Do Animals Have Souls?


A characteristic of soulish beings is to have mental activity that consist of beliefs, intentions, desires, sensations . . .





Animals have different kind of souls than human beings. Human being souls are made in the image of God and they live forever, they are everlasting. Animal souls are not made in the image of God, and we have no evidence that I can tell that they are everlasting.

When Pavlov rang his famous bell, the dog salivated because it believed it was about to get some food. As a result of that belief it set up a response in its body to produce the saliva. When the dog sees the food placed before him, it moves toward the food because it has an intention to eat, and there is desire of hunger inside of it that motivates the intention. As it eats, it chooses one food rather than another -- and you cat owners know about that -- because one food tastes better than another to the cat. Therefore it has sensation, too. In other words, animals have all of these things that are qualities and characteristics of the mental life. They have beliefs, they have intentions, they have desires, they have sensations--or they appear to. Since these things are not physical things, they are non- physical things and they must exist in the animal in the non-physical space that is real. That non-physical place is a soul. Ergo, animals have souls like human beings have souls.

But there are different kinds of souls--even in human beings. I think female souls are different than male souls. This is what encourages our valid generalizations about the differences between male and female, because the differences that we point out are soulish differences, not differences merely in plumbing or chemistry. Also, animals have different kind of souls than human beings. Human being souls are made in the image of God and they live forever, they are everlasting. Animal souls are not made in the image of God, and we have no evidence that I can tell that they are everlasting.

Just some fun thinking about the nature of the soul.

source: http://www.str.org