in traditional Christianity has given people an inaccurate picture of what hell is, and what it is for. On that, please see:
Is There Really a Hell? What is it Like?
However, even if animals did have eternal souls, they wouldn’t go to hell because they do not have the ability to choose evil over good as humans do.
Hi Lee, I hope you and Annette are doing well! Regarding our pets in heaven, you mention that there are animals in the spiritual world that don’t exist on earth. Does that mean that some people in heaven will have pets that are, to us, “out of the ordinary”, and could that also be an expression of their soul and character? As childish a question as it may come off as, it’s a popular enough trope in fantasy stories for people to have “extraordinary” animals, such as griffons and phoenixes, as pets, I wonder if such a thing will be possible in the afterlife. Thanks for your thoughts!
God Bless,
Chad
Hi Chad,
Swedenborg does mention seeing various mythical creatures in heaven, including dragons, basilisks, and the three-headed dog Cerberus, as well as two-headed dogs. All of these are in connection with evil and hell, though Cerberus is also seen as a guardian of communities of heaven against any evil onslaught.
Based on these mentions of mythical creatures, I see no reason why other mythical creatures such as griffins and phoenixes couldn’t exist in the spiritual world as well. In Chinese heavens, I expect that there will be dragons representing powerful good.
I really hope that everything in Heaven or the Spirit World is not mere reflection or externalisation of our inner thoughts. That seems terribly empty. I have been reading The Frontiers of The Afterlife and other books which seem to suggest that the Spirit World is every bit as real as the physical world is here. Just at a higher molecular vibration. There is a claim in physics that energy can never be destroyed, it merely changes in form. I prefer to consider that our beloved pets merely change form to suit an existence in the spirit realm. Perhaps the idea that they cannot have eternal life is merely to say that they cannot be conscious of that because they just “are”. Aspects of existence manifest in the Beyond by the bonds of love and memory. They will be there I’m sure. I will need a big house…
Hi leeannemeredith,
Everything in the spiritual world is an “externalization of our inner thoughts.” However:
The physical universe is also an externalization of our thoughts and feelings, and more broadly, of God’s thoughts and feelings. Everything we see around us here does reflect what’s inside us. It’s just that here our surroundings have a semi-independent existence, such that even when there is no one around they keep on existing and functioning regardless.
In the spiritual world that is not the case. Things change dynamically, including appearing and disappearing, based on the thoughts and feelings of the people in the area. Some things are long-lasting or even permanent because they reflect settled parts of the individual and community character of the people who live there. Others reflect more fleeting thoughts and feelings, so they come and go. This video from the Swedenborg Foundation is a bit dated, but it gives a nice sense of how this works with regard to our thoughts, especially:
It may seem to us here on earth as if things in the spiritual world would be less real because they can come and go in an instant based on our changing thoughts and feelings. But those who have been there say that things in the spiritual world are much more vivid and real than here in the physical world. It’s just that they are more responsive to our inner states than things on earth are.
As I said in the above article, the fact that our surroundings reflect our thoughts and feelings is why I think people will see their pets again in heaven. Not because their pets have an independent spiritual-level existence of their own, but because they are in the hearts and minds of their human owners, and express something about who their owners are. And yet, they are not “virtual pets.” They really are there, solid, lovable, petable, and so on, for as long as their owners love them and want them.
The reason things in the spiritual world are just as real, and even more real than things here on earth is that they are not mere projections of our thoughts and feelings. Rather, God creates them continually to provide us with every good thing we want, love, and need for a good and happy life.
Hello Lee,
while I’m writing the comment and preparing the link to the playlist on our conversation, I was reading some other articles of you. All of them are very comforting and uplifting, but one, this one right here.
As I mentioned eaerlier, my knowledge of Swedenborg heavily relies on Off The Left Eye. Actually, they did an Episode of their Show about animals (and pets). And I think, the view about the whole thing, is actually presented better by them. This is because of the problem, that you said, that animals will, after they die physically, remerge with their source because their Heaven is here on earth. But that would bring us back to the theories of Ziewe and Campbell, because they’re saying, that this kind of thing happens with ourselfs: After death, we remerge with our source. Also, I want to mention, that Swedenborg’s mission was to replace the false ideas of the catholic church, with the true ideas which he learned throug is spiritual experiences, and he said, that Animals, in fact, ARE a reflection of human states of mind, but their soul, in my humble opinion, HAS the ability to live on in Heaven. Mainly pets. For more of this, and to solve the misconception inside me or/and you, the first thing, I’m going to link for you, is actually their show.
My theory about landscapes (which is also inspired by OTLE) and some extra points are following soon.🙂
Kind regards
Thank you
Hi Anton,
The video does go into much more detail about animals and their origin and correspondence than I do in this article. However, it finesses the issue of animal souls and whether they have eternal life.
It does that finessing at the 17:38 mark, where the host says, “He [Swedenborg] does go into more detail in other places about what’s the difference between these kinds of souls [human, animal, and plant souls]. We’re not going to cover that here today. We’ve got plenty of other stuff to talk about. But he does have that and you can download the books and read it for yourself, or we’ll try to get to it later.”
But that is exactly what you must cover to determine whether animals have eternal souls. Long story short, according to Swedenborg they do not, as stated in the above article, and for the reasons given in the above article. If we see our pets in heaven, they are not the souls of the pets we had on earth. Rather, they are a spiritual re-creation of the pets we had here on earth.
In a sense, this is is a technical issue. Pet owners won’t be able to tell the difference, and they will swear it’s their own pet—the same one they had on earth. And it will be, as much as anything in the spiritual world can be the same as something in the physical world.
