Do animals go to heaven?

God made them, and they were good.

He feeds them and keeps them. A psalm of praise to the LORD says this of the creatures of land and sea:

Jesus, teaching His hearers about God's provision, said:

He does not forget even the smallest. Speaking to His disciples, Jesus said:

In the same breath He told His disciples not to fear, because they are worth more:

Scripture also counts it as righteous to care about an animal's life:

And animals truly die.

In the flood, animals died alongside people:

Even then, God remembered the animals in the ark, and His words to Noah afterwards name the creatures that came out of it:

God made animals good, keeps them and cares for them, and animals die. Scripture teaches this.

His care is not a promise that animals escape death. None of these verses promises each animal its own home in heaven.

Scripture uses "heaven" in more than one way. These uses can't be blended into one place just because the English word is the same.

Sometimes it means the sky, where the birds fly:

Sometimes it means God's own dwelling:

In Matthew the same Greek word stands behind "heaven" in Matthew 6:9, "air" in Matthew 6:26, and "sky" in Matthew 16:2. Matthew 6 itself shows the difference: the Father is in heaven, and the birds He feeds are in the air.

The question most likely means being with God after death. The passages that speak of this are promises and accounts about people. Jesus spoke this to the man crucified beside Him:

A letter tells of a man caught up into heaven, and says plainly that how it happened is not known:

Christ promised the one who overcomes, in His message to the churches:

A promise made to a person stays a promise to that person. None of these is spoken to an animal or about one, and none can simply be passed on to animals.

God's promised future is more than "going up". Scripture promises a new heaven and a new earth:

So the end Scripture describes is a renewed creation, with God dwelling with His people. It is not only souls travelling up into the present sky. That matters for animals, because "do animals go to heaven?" and "will there be animals in God's new creation?" are different questions.

Ecclesiastes: death, dust, and which way the spirit goes

This is the hardest passage on the question, and it has to be read whole. The Preacher writes to people about human life, injustice, death, and the limits of what anyone can know:

In chapter 3 he moves from God's judgment to the death that people and animals share:

Near the end of the book, urging the reader to remember the Creator before old age and death, he says of a person:

And he closes with human duty and God's judgment:

People read these verses in different ways. Three readings fail:

• "People and animals are the same in every way." This would make God's own distinction in creation false:

  Genesis 1:26 1:27

  "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." (Genesis 1:26)

  "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." (Genesis 1:27)

  It would also flatten the Preacher's own distinction in Ecclesiastes 3:21 and 12:7. The sameness he states is the death and the dust he describes, not sameness in every respect. Elsewhere he does the same thing with wisdom and folly: one is far better than the other, yet both die.

  Ecclesiastes 2:13 2:16

  "Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness." (Ecclesiastes 2:13)

  "For there is no remembrance of the wise more than of the fool for ever; seeing that which now is in the days to come shall all be forgotten. And how dieth the wise man? as the fool." (Ecclesiastes 2:16)

  Sharing one event does not erase every difference.

• "Ecclesiastes 3:21 says nothing about an animal's spirit," or "Scripture never speaks of a beast having a spirit." Either would drop the verse's own words about the spirit of the beast going downward to the earth. Nor can "downward" be swapped for "upward".
• "'Downward' means God can never give an animal life again." This adds something the sentence does not say. It speaks of direction at death. It does not say how long that lasts, and it does not forbid any later act of God.

Ecclesiastes 3:21 is put as a question, and the book really does stress the limits of what a person can see ahead:

But the book is not just a string of guesses that can be set aside. The same Preacher states some things firmly:

So reading 3:21 as being about the limits of human knowledge fits its setting, but its distinction between "upward" and "downward" still stands.

What this leaves: the passages examined give no promise that an animal's spirit goes up to God when it dies, and Ecclesiastes 3:21 stands in the way of simply saying it does. "Every animal goes straight to heaven at death" is unsupported. Ecclesiastes does not, though, settle whether God might later give an animal life again.

"Like the beasts that perish": Psalm 49

This psalm is wisdom spoken to everyone, about wealth and death:

The comparison is real: beasts perish. But the psalm also says wise men die, and then speaks of God redeeming the psalmist from the grave. Being alike in death is not the same as being alike in everything that follows. The psalm gives no promise of redemption for animals. It does not state that God can never restore an animal either.

