Can dogs go to heaven? And what about Cats? a Catholic view

okay hey everybody thanks for uh hanging in there and staying if you're watching this you watch the rest of the master maybe you just jumped in for this if you went to went to mass in the church so thanks for this we'll talk just briefly about uh dogs and cats go to heaven will your dog get to heaven it wants to know it's very glad you stayed watching uh and just briefly here you see our beautiful sunflowers was an awesome lady in the church named sue god bless you sue dropped by and dropped off those flowers really great good for sunday because they're sunflowers uh so and you see here these are the some of the remains of my potatoes they're ready to harvest when they look like they're dying they're not dying the meat potatoes are good and i got another video coming a little bit later i have to edit it all together because we did harvest the bucket and we got i think seven or eight potatoes from the two that we put in each of them so it's really cool these will harvest these a little bit later okay will dogs go to heaven so i want to do a rap video about it um make a rap song about it but the more i worked on it the more i just thought you know the answer is either yes or no it depends on how you come down on the issue and i've been writing a book about it probably for almost two years now i mean i've had crazy four years and i've thought about this long before i got my dog in case anyone thinks i'm biased so that's kind of telling you where i think the answer goes and so there's a lot to say i'm not going to say it all here i'll give you just a brief part because of today's gospel right so so for those who want to stop watching the answer is yes but there's a condition i think now i don't know obviously i've never been to heaven yet um i've never even been to a town called heaven or paradise right i grew up in lakewood and here i'm in point plaza which is very pleasant we think heaven is better than pleasant heaven is not pleasant heaven is oh amazing okay so uh this is how i think it works and i know a little bit about the scriptures obviously i hope that's obvious to you uh i studied some theology and uh writing writing about it so there's a lot to say and i'll probably make a video too because not everybody reads today but people know how to read but they don't they're not they don't have the attention span for a long book uh so i'll probably make a longer video about it i intended to like do a wrap and then the video the rap turns into more of just a rap about like just wanting to get to heaven and then who you find in heaven and will you see your dog or cat there so let's jump to that so a couple things you got to remember so first you have today's gospel right which is huge because in today's gospel right that woman said you know but even the dog right jesus says it's not right to take fruit of the children and give it to the dogs and what does she say and we know she's persevering in prayer and all that you should watch homily but she says yeah but even the dogs get the scraps to fall from their master's table and jesus he's like woman great is your faith right now he doesn't so he doesn't reject her right nor does he deny her logic so i want you to hold on to that right so dogs going to heaven cats going to heaven is important topic for us who love them i want to know about this but what the gospel is about persevering in prayer being a disciple is a lot more important in fact i think the dogs or cats get in heaven is related to that how so here's what we think here's what i think and i think it's in the scriptures so god there's a lot about animals in the bible in the jewish temple the jewish temple if you were there in jerusalem and you saw and i got to go to jerusalem it was awesome uh they had all kinds of fruits and vegetables and all of creation was decorated around the temple it's interesting why about that maybe you have to read the book when it comes out but the bible talks a lot about animals uh there's a prophet in the old testament uh and this guy's riding his donkey and he can't see this angel in front of him but the donkey can and god gives the donkey the ability to speak and it says hey what are you doing man you can't see the angel i'm not going that way right so he gives this animal a donkey the ability to speak to repudiate his human who felt like a jack a blank blank right that's a joke there but i want to keep it clean for the kids uh jesus will say right the father knows every hair on your head right and he also knows a sparrow can't fall in the woods without your jesus as a sparrow a little birdie can't fall in the woods without your father knowing and then he says you're worth more than many sparrows that's interesting so sparrows have value to be known by god when they die and yet you have more value than them interesting right jesus will say um you know talk about the sabbath day and he'll say like you know look you'll you know you'll pick up you know if your uh ox or sheep gets stuck in a ditch on the sabbath you're going to do work and get it out of there and you're worth more a man is worth more than a sheep right so sheep have value because that's what's being offered at the passover meal they're certainly being offered in the sacrificial system for a long long time for the jews uh and jesus will say a man is worth more than a sheep so i want to hold that out there because i don't want to just only pick passages that are favorable for making this case and the case i'm going to make is that yeah your dog or cat can get to heaven and in today's logic again in jesus he doesn't deny that woman's logic he acts upon it in fact right and the logic is well the kids eat first and then after the kids eat the dogs and cats right the dogs particularly insane cats they'll get they get theirs and i think this is in fact how it works in the beginning of creation the book of genesis god makes male or female right he makes us in his image and he says to us have dominion over creation and subdue it that he puts creation in our hands right and so jesus also will say later on in john i think chapter 16 to say if you ask if you do the father's will you jesus says you love me you keep my commandments right so if you do god's will you keep his commandments jesus says if you ask your heavenly father for an egg he's not going to hand you a stone you ask him for a fish he's not going to hand you a scorpion right um you know and he says if you keep the commandments on that day ask my father anything in my name and he will grant it you wrap all these things together this is the short version i make a longer case in the book and there's