In other words, you might go to heaven, rejoin your pets there, and say, “See, Lee was wrong, animals do have eternal souls!” And if that makes you happy, then who am I to argue with you?
Of course, under reincarnation theory animal souls are essentially the same as human souls because animals are reincarnated as humans and vice versa. But of course, Swedenborg rejects reincarnation, and also rejects the idea that animal and plant souls are the same as human souls.
If animals in Heaven are merely reflections of sapient thought, how does that make the spiritual “more real” then the physical, where animal minds can exist independently of sapient thinking?
Also it somehow sounds lonely if sapient minds are the only minds in the spiritual.
Hi K,
Can animals exist in the physical world independently of sapient thinking? I don’t think so.
Where does the life and consciousness of animals come from, and where is it located? Just as with humans, the life of animals is spiritual, not physical, and the same goes for their consciousness.
Animals have spirits also, and those spirits also inhabit the spiritual world. It’s just that animal spirits do not contain the higher spiritual and heavenly levels that human spirits do. Only the earthly or “natural” level, which humans also have, giving us our ability to live in our natural environment.
If all of this is true, as Swedenborg says it is, then even animals on this earth do not exist independently of sapient (i.e., human) thinking. Even the consciousness, instincts, and actions of animals on this earth are reflections of animal spirits in the spiritual world, which are themselves reflections of the thoughts and feelings of human beings living in the spiritual world.
Even before humans existed, animals had spirits that inhabited the spiritual world, even if those spirits have no conscious awareness of the spiritual world. So in a sense you could say that animals can exist independently of sapient thinking. But of course, God existed all along as the center and core of sapient thinking. Animals had the same source both then and now, and that is in the human, sapient consciousness of God.
Once humans came onto the scene, we became conduits for that life not only for human culture and society on earth, but also for the animal and plant kingdoms. However, plants and animals on earth still do have a more general inflow from God and spirit that is not mediated by humans, spirits, or angels.
Do spirit animals have consciousness? Or is that only physical animals?
(whether or not they have independent existence from sapient thought)
Hi K,
Interesting question. I tend to think they do. They are not just shells, but full animals, having every body part, organ, and cell.
Hi Lee:
Before humans existed, animals existed in this world. They are the reflection and express of God only, right? But how to understand that there were predator animals at that time? These animals normally associate with hell based on Swedenborg’ books.
Thanks.
have a great Thanksgiving!
Pengpeng
Hi Pengpeng,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your well-wishes and good question.
In response to the question, I would say: It’s not that simple.
Of course animals are an expression of God. Everything is an expression of God, either positively by directly corresponding to qualities of God or negatively by representing a distorted and destroyed version of those qualities.
However, I would not say that pre-human animals express “God only.” Clearly, even before humans there were animals and events in existence that correspond to evil, not to good, in whole or in part. Although the predator-prey relationship does serve a necessary function in the order of nature, it would be hard to watch a pride of lions taking down, killing, and feasting upon a baby gazelle and think that this positively represents the nature of God. And as you point out, that sort of thing was going on long before humans came upon the earthly scene.
In the eighteenth century in which Swedenborg lived, it was still possible, and very common, for thinking people to believe that God created the world and its plants and animals more or less as described in the first chapters of Genesis, so that there was never a significant period of time when there were lower animals but no humans on earth. Although Swedenborg did not take the Creation stories literally, he still believed that God directly created all the species of animals through what we would today call spontaneous generation. He also seemed to have no clear idea that the universe is much older than the common belief in a 6,000-year-old earth. He didn’t insist that the earth is only a few thousand years old. It’s just that the science we now have on the age of the universe was in its infancy at the time. And of course, Darwin didn’t come along until the next century. For Swedenborg, it was still plausible to think that there were no predatory animals before humans existed.
Because of this limitation in Swedenborg’s scientific knowledge, to satisfactorily answer your question we have to go beyond what Swedenborg said explicitly, and follow the arc of his thought in connection with the advances in science that have taken place since his day. That is exactly what I have done in reference to your question under the heading: “2. Violence, pain, and suffering exist in the universe because the universe was created for us,” in this article:
How can we have Faith when So Many Bad Things happen to So Many Good People? Part 2
But do read the article from the beginning, since the first section puts the second one in context. (And you may want to read the entire four-part series to get the bigger picture.)
Short version of the context: For God there is no past, present, and future. Rather, God sees all time, not to mention all space, from an eternal present. This means that God does all things, including things that to us are in the past, from a perspective that takes into account our present and future as well.
That is why even before humans existed, animals were not an expression of “God only,” but also of human nature, both good and bad.
Lee:
Thanks for your reply and the links. It cleared my confusion about good and evil animals. I like your explanation.
I have other questions when reading book of True Christianity:
” These things have been shown to enable you to see, in a special example, the entire creation. For God is love itself and wisdom itself; the affections of his love are infinite, and the perceptions of his wisdom are infinite; and of these each thing and all things that appear on earth are correspondences. This is the origin of birds and beasts, forest trees, fruit trees, crops and harvests, herbs and grasses. For God is not extended, and yet he is present throughout all extension, thus throughout the universe from its firsts to its lasts; and he being thus omnipresent, there are these correspondences of the affections of his love and wisdom in the whole natural world; while in our world, which is called the spiritual world, there are like correspondences with those who are receiving affections and perceptions from God. The difference is that in our world such things are created by God from moment to moment in accordance with the affections of the angels. In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning; but it was provided that they should be renewed unceasingly by the propagation of one from another, and creation be thus continued.”