"Natural brute beasts": 2 Peter and Jude

Second Peter gives a warning about false teachers:

Jude warns about the same kind of men:

Animals being "taken and destroyed" is part of the comparison, and it can't be wished away. But the people being warned about are the false teachers. These verses do not say that animals commit those men's sins or share every part of their punishment. Nor do they say God can never give an animal life again.

The same chapter of 2 Peter uses another animal comparison, taken from a proverb:

Both are pictures used to warn about people. Neither is about animals entering or not entering heaven.

What the words "soul" and "spirit" show

Some people say animals have no soul or spirit, so they cannot go to heaven. Others say animals have a soul, so they must. Scripture's own use of these words supports neither shortcut.

"Soul." The same Hebrew word is translated "soul" for man, "creature" for animals (Genesis 1:24, quoted above), and "life" in the rule about blood:

Job, answering his companions, puts the beasts, birds and fish in God's hand together with mankind:

So the claim that "soul" can never be used of animals fails against Job 12:10. But sharing a word does not prove a shared afterlife. When Rachel died, Scripture speaks of her soul departing:

The animal use of the word cannot erase that. Rachel's account cannot simply be carried over to an animal either.

Two other passages turned up in searches for "soul" and "beast" together. In both, the "soul" is the person who touches or eats, and the animal is what is touched or eaten:

These do not call an animal a soul, and they are not evidence either way. The point about the word rests on Job 12 and the creation passages.

"Spirit" and "breath." One Hebrew word stands behind "breath" in Ecclesiastes 3:19 and Psalms 104:29, "spirit" in Ecclesiastes 3:21 and 12:7, "breath" in Genesis 6:17 and 7:22, and "wind" in Genesis 8:1. In each place the setting shows what is meant: life that depends on breath, breath taken away at death, a question about spirits, a return to God, a wind over the floodwaters. So the word does not mean "an undying person" every time it appears. It does not mean "just moving air" every time either. In Ecclesiastes it has to be read with that book's own comparison and questions, not settled by a dictionary.

The same word appears in two prayers that call God "the God of the spirits of all flesh":

One is a plea about judgment on a congregation of people. The other is Moses' request for a human leader. Neither promises every animal a place in heaven. They are also a reminder that a wide word like "all" takes its reach from its own sentence and setting, not from the English word alone.

Neither correction proves the opposite. That Scripture speaks of a beast's spirit and of the soul of every living thing does not prove that animals have undying souls. It does not prove that people and animals share the same destiny either.

What "perish" and "corruption" show

The Hebrew word behind "perish" in Psalm 49 is translated other ways elsewhere. Isaiah uses it of himself, and then is cleansed and sent:

So the word alone does not mean "gone forever, with no possibility of anything after". That is not evidence that animals don't really die: Psalm 49 and Psalm 104 say plainly that they do.

The Greek word behind "destroyed" and "corruption" in 2 Peter 2:12 also appears in Romans 8:21 and 1 Corinthians 15:42 and 15:50 (quoted below), and in these:

Each setting decides what is corrupted and how: things used up under human rules, the corruption of lust, the body. First Corinthians 15 sets present corruption right beside future incorruption. So the word "destroyed" does not, by itself, forbid God ever giving life again. It does not promise an animal life again either.

Creation itself will be set free

Paul writes to the believers in Rome:

In chapter 8 he speaks of the creation's hope:

Why this is read as the created world, animals included. The passage speaks of the whole creation, of creation made subject to vanity, of corruption, and of groaning shared by all of it. In verse 23 it sets the believers apart from that creation. So the passage can't be shrunk to the believers' own inner change. Earlier in the letter Paul uses the same Greek word for the created world, made by the Creator, which includes birds and beasts:

Elsewhere Scripture shows people's wrongdoing affecting the ground and other living creatures:

These are parallels of the same kind. Paul does not quote them, so they do not prove the whole story of how creation was "made subject to vanity". They do not make any animal guilty either.

Another reading was weighed. The Greek word for "creature" does not always mean animals. It can mean a person, a human institution, or something built:

So the word alone can't decide it. Some read "the creature" in Romans 8 as humanity outside the believers. The reasons for the wider reading come from the passage itself, given above. And if the narrower reading were right, it would say even less about animals that have died, not more.