one more important i'll say be rep wrap all these things together and i think it works like this if you if you get to heaven when you die if you get to heaven you can ask god to raise up a particular dog or cat or any particular creature frankly right i think there's people who will die and they want god to raise up a horse or maybe there's a farmer offensive farmers maybe who loved a goat or a sheep right or a tarantula you know maybe that's spider-man right creation is given to us you can raise a chicken as a pet and you can raise it for chicken parm and i love chicken parm in fact there's a great woman in the power show drops off chicken parma and i'm like when i'm like really busy i don't have enough time to like make a meal or something like that suddenly her and her husband bought margaery and bob she's a great cook or at least she makes great chicken parm i don't know if she makes other things that are great but her husband is an athlete he's in good shape which probably does but she'll drop off like a tray of chicken parm and spaghetti and it's got a real thick mozzarella which i love it's delicious breaded fabulous but you can decide whether to eat a chicken or to love it right i think it works like this again you get to heaven you can ask god to raise a particular animal a dog or a cat or any kind of animal and and he will in fact it doesn't even really have to happen in that order i think i mean god who knows you you get to heaven you know he's there we have this idea in theology that anything that is good here is picked up even in greater way there right that's why jesus says i hasn't seen ear hasn't heard it has not even dawned on man what god has prepared for those who love him that like you think you think love is good physical love you think friendship is good you think having you know some wine playing the guitar with your brother around a fire pit is good you think having a pipe on the back deck yeah hello uh to dave and maggie out there god bless you guys congratulations to your engagement enjoying the pipe together right this great couple engaged she's got a great voice he makes good music they're gonna make good music together god bless them you think that is good it's even better in heaven right the mirth the joy the happiness here is only a little taste how great it's going to be there okay so god who knows you like i think you could be surprised on who's in heaven of course supposed to say that because i'm pretty supposed to say that but even i think if you get to heaven you know you can ask god to raise up your dog or cat he might even know you're going to ask that and surprise you on what creature greets you at the gate of heaven and that little dog that you love or that little cat yes even cats get to heaven they have to go to purgatory first then they get to heaven but they'll get there if you get there no i don't know right obviously i wasn't there but i can i'm going to make a really good case from the scriptures um but it depends on humanity because the bible will also say jesus will say all of creation is groaning waiting for the redemption of the sons of man what is that about it's in labor pains creation is experiencing some kind of suffering the bible says by the one who subjected to it subjected it maybe the devil humanity falling and it's waiting for us to be right for the redemption of the sons of man it's waiting for man and woman to become who god made us right to say yes to the person that he is calling you to be remember the people who don't get to heaven jesus says i don't know you right but god because he's god what he says comes about and so when he put creation in our hands he had a plan for creation you know the one line from my rap song about animals that i loved was hey god made you a woman he made you a man your life has a purpose because he has a plan stewards of creation who care for the land and animals would hear you before we began right he makes the animal kingdom we i'm a fan of evolution you don't have to believe in evolution um i believe in evolution makes a lot of sense um we like science and catholicism we like science we think god made the world and he made the human mind and he became human so he has reason you have reason so there's nothing that reason can uncover that will ever contradict anything we believe dinosaurs are great without them we wouldn't have fossil fuels we would just have fuels and no fossils right and how could you get a fossil watch without fossil fuels i don't know i don't have a foster watch i have a i have a fitbit okay that being said humanity we domesticate animals right domus what does that mean right dolmas means house like dormitory you would think right is where college kids are like now like i don't want to go back to the dormitory because there's going to be the coronavirus in college and the colleges need us to come back because they don't have enough finances and so they're going to bring us there to make it's a big mess i'm not weighing in on that issue right now but when we domesticate animals we bring them into our own home well that ability to actually associate with a creature right and so this is why like humans and dogs get along so well we've domesticated them and we have more history domesticating them i believe than cats that's why cats are semi-domesticated they're still independent and they're kind of related to us but dogs are further along cats eventually will come there i think i don't know i'm not zoologist but if humanity can bring an animal into our life here and god gives us the ability to extend his life out to others it seems logically consistent that we could then invite creation into a relationship with god through us now philosophers and scientists philosophers really will say that we're different than animals of course we are different we have some of the things that they share and some things that are different right think about it like this plant it can grow this is from aristotle those who study philosophy right this has ev every living thing has the principle of life and the thing aristotle will say is the spirit the soul right so what is the state of a vegetative soul right he'll make a distinction between vegetative animal and rational human right well this can grow and reproduce it can take in nutrients and it can grow and that's that's really all that it can do right dogs and cats they have the same powers as a plant they can take a nutrients they can grow they can reproduce but they also have memory and they can move um and they have perceptions and plants have some ability to respond to the environment otherwise they would never grow thorns right or like this color it's responding