To my understanding, God is infinite love and wisdom, so there are infinite plants and animals in spiritual world. God never changes. So you can say these spices are always stable. maybe because they are stable, they can take the physical form to appear in our natural work. Only some of them or limited spices made it, this is why we have limited spices in our natural work. Of course, our earth is limited.
In spiritual world, there are plants and animals are reflection and expression of the angles surroundingly. But they are changing or disappearing according to the feeling/love of the angle. they are not stable. probably they can not make into our natural world? Otherwise, we would see a lot of animals/plants die suddenly without any reason as soon as the angle changes feelings in spiritual world.
If so, can we conclude that there are two kinds of animals in spiritual world, one is from God which never change, always keep same, the other one is from angles which is not stable?
If above thinking is ok, how about dinosaurs millions years ago? They are reflection of God at the creation moment? Are there dinosaurs still in spiritual world? if no, it means some of God’s feeling disappeared? that’s not right…
Hi Pengpeng,
These are all good questions.
And incidentally, that passages is one of the places Swedenborg, or rather an angel as quoted by Swedenborg, expresses the belief that God created each species on earth directly at first, but gave them the ability to reproduce to continue the species from there. As I’ve said elsewhere, it is clear that the scientific knowledge of angels is no more advanced than that of people on earth at the time. Heaven depends upon earth for its knowledge of material things. This stands to reason, since angels and spirits live in the spiritual world, and have no direct view or knowledge of the material world.
Now to take up your questions and surmises.
First, the spiritual world is not infinite any more than the physical world is infinite. Only God is infinite.
Every created thing, whether spiritual or material, is finite. In fact, the very process of creation is one of God “making his infinity finite in the form of substances put out from himself.” See True Christianity #33.
Creation itself involves putting boundaries or limits around substances put forth from God, thereby rendering them finite. This is how things can exist, again whether spiritual or material, that are not simply extensions of God, but are actually distinct from God, and thereby created things. This is also why pantheism is a mistaken idea. Everything is not God. Only what is infinite is God. What is finite is not God. However, it is still filled with God, or it could not continue to exist.
This means that there are not “infinite plants and animals in the spiritual world.” Rather, as the passage you quoted (True Christian Religion #78) says, in the spiritual world “things are created by God from moment to moment in accordance with the affections of the angels.” And since the affections (i.e., loves, feelings, desires) of the angels are finite, not infinite, this means that the plants and animals in the spiritual world are also finite, not infinite.
There are not two different kinds of animals in the spiritual world, unchanging ones from God and changing ones from angels. Rather, all animals in the spiritual world are reflections of the changing thoughts and feelings of the angels and spirits in the area.
And note that the animals in the spiritual world are not “from the angels,” as if angels created them. Rather, as this angel says to Swedenborg, God creates them moment to moment in accordance with the angels’ states of mind. And even those states of mind are reflections of God. The plants, animals, and landscapes in the spiritual world, not to mention the houses, gardens, towns, and cities, are “correspondences with those who are receiving affections and perceptions from God,” to quote the angel once again. We do not “create our own reality,” as the popular New Age saying would have it. Rather, God creates our reality in accordance with our states of mind.
Moving onward, the plants and animals in the physical world are not directly linked to corresponding plants and animals in the spiritual world. Physical plants and animals exist independently from spiritual plants and animals. Both are expressions of divine and human loves, desires, understandings, and beliefs. But as the angel says, they each have their own distinct origin, both ultimately coming from God, and both expressing human states of mind.
Plants and animals on earth are sustained and kept alive, not by linkage with corresponding spiritual plants and animals, but by a “general inflow” from the spiritual world. They also have plant and animal souls that exist only on the “natural” or “earthly” level of the spiritual world, not on the spiritual and heavenly levels that human souls also exist on. This is the outermost level of the spiritual world that has to do with action and expression. Since animals do not have the higher levels of soul where spiritual understanding and love reside, they are limited to the material world, and when they die, their souls are absorbed back into the spiritual environment just as their bodies are absorbed back into the natural environment.
Since animals and plants in the physical world are not linked to or dependent upon animals and plants in the spiritual world, but have their own independent existence, they do not appear and disappear when animals and plants in the spiritual world appear and disappear.
About dinosaurs, I suspect that they do appear in the spiritual world from time to time. Ever since our first discoveries of dinosaur bones, we humans have had a great fascination for dinosaurs. Clearly they represent something primal in the human heart and mind. They do not exist on this earth anymore because (as we believe) a large asteroid strike suddenly changed the earth’s environment so radically that dinosaurs could no longer survive in the new environment. Birds, however, are apparently thought by some scientists to be the descendants of certain smaller species of dinosaurs that did survive.
At any rate, I suspect that in the spiritual world, Jurassic Park is a real thing, and people go there to experience the wonder of dinosaurs. But I think it’s probably managed better than the one in the movies. 😉
As for some of God’s feelings disappearing, that is not possible. God is eternally the same. However, since God is infinite, and the created universe, both spiritual and physical, is finite, no matter how many of God’s thoughts are being expressed in Creation at any given time, there are always infinitely more that could be expressed, but aren’t currently being expressed.
This is also why no matter how many human beings or animals are born, no two of them are ever exactly the same, nor will two of them ever be exactly the same as long as the universe exists. The infinite variety in God gives rise to endless variety in the spiritual and material worlds. Even if the human population grew to trillions of trillions on billions of planets, the supply of new and unique human beings would never run dry.
Also, keep in mind that for God, what to us is past, present, and future is all the same. For God, the dinosaurs have not disappeared. They are a present reality for God just as everything else in the universe in all time and space is a present reality for God. For a related article, please see:
If God Already Knows What We’re Going to Do, How Can We Have Free Will?