What this leaves: creation's deliverance is a promise, not just a hope someone imagined. Animals belong to the created world it covers. Scripture teaches this. But Romans 8 gives no list of which kinds of animals are kept, and no roll of individual animals that are raised. It does not say each animal that ever died goes to heaven.

"All things" reconciled, and a restoration of all things

Paul writes of Christ:

Peter, speaking to the men of Israel after a healing, said:

These are wide, and their width should not be played down: God's purpose reaches far beyond one person's private experience. But reconciling all things is not the same as every creature being converted, raised, or taken up. Peter's next words include a warning that can't be dropped, drawn from Moses' words in Deuteronomy:

Scripture also states a real judgment:

So the reading "creation's restoration means every being, every person included, enters God's city" would make these verses false, and it is ruled out. "All things" can't be used as a shortcut to a promise about every animal.

The wolf and the lamb

Isaiah foretells a Branch from Jesse, righteous judgment, and peace on God's holy mountain:

In the chapter about the new heavens and new earth, the LORD says it again:

These two passages are joined by what they actually say: the same hunting animals and their prey, eating or dwelling together, and no harm on God's holy mountain. Hosea speaks of a coming day as well:

What is firm: the LORD describes His promised peace with animals living and feeding together without harm.

Are Isaiah's animals real animals, or a picture?

Both readings have real support, and neither has been ruled out.

For real animals: Isaiah names particular kinds, says what they eat, mentions their young, and has children playing near them.

For a picture of peace among peoples: Isaiah 11 also speaks of nations, enemies and a people gathered in. And Scripture often uses animals for people. Some places say "like" or "as":

Some places call people animals with no comparison word at all:

And sometimes Scripture itself explains its animal pictures as being about people:

Those last explanations belong to their own passages. They can't be laid over Isaiah, and Isaiah gives no such explanation of its own animals. But they do rule out one shortcut: "every animal named in Scripture is an ordinary animal" would make Daniel 7:17 and Zephaniah 3:3 false. That does not prove Isaiah's animals are only a picture. It means an animal word alone can't settle it.

What turns on this:

• If the animals are real, there are animals in God's promised peace, but Isaiah does not say where they came from.
• If they are a picture, the passage says less directly about real future animals, and says nothing at all about individual animals living again.

Under either reading, Isaiah does not say these animals are ones that died before. So the answer about an animal that has died is the same either way. What changes is how strongly Isaiah can be used to say there will be animals in the world to come. That is why the firm statement is "the LORD describes His peace with animals together without harm", and not "Scripture gives a list of real animals in the final state".

Isaiah's "hundred years" and Revelation's "no more death"

There is a further question in the same chapter of Isaiah:

Revelation 21:4, quoted above, says there shall be no more death. If every detail of Isaiah 65 described exactly the same state, at the same time and in the same sense, as Revelation 21, one of those sentences would be false. So they can't simply be treated as one picture.

Two ways of keeping both have been considered. Isaiah may describe a distinct stage of restoration. Or it may picture fullness of life in familiar human terms. Revelation does give stages before the new creation:

But no passage examined places Isaiah 65:20 in one of those stages, and neither option is proved to be the full explanation. Neither option allows deleting Isaiah's animals. Both rule out using the word "heaven" to shrink the whole matter down to an animal going up at death.

So the exact timing of Isaiah's peace, and which creatures will be in the final state, are not settled from Isaiah alone.

No more sea, and the former things forgotten

Revelation 21:1, quoted above, says there was no more sea. That rules out picturing the new creation as today's world with every feature and habitat kept unchanged. It does not say that no sea creature can exist in any form or any water. So no promise can be made that every present kind of animal will be kept, and no claim can be made that sea creatures are shut out forever.

Isaiah says the former things will not be remembered (Isaiah 65:17, quoted above). The verse just before speaks of former troubles:

"The former" in Isaiah 65:17 can refer to the former heavens and earth just mentioned, and the setting stresses the end of former troubles. Neither verse names a loved animal as a memory that must vanish. These verses can't be used to promise a reunion because of the love someone has for an animal. They can't be used to say for certain that the animal will be forgotten either.