Thank you very much for your reply. I read the article in the link. It is so interesting and brain-bended. It did help me a lot to understand how God is out of time and space.
For the animals/plants in the physical world, they were created by God directly at the beginning? I am confused when you mentioned they have souls…
For example: when a chicken is hatched out of egg in the physical world, does it mean that there is soul or spiritual chicken appears in the spiritual world at same time? Any interaction between these two chickens? Is it same as the chicken formed according to the feeling of angels? When the chicken dies, its physical body goes back to dust in physical world, meanwhile, the soul or spiritual chicken dies in spiritual world, going back to spiritual dust or spiritual environment?
As the angel talked with Swedenborg about ” In your world they were created in like manner in the beginning; but it was provided that they should be renewed unceasingly by the propagation of one from another, and creation be thus continued.” Is God’s creation ongoing forever?
This reminds me bacterial.
How do you think of virus and bacterial? Do they have souls too? In last century, bacteria are becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics. Do you think the new kind of bacterial is God’s ongoing creation?
What would the world be like if bacteria were resistant to antibiotics? What if all harmful bacteria were eliminated with the snap of fingers?
What if all viruses were eliminated with the snap of fingers?
All sickness should be a result of sin and evil, nothing else.
It’s not fair that I should suffer for anything but my own sin. Please don’t refer to Jesus – that was different, he died even though he never sinned, but he only had to die because he needed to save us from our sins.
Hi World Questioner,
The germ theory of disease is the currently reigning theory in the medical establishment, but it has major holes in it. People who are healthy can fight off hordes of bacteria and viruses that will take down an unhealthy person. Certainly germs and viruses have a role in disease. But they are not its primary cause. They are more like hyenas or vultures that feed on dead and dying tissue. Thinking that germs cause disease is like thinking that vultures cause cows to die.
Eliminating bacteria would not eliminate disease. It would only eliminate the ability of nature to dispose of dead and dying tissue. And then we’d have a massive stinking mess on our hands.
All disease is not the result of sin and evil, nor is all disease the result of the person’s own evil or unhealthy actions. But that is a whole subject unto itself. Please see:
What is the Source of Human Fragility, Sickness, and Disease?
Only in the spiritual world is there a complete linkage between a person’s desires, thoughts, and actions and that person’s state of health or disease. Here on earth, various other factors, many of which are beyond our personal control, affect our state of health or sickness. This is a corollary of the fact that in the material world innocent people can be harmed by other people’s evil desires and actions.
As for scavengers, vultures don’t kill cows like lions do. Lions kill cows, vultures don’t. Aren’t pathogenic bacteria more like lions and wolves than like hyenas and vultures?
Why does God give men weaker immune systems? Why does God make testosterone immunosuppressive?
Could humans be genetically modified to have stronger immune systems so they can fight off hordes of bacteria and viruses? What about transferring genes from healthy people to unhealthy people? Why does God only make prokaryotes capable of horizontal gene transfer, like bacteria transferring resistance genes? Why doesn’t God give eukaryotes, such as plants and animals, the same ability? Then, instead of using predators to eliminate the weak, genes could be transferred from the strong to the weak. Genes could be transferred from strong gazelle to weak gazelle, therefore no need of lions to eliminate the latter.
We should use hereditary therapy, that is, therapy the effects of which can be passed to offspring and last for generations to come. Then we wouldn’t have to repeat therapy on offspring.
Hi World Questioner,
I am not a biologist or a geneticist, so I won’t delve into all these questions.
However, bacteria are not like lions. In the animal kingdom, nothing kills lions. They are the top of the food chain. But in the human body, white blood cells kill harmful bacteria all the time. Bacteria are hyenas, not lions.
And strong, healthy human individuals can already fight off hordes of bacteria and viruses. That’s why not everyone died of COVID-19. It was mostly elderly and sick people who died.
Aren’t vultures and hyenas also at the top of the food chain? Does anything kill hyenas and vultures?
Hi World Questioner,
They’re not at the top of the food chain as lions are. They are carrion eaters, not hunters.
That doesn’t answer whether anything kills hyenas or vultures.
Hi World Questioner,
It’s just an analogy. Once again, I’m not a biologist.
Hi Pengpeng,
I guess I didn’t spell it out, but clearly Swedenborg, and the angel he was talking to, were wrong about animals being created directly by God at the beginning. This wasn’t Swedenborg’s idea. It’s how people in those days commonly thought species originated. Remember, Darwin didn’t come along until the following century.
Today we know beyond any reasonable doubt that plants and animals evolved from simpler to more complex forms. There is still considerable debate among scientists about exactly how this happened, but it is almost universally recognized among scientists that evolution did happen.
Personally, I’m happy to let the scientists figure out how the species originated and developed over time. Learning how the physical universe works is what science is for. Meanwhile, religion is about how God and spirit work. So I am happy to let the scientists do their work in their realm, and let religion do its work in its realm.
For another take on this, see Wikipedia -> Non-overlapping magisteria. I don’t entirely agree with Steven Jay Gould’s division of labor between science and religion, but it’s a useful concept for sidestepping the endless and futile science vs. religion debates.
On your second question, chickens on earth are not linked to chickens in heaven. Each has its own distinct existence. Chickens on earth come from eggs. Chickens in heaven are created by God to represent the thoughts and feelings of the angels and spirits in the area. There is no direct linkage between the two. Specifically, there is no spiritual chicken for each earthly chicken.
Chicken souls do not appear to angels and spirits in the spiritual world. Even human souls of people still living on earth don’t usually appear to angels and spirits in the spiritual world. This happens only occasionally, when someone on earth is deep in thought on spiritual subjects. Angels may then see the person walking along as if buried deep in thought. But if they try to talk to the person, he or she vanishes from their sight.
Chickens can’t engage in spiritual thought. Their minds are limited to earthly knowledge and instincts. As such, their souls never appear to angels and spirits in heaven, who are all engaged in spiritual thought, not earthly thought.
In short, chickens (and other animals and plants) on earth do not appear in heaven.
They do have souls, because without a soul they cannot have life. But their souls have only the lowest “natural” or “earthly” level, which is not capable of spiritual consciousness, and therefore doesn’t appear in the spiritual world.
Bacteria and viruses must also have a soul that is just as rudimentary on the spiritual level as those organisms are on the physical level. Once again, without a spirit or soul, nothing can be alive.
As for the evolution of bacteria, this is a reflection of spiritual evolution, which is the development of new areas of thought and new kinds of love and feelings, whether positive or negative. The evolution of bacteria doesn’t necessarily reflect specific changes happening in the human mind in the current moment. However, just as we grow in knowledge, understanding, and love over time, so the plant and animal kingdom develop new varieties and species over time.
This is just as true of bacteria and viruses as it is of whales and elephants, only bacteria and viruses go through their generations much more quickly than whales and elephants, and can therefore develop new varieties and strains much more quickly.
Hi Lee:
Now I feel I should get you. God created physical world and spiritual world, but they are two different worlds. Only we human souls go to the spiritual world after we die. No other things in the physical world are able to go to the spiritual world, even the animals/plants souls are not able to do so.
Do you think God created the physical world and spiritual world at same time in the beginning?
For the animal/plant souls, how to understand it? Can I think them as some spiritual things that receive God’s inflow? to sustain their lives?
For our human souls, what is your idea about it?
When the egg cell is fertilized, is the soul born? Or should we wait until the moment the baby is born and the soul is born along with the baby’s physical body?
How God creates the soul for each person?
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. — Jeremiah 1:5
God knew us before we were in Mom’s belly. Should we understand it based on that God is out of time and space, instead of that God created soul for each person ahead long long time ago in the beginning and later on put the soul into our physical body when we are born?
Thank you so much for your time and patience. I really enjoy your reply. Help me to understand the Bible and Swedenborg’s book much better.
Why would God not allow us to take physical things with us into the spiritual world? What is a good reason for God to do things the way he does?
Hi World Questioner,
Physical things cannot enter the spiritual world because they are made of physical matter, not of spiritual substance. However, anything we love from this world can easily be re-created in the spiritual world, in all its richness and detail. That’s one of the main points of the above article.
Could it simply be replicated? Make a spiritual replica of a physical thing? Like 3D printing, only spiritual? Duplicated/copied?
Hi World Questioner,
Yes. That is what I am saying. As an example, every book ever published in the material world is also available in libraries in the spiritual world.
Hi PengPeng,
On your first paragraph, that is exactly right.
About the physical world and the spiritual world being created at the same time, first it’s necessary to understand that creation didn’t so much happen sequentially from one time to the next as it did from within outward. God does not exist in time, but in eternity. God only flows into time. Time itself is a property of physical reality. There was no “before the universe was created” because time itself came into existence along with the physical universe. So asking whether the physical and spiritual universes were created at the same time is a trick question.
What did happen is that God created the physical universe through and by means of the spiritual universe. God created the universe by sending out substances from God’s self, and placing more and more limits on those substances. The spiritual universe is less limited. The physical universe is more limited. This happened, not by a continuous flow, like water vapor being released from a canister and filling a whole room. It happened by distinct levels, like gaseous, liquid, and solid water. Each lower level is “colder” and more limited than the level it came from. Each is distinct from the other, has different properties, and operates by different laws.
Metaphorically, then, the physical and spiritual universes were created at the same time because the physical universe was created from the spiritual universe, which was created from God. But the spiritual universe didn’t exist before the physical universe temporally. Rather, it existed causally prior to the physical universe.
As an analogy, think of a cyclist pedaling a bicycle. The cyclist causes the pedals to move, which causes the chain to move, which causes the wheel to move, which causes the bicycle to move. One is causally prior to the next. However, temporally these are all happening at the same time. The pedals don’t move first, and then the wheels. The wheels move in sync with the pedals. That’s how it is with the physical world being created from the spiritual world.
This is getting long, so I’ll continue in another comment.
Hi Pengpeng,
You are very welcome. These are interesting subjects that I enjoy thinking and writing about.
About plant, animal, and human souls, yes, all of these are spiritual things that receive God’s inflow. They are also organized forms, not just wispy balls of energy. Spiritual things are just as intricately organized and functional as physical things. In fact, they are several orders of magnitude more intricate and organized than physical things. So a bacteria soul is, let’s say, a thousand times more complex and more intricately organized and functional than the physical bacteria itself. The same is true for all plant, animal, and human souls.
I should mention that in Swedenborg’s writings the word “soul” is used in at least two distinct ways. In a looser sense, the soul is the same as the spirit. It is the spiritual part of a person. But in a more technical sense, when “soul” is distinguished from “spirit,” it means the innermost part of the spirit, which is beyond our consciousness and which is our innermost point at which God flows directly into us with love, light, and life. Though Swedenborg describes this innermost soul in relation to human souls, it may also apply to plant and animal souls. Or it may be that plant and animal souls have only “general inflow” from God through the spiritual world rather than the direct inflow into their innermost part that humans have. This is a bit of a sidelight, but it is good to be aware of nevertheless. In this discussion, we have been using the word “soul” in the broader and looser sense as a synonym for “spirit.”