This is the heart of the question for many people, and it is where Scripture, in the passages examined, leaves the answer open.

What the passages do and don't say

Psalm 104 sets real death right beside God's continuing work:

This fits new generations of creatures being made. Reading it as the very same animals that died being brought back could only be added to the verse. The verse itself does not say it. So it is not a promise of animal resurrection. But it does show that death and dust are not the end of what Scripture says about God's work in His creation.

The resurrection chapter in 1 Corinthians answers people who denied the resurrection, and their questions about the body:

It uses animals as an example of different kinds of flesh:

The animals here are an illustration. Being used as an example does not make them part of the resurrection promise. That promise is to those who are Christ's:

That gives no separate rule, either way, for what becomes of animals.

Some take this verse to mean nothing embodied can be raised at all:

That reading would make the same chapter false, because the chapter goes straight on to a body raised and changed:

So that reading is ruled out. The resurrection shows that death alone does not decide what God can do afterwards. But it is a promise to the people it is given to. It is not an animal promise.

Jesus' words to Nicodemus are also sometimes brought in:

This is Jesus teaching a man, and the people listening, about new birth, belief and judgment. It can't be turned, without warrant, into a rule that animals must do what people are called to do before God can include animals in His creation. It also can't be used the other way, to promise animals what is promised to people just because both breathe. In the same chapter Jesus says:

This is about the Son's witness from heaven, and it speaks of no man ascending. It is not about where animals go.

Revelation's scene of the dead coming out of the sea is not a list of animals raised either. It speaks of every man being judged:

Why this stays open

Two pictures each keep every one of these verses true:

• A new creation with new animals. God makes animals in His renewed world, but not by bringing back individuals that died. This keeps animal death, the beast's spirit going downward in Ecclesiastes 3:21, creation's promised deliverance, and Isaiah's animals. It follows the pattern of Psalms 104:30.
• A new creation in which God restores animals that died, some or all. This keeps the same verses too: real death, followed by a further act of God. That is like the human resurrection only in showing it is possible. No passage examined promises it for animals.

No passage examined says where the animals of the promised world come from, or names which creatures creation's deliverance reaches one by one. Neither picture can be presented as what God has revealed about animals.

For whether an animal that has died will live again, or will be in heaven, Scripture speaks to this, but the examined passages do not settle it. This is not because Scripture says nothing. It is because the passages that speak are about different things: real death, the beast's spirit going downward, creation's deliverance, and peace in God's world. None of them says that the animals of that world are the same ones that died.

"Without are dogs"

These limits are serious and stand as written. Nothing here promises any animal entry through the city's gates.

But "dogs" in this list sits among moral wrongdoers. Scripture uses the word for wicked people:

It also uses the word for real dogs:

So the word alone does not decide who is meant in Revelation. The list it is in supports reading it as a harsh name for excluded people. Even if it meant real dogs, it would put dogs outside the city. It would not say there are no animals anywhere in God's new creation. The city and the whole new creation are not shown to be the same thing. This passage is not a "no" to the question.

Horses in heaven

These horses really are in John's vision, so animal language connected with heaven can't simply be ignored. They may be real horses. They may be part of the vision's picture of victorious judgment, which has support from the rider's description and the sword from His mouth. Either way, the vision does not say they are earthly horses that died and were brought back.

The same is true of Elijah:

It does not say Elijah rode a once-dead animal to heaven, or that the horses died and went up.

The four beasts around the throne

With six wings and eyes all over, these can't be called ordinary animals, let alone pets that have died, just because the English says "beasts". Ezekiel saw something similar, and he says what his creatures were:

That explanation belongs to Ezekiel's vision. The two visions are alike, but not identical, so every detail of one is not carried over to the other. The Greek word for Revelation's "beasts" is also used for ordinary sacrificial animals:

So the word alone proves neither "ordinary animals" nor "heavenly beings". In Revelation, the description itself decides.

Every creature praising God

This places creatures in heaven, on earth, under the earth and in the sea. It does not move them all into heaven. Praise in a vision is not an account of where each animal goes after death.

The Greek word for "creature" here is also used for living sea creatures that die, for food received with thanks, and for believers:

Each setting gives the word its reach. And the fact that Romans 8 and Revelation 5 use two different Greek words for "creature" does not, by itself, mean they speak of unrelated things.