How does God create a soul for each person? Based on Swedenborg’s principle of correspondence, I think the best way to understand this is to look at how each person’s biological “soul,” or DNA, is created. Just as the soul—in this case in the more technical sense—is the blueprint for a new spiritual and physical human being, so the DNA is the blueprint for a new physical human being.
Though there was prior DNA from which the new set of DNA came, that particular set of DNA is new and unique. It did not exist before, nor is it infused into the body at some point after conception. Rather, it is newly created at the time of conception, when the unique half-set of DNA in the sperm zips together with the unique half-set of DNA in the egg. Biologically, then, every human being is indeed a new and unique creation that has not existed before. The same is true of the human soul. Each human soul is a new and unique creation that has not existed before. There is no reincarnation.
Further, as I just mentioned, just as the body is built based on the blueprint contained in the DNA, so both the spirit and the body are built based on the blueprint contained in the new proto-soul. I say “proto-soul” because just as a fertilized egg is not a fully developed human being, so a newly created soul is not a fully developed human spirit. What it is, I believe, is a combination of unique offshoots of the souls of both the father and the mother, in exact parallel to the biological process of reproduction. This is different from what Swedenborg wrote. He believed, based on Aristotle, that the soul comes from the father and the body from the mother. But this can’t be sustained given our advances in knowledge about genetics and DNA—science that simply didn’t exist in Swedenborg’s day.
Once the egg is fertilized to form a new set of DNA and associated cellular structures, and the parallel fertilization takes place on the spiritual level, there are the beginnings of what can develop into a new human being. Another way of saying this is that a fertilized egg, and the spiritual soul within it, are “viable” in the sense that this is the first point at which there is something that can become a human being. An egg by itself cannot become a human being, nor can a sperm by itself. The combination of both is required.
That combination is a fertilized egg, which, if it does not have serious genetic defects and if the conditions in the womb and in the mother’s body are suitable, will over time grow into an embryo, then a fetus, then a baby, and finally an adult human being. All of this happens under the spiritual direction of the soul, and under the physical direction of the DNA, molded and modified also by the environment in which this new human being develops and grows to maturity.
To answer your last question specifically, then, God did not create human souls temporally at the beginning, and then infuse them into human bodies, as reincarnation theory holds. Rather, temporally God creates each new soul at the time of conception.
However, God, who is outside of time, and sees all things from an eternal present, did see all of this “before” it happened. To us it seems as if that is temporal, as if when our parents were born God looked ahead and saw our birth as well. But that’s not how it works. Rather, God sees our parents being conceived and born and us being conceived born and all past and future generations being conceived and born all at once from the eternal present in which God lives. This is part of the deeper meaning of that verse from Jeremiah.
As always, there is more that could be said. But I hope this much begins to answer your good questions.
Why do you want to carry physical things into spiritual world? We have carried all physical things in this physical world many years, from being born to death.
For me, I have experienced it, it is enough. I’d like to experience different world after I die. The spiritual world sounds very attractive to me. 😁
Hi Lee:
Great to read your idea on how God creates the human souls. Swedenborg wrote that soul was from father only and body from mother. Very happy to hear your correction. I agree with your opinion more.
Swedenborg wrote that we human had both general inflow and special inflow, while all other animals/plants had only general inflow.
For the general inflow, I understand it originates from the spiritual sun, passing through 1st heaven layer, 2nd heaven layer, 3rd heaven layer, arriving at spirit world, then connecting with our physical world. What is your idea about it? How it works on animals/plants and human in physical world?
For special inflow, I understand that it originates from God, comes to our soul directly. When we read Bible, do prayers, we have direct connection with God. How do you understand the special inflow?
Thanks.
Hi Pengpeng,
Could you refer me to your sources in Swedenborg’s writings or in other materials for your understanding of general inflow and special inflow? This is not how I have understood the distinction between general and specific inflow, but I am always willing to learn something new.
Your description of how inflow proceeds probably comes from Interaction of the Soul and Body #16. In particular, it says at the end of subsection 6, after discussing the three levels of heaven:
However, in the main heading of ISB #16 says that all inflow happens in this way, rather than saying that general inflow does.
The primary passage I am aware of about general influx and particular influx (to use the traditional terms) in relation to people and animals is this one:
Here the distinction between general inflow and particular inflow is not between inflow from heaven vs. inflow directly from God into the innermost soul, but between a generalized inflow from heaven and an inflow from particular spirits and angels that surround a specific person. Neither one of these types of inflow comes via the innermost soul.
See also Spiritual Experiences #485, which talks about general and particular influx, though not in relation to animals; and Arcana Coelestia #5990, which talks about general and particular influx in relation to the mind vs. the physical body.
Still, I would be very curious where your understanding of general and special inflow comes from.
Hi Lee:
Greeting for you! Hope everything goes well.
I was busy on something else in last several months, and stopped visiting your blog. I am glad that I am able to be back to read your posts again.
For your questions, I don’t know where my understanding of general and special inflow is from. They are my basic understanding which still changing based on my reading…
I am very interested in your last post about how soul is created when an egg is fertilized. Could you talk something about how the first soul was created thousands or millions of years ago?
The soul of new baby is from mother and father. For the first person, or people from the 1st generation who start to have soul, how that happened?
In terms of natural body evolution, current biological genetics science believes that humans and chimpanzees began to diverge about 4-6 million years ago, completely different from other animals.
Chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans all have 24 pairs of chromosomes. The most obvious difference between us humans and all other apes is that we have one less pair of chromosomes. We humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes.
Do you think we human start to have soul when humans and chimpanzees began to diverge about 4-6 million years ago? if not, when do you think that we humans started to have soul?
Thanks.
Hi pengpenggrimshaw,
Good to hear from you again. I hope your past several months have been fruitful. In response to your thoughts and queries:
Point 1: I am far from an expert in evolutionary biology. However, I have no problem accepting that physiologically we descended (or really, ascended) from earlier animals and earlier life forms all the way back to amoebas and beyond. As a general principle, Swedenborg says that everything in the universe tends toward a human form. (I have a new post in mind based on a fascinating new study on galaxies that I hope to write and post within the next few weeks.) As of now, evolution has culminated in the human form. And there is reason to believe that we will not continue to evolve because we have largely mastered nature and are no longer under any real evolutionary pressure. As of now, Swedenborg seems to have been correct with respect to evolution even though he was not aware of its existence: everything has tended toward the human form.
Point 2: Every living thing has a soul. Without a soul it cannot be alive, because the soul is what gives it life. I am well aware that your average evolutionary biologist would not accept this at all. Nevertheless, based on Swedenborg’s teachings, I take it as axiomatic that all life is spiritual, and none of it is material. When the spirit leaves the body, we call it “death.” This is just as true of amoebas and chimpanzees as it is of humans. Even plants have souls.
Point 3: The distinction between human souls and all other souls is, as covered in the above article, that human souls have the higher spiritual and heavenly levels that enable us to think and feel spiritually rather than just materially. In other words, at minimum we have the ability to think about God and spirit, which no other animal has. We also have the ability to love spiritually, which means going beyond our own survival or even the survival and propagation of our own gene pool. We can love our enemies, which no other animal can do. And so on. The existence of these two higher levels of soul, and not just the “earthly” or “natural” level of soul that animals and plants have, is what gives us eternal life. We need a spiritual and heavenly level to our soul in order to live in the spiritual world.
This provides the building blocks to answer your questions.
Our soul was derived from our ancestors in a long chain all the way back to amoebas, or whatever the first living organisms on earth were. These early organisms, I presume, first gained a soul when they became complex enough in their organization that life, which is spiritual, could begin to inhabit them. However, a more proactive way of saying this is that life, which is spiritual, organized them into forms capable of hosting life. This, too, I know would be anathema to most natural scientists today. But natural science still has no workable theory as to how life began, or even what it is. So I am perfectly comfortable holding that life is something that flowed in from the spiritual world and organized various chemicals and compounds in the material world into forms capable of receiving it.
From there, the principle I covered in Point 1 above—that everything in the universe tends toward the human form—began to work its magic over the eons of evolutionary development from the simplest forms of life through one-celled organisms right up to the higher life forms, culminating, as I said, in the human physical form. I am also aware that various atheists and skeptics are not willing to admit that this is “progress,” but insist that it is just random adaptations. This, to me, looks like a ludicrously reductionist position to hold, given the obvious progressive advances from simple to more and more complex forms of life.
Moving on, the attainment of a human physical form did not automatically make us into humans psychologically. Early humanoids did not have the characteristics that we think of as human: reason, free will, moral and spiritual awareness, and so on. They were just another species of animal, albeit an increasingly successful one given their large brains and high intelligence compared to other animals. Still, they were animals, focused entirely on survival and procreation on this earth, just as other animals are, and having no awareness whatsoever that anything beyond this physical realm existed.
Then, somewhere on the order of 100,000+ years ago (the current estimate is 130,000 years ago), humans went through a distinct change: we began to bury our dead, and have funeral rituals and burial customs, including burying people with various objects that would be seen as symbolic and/or useful for continued life. I am not the first Swedenborgian to suggest that this was the time when we made the transition from mere animals, whose souls are not eternal, to humans, whose souls are eternal. This was when we began to be aware of spiritual things, so that we could think about God, a spiritual world, and an afterlife. From those early beginnings, we began to develop the more elaborate beliefs and practices about God and spirit that have continued to grow and evolve to this day.
This was not something that just sort of happened. Rather, it was something that God brought about when God saw that we had reached a sufficient level of physical, mental, and emotional development to be able to contain and sustain a spiritual awareness.
This is what the Creation stories in the early chapters of Genesis are about, when read metaphorically (correspondentially) on the level of humanity as a whole, which Swedenborg calls the “internal historical” level of meaning.
Swedenborg himself doesn’t develop this specific application of it to the Creation stories. He focuses on the meaning of those stories in our individual spiritual development. But he does suggest that it has an application to humanity as a whole. He really couldn’t develop that level of meaning because the theory of evolution did not yet exist. He believed that all the species were created instantly at first—what we today would call “spontaneous generation”—and given the ability to reproduce from there. And he had no idea how far back the human species went.
Swedenborg did, however, write some fascinating, if sketchy, things about the “pre-adamites,” which were people who lived before we became fully spiritually conscious. This suggests that he did have some vague concept of our early rise from being mere animals to being human. But again, he just didn’t have the science to ground that concept in, and make it more definite.
Since then, some Swedenborgian thinkers have developed this idea a little more, the premier example currently in print being this booklet:
The Five Ages, by P.L. Johnson
Quite a fascinating little book!
So the real question is not when we began to have a soul. Living beings have always had souls. The real question is when our soul became spiritual, and thereby eternal. That, I would suggest, began happening around 130,000 years ago, or perhaps a little earlier.
Maybe just make instant spiritual replicas (duplicates) of physical things? Like 3D printing or replicating, or even like a 3D copymachine?
Hi World Questioner,
Our earthly 3D printing technology is crude compared to what already exists in the spiritual world. God can directly create in the spiritual world anything that exists in the physical world, and it will be even better than the one in the physical world—more alive, more detailed down to the microscopic level, and so on.