Animals let down from heaven and taken back

Peter saw a vision of animals coming down from heaven and returning:

Peter himself explains what it meant:

When Scripture explains itself, that explanation comes first. The vision is about receiving people. It is not a record of animals dying and going to heaven.

God made animals good, keeps them, feeds them, and does not forget even a sparrow; and animals truly die. Scripture teaches this. His care is not a promise that they escape death.

The creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption, and animals belong to that creation. Scripture teaches this. It is not a list of individual animals raised, or of every kind kept.

The LORD describes His promised peace with animals living together without harm. That wording is firm. Whether Isaiah's animals are real animals in the final state, or a picture of peace among peoples, has not been settled. Either way, they are not said to be animals that died before.

"Animals go to heaven when they die." The passages examined give no promise of this, and Ecclesiastes 3:21, with the beast's spirit going downward to the earth, stands against simply saying it. It is unsupported. That verse does not, though, say what God may or may not do later.

"The same animal will live again, or be in heaven." Scripture speaks to this, but the examined passages do not settle it. Neither a sure heavenly home for every animal nor a ban on any later act of God has been shown.

What is not promised in these passages: a reunion with a particular pet; every animal going straight to heaven; every animal that died being raised; every present kind of animal being kept. None of these is promised in the passages examined. That is not the same as Scripture revealing that none of them can happen. They are unsupported, not disproved.

Scripture is not silent on this subject. It speaks of animal life, animal death, creation's future, and visions with animals in them. What it does not do, in the passages examined, is say what becomes of a particular animal after it dies.

The reading behind this answer used the King James text only. No commentator, tradition, other translation, manuscript or dictionary was used. Every one of the 165 verses quoted in the reading's record was checked word for word against the text. Some technical checks on the reading's own instruction files were not run; nothing in this answer depends on them.

It ran 74 searches, by words and by subjects, and looked at the Hebrew and Greek words behind "soul", "spirit", "heaven", "creature", "beast", "dog", "wolf", "perish" and "corruption". A search for the word "animals" in the King James text found no results, so the search went through "beasts", "creatures", "fowls", "cattle" and the like. Narrow searches such as "animals heaven", "animal resurrection", "beasts saved", "creatures saved", "beast everlasting" and "beasts raised" found nothing. On their own, empty searches like these prove nothing, which is why the creation, death and spirit passages were all read in full.

Where a verse used here quotes an earlier passage, the source was checked: Genesis 2 for 1 Corinthians 15:45; Proverbs 26 for 2 Peter 2:22; Psalm 44 for Romans 8:36, which compares afflicted people with sheep for slaughter and is not a promise about animals; Isaiah 25 and Hosea 13 for 1 Corinthians 15:54–55, which promise death's defeat and the wiping away of tears but give no list of individual animals; and Deuteronomy 18 and Genesis 22 for Acts 3:22–25, with Genesis 26 and 28, which repeat the promise to Abraham's seed and give no animal-by-animal promise.

Other passages were read in full and set aside, because they do not speak of an animal going to heaven. Among them:

• the plagues in Exodus 9 and the threatened destruction of creatures in Zephaniah 1;
• the laws in Exodus 22 and Leviticus 11 and 17;
• the judgments in Jeremiah 21 and Ezekiel 38;
• Psalm 79, where creatures eat human dead;
• Job 35;
• Isaiah 63:14, a comparison about God leading His people;
• 1 Corinthians 15:32, part of the argument for resurrection, not a resurrection of beasts;
• Revelation 13 and 17, a ruling, blaspheming beast explained in terms of kings and a city, not a dead animal raised;
• Revelation 16, judgment on the sea;
• Mark 10, 13 and 16, Galatians 6, Hebrews 4 and Revelation 3, wider uses of "creation" and "creature";
• all five places the Greek word for "dogs" appears.

Not everything was read. 310 search results that were shown, covering 304 different verses, were not opened, and the broad word searches had thousands more results that were never shown. Nothing is claimed about what those contain, and they are not dismissed. So this answer does not say Scripture says nothing more anywhere. It says what the passages examined do and do not say. The open question about an individual animal stays open because of what those passages actually say and do not say, not because a search came up empty.