As an analogy, think of building two models of a rocket, each of which is one yard (or one meter) tall, one made of giant Lego blocks and the other made of regular small Lego blocks. The one built with small Lego blocks can have much more definition and detail than the one built with giant Lego blocks. With the giant Legos, the rocket’s engines might just be blocky suggestions of engines made out of two or three blocks each. With the small Legos, it would be possible to build something that is actually shaped like a rocket engine. Ditto for the rest of the rocket.
Hi Lee:
Thanks for your reply. Your idea about the soul starting is very interesting, it opens my mind. Recently I was struggled about how soul suddenly infused into the ancient people, that suddenly humanoids became human…I think your idea about soul in earlier life forms all the way back to amoebas and beyond is more reasonable.
Thanks for the link of the book “The Five Ages”. I could not buy the e-book from UK because I am in USA. When I googled the book, found a paper one to sell at Swedenborg foundation. Just ordered it. Hopefully receive it soon.
Thank you so much. Very appreciate for your reply.
You have a great day! Can not wait to read your new post about the study on galaxies!
Hi pengpenggrimshaw,
You’re welcome! Glad you were able to order the book. It’s a fascinating little piece, offering plenty of passages from Swedenborg’s writings, and the author’s commentary and interpretation of them. I really enjoyed reading it, being the Swedenborg nerd that I am. 🙂
And . . . I guess that means I’ll have to write that new post about galaxies! 😀
Hi Lee, my name is Lisa I read your article on our pets and found it interesting but I got confused my question is if we won’t see our pets again maybe we will then why have our pets on earth if we can be with them in the Spirit World? It is just a question for thought I had grew attached to the pets I had and the idea of not spending eternity with me in the Spirit World makes me sad and depressed when I think about it, I hope the pets me and my late husband had we will be able to see them again one day. I have seen videos on Swedenborg he had some very interesting books I haven’t read his books but saw videos of his shows that people had about him. I found some of them fascinating. Thank you for your interesting article. Sincerely, Lisa c.
Hi Elizabeth,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment and question.
The basic idea of the above article is that although according to Swedenborg animals don’t have eternal souls, I believe that we will see the pets we love again in heaven anyway because God loves us and wants us to be happy, and God will create our pets for us in the spiritual world, whenever we want them, for as long as we want them. Each one will be exactly the same as it was on earth, because God knows everything, and will create exactly the same pet for us in heaven. Technically it isn’t the same animal. Our pets on earth are physical. Our pets in heaven are spiritual. But for all practical purposes it is the same pet. We won’t be able to tell the difference. And we will be able to have our favorite pets with us in heaven.
Swedenborg doesn’t actually say this, but it’s what I have come to believe based on his teachings about God being pure love, and giving us everything we could ever want or need to be happy in heaven.
I hope this clears up your confusion. Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
If the New Church Heaven turns out to be real, I hope there can be some kind of exception or loophole which allows pets and other animal buddies to live on as those abstract-concept-manifestation animals.
Hi K,
I don’t know why a loophole would be needed. As I said in the above article, pet lovers will see their pets in heaven, and they will be just as real there as they are here. My own wife believes that her actual pets will be in heaven. I’m not going to argue with her. For one thing, I know that her pets will be exactly the same as they were on earth, so she’s just going to say, “I told you so!” You, also, will probably say, “See! Lee was wrong!” That’s how indistinguishable your pets in heaven will be from your pets on earth.
I do not want indistinguishable when it comes to the fuzzy friends I miss. I want the fuzzy friends to have an afterlife too, if we are all gonna be stuck in the New Church Heaven.
In other words, their consciousnesses resume, not some other entities that are mere copies of them.
If it does turn out that the consciousness of pets or other animal buddies does continue into any afterlife, I do not think that alone would prove you wrong, as such could be an accommodation.
Hi K,
It would prove Swedenborg wrong. He’s the one that said that animals do not have eternal souls. I’m taking his word for it, because it makes sense within the overall picture of material and spiritual reality that he presents, which I find believable.
What I will say is that if Swedenborg turned out to be wrong about this, it would cause some cognitive dissonance in me, but I’d probably just shrug it off as yet another instance of, “You learn something new every day.” It isn’t a central or element of Swedenborg’s system.
Assuming New Church doctrine is more or less true, maybe that is the default (that conscious yet non-sapient beings do not have immortality), but God can make exceptions with pets and animal buddies by reviving them as those spiritual concept animals?
Hi K,
They will be “those spiritual concept animals” anyway. That’s the whole point of the above article. The question is whether their individual consciousness survives death in a continuous way as our consciousness does. I don’t think so. I do think they will be just as conscious there as they are here—which is not as conscious as humans are. It’s just that I think they will not have ongoing existence, but only existence when the humans in the vicinity are thinking about them, or they are reflecting something in the current thinking of the humans around them. At other times they will cease to exist, meaning that their consciousness is not a seamless continuation of their consciousness on earth.
Hopefully it’s the same consciousness throughout though in the New Church afterlife, and at least like this:
—–…—…—…—…— [etc] > ∞
(Where the first 5 dashes is mortality, …s are gaps, and —s are resumed consciousness in the New Church afterlife.)
Hi K,
Animals in general are not self-aware, and can’t contemplate their own consciousness, so it probably doesn’t matter whether it’s the same consciousness anyway.
I hope it is the same consciousness though, if the New Church afterlife is real. And it would matter because if there is merely a copy, the original consciousness only has finite experience and does not get to experience later experiences.
Hi K,
It is the earthly version that is “merely a copy.” The spiritual version would be the original of which the earthly version is a copy.