to the sun the sunflower right but animals have all these powers and then they have a whole other package that they get and humans we have all that more because we have also rational thought right um and philosophers will use some of this as argument for why we can say our souls are eternal and that's a whole other conversation but yes that makes sense and you can study this in plato and aristotle uh and if you read those frank sheed books i talked about many weeks ago it'll be in there too uh but so for dogs and cats though well they have like they'll say like some philosophers say no they their soul is not eternal because they can't think like we do well yeah they can't think like us but that doesn't mean they're not thinking we have to open up what that means and this is not the video for that for a dog its primary sense is not eyesight for us our brains and eyes have evolved together right and uh jordan peterson other psychologists will say that he was quoting some guy that like the human brain evolved with our eyeballs to be able to detect snakes i don't know if that's the case or not but but we do a lot of thinking with images because of our eyes but for a dog and i know people that have blind dogs and they ask me to bless them a dog can exist without eyesight and get along fine through its scent of sense its sense of smell when i bring the groceries in i always bring them past craggly to smell the bag as i bring it in the house and she's always curious to smell what are you bringing in dad right for a dog like personhood is not i don't think an image i think it's a scent you know what is what does a person smell like i don't mean like like you know or kirk cousins people say he stinks i like her because he's a good christian man father dave aren't you going to boycott the nfl this year well that's my plan right now but we'll see we did cancel the direct tv package with the nfl that may be a protest enough we'll see what happens right that's a whole other conversation i don't i don't like politics in sports i think sports is a great way for people to just enjoy each other and our culture is overly politicized i don't like commercials and so let's just have sports be sports is my opinion you don't have to agree with that at all you have to agree with any of this but so we'll see we'll see with my protest of the nfl uh i may just who knows if if if i can watch the games even on the internet or something like that without having to watch politics i will frankly knowing myself because i'm weak and i love the vikings but i don't want politics and sports i just want to be able to enjoy game and football i think let's get back to dogs or cats do they have an eternal soul there's the question right and so philosophers in the past i think until they developed an appreciation for like aleister mcintyre will talk about maybe with dolphins uh and uh elephants chimpanzees i would make a case for dogs um in the past the answer has been no from philosophers but they don't know we're just thinking right and they just thought animals were reactionary things so i can make a case that that's not the case and if we think about dogs and personhood and identity and image and so we have to actually think of sense smell whole another conversation i'm probably losing you right now i think it works like this i think when your dog or cat dies it's gone it no longer exists and i'm not trying to say like oh father dave what about the rainbow bridge i think when your dog or cat dies it's it's over because it's not old heaven god did not say in the very beginning of creation to dogs that we know of maybe before we got on the scene you know coming to my father's house we know he spoke that the humans right so every human being is destined for heaven that means doesn't mean they get there but babies that die in the womb get to heaven right the miscarriage that maybe someone had in your family in my family those babies come to heaven because they were meant they were given invitation like harry potter living under the stairs given an invitation to come to hogwarts right humanity's given that invitation you're free to reject it and those who do right choose to go to hell themselves so they go there but anyone who doesn't reject it and chooses to accept it gets to heaven we don't know that's the case for animals and i think it works like this i think um that the natural world when it when that creature dies your dog or cat dies it's gone it's not it thought that it's not punished it's not old heaven in fact heaven was probably being able to sleep on your couch and get belly rubs and get treats and play with laser pointers and be part of your family like a dog's life in the wild is very rough it's cruel it's cold it's full of disease and pain and striving and it's hardship and being able to be in our lives is a really great thing right not for animals that are abused by people the for those creatures you know that's a terrible thing and those humans are going to have to answer for that because we have to answer for all our actions if you harm god's creation that's going to be tough right had a cruelty and stuff like that not gonna happen not gonna be good for you but i think the dog cat once it dies it's gone it's not suffering it's just gone it's over until you get to heaven or someone that loves that creature you get to heaven i think you can ask god to raise up that creature and in fact again i think he knows what like if you if you know that your friend loves ice cream and pizza when and that they would want nothing more than have pizza and ice cream you know if you're celebrating a birthday for your friend what are you gonna have you're going to have pizza and ice cream and have jennifer aniston there too and the minnesota viking cheerleaders and kirk cousin right oh that'd be awesome that'd be awesome with some pork or leg and cheese and some doritos and that it's a party it is a party um and so god is that good man that he knows you love your dog or cat and if you keep his commandments and put him first and get to heaven congratulations you'll have them again uh and in that room in the father's house will be that creature that you love and be everybody that you love the people and the people that are free who are also chosen to love you and love god and love their enemies even they're gonna be there as well all right hope this makes some sense a lot more to come at a future talk and book and who knows all right god bless you guys thanks

Channel: Father Dave

Views: 41,824

Keywords: dogs in heaven?, can dogs go to heaven, pets in heaven, catholic, pets, fr. dave, father dave, Rev. David Swantek, vikings, christianity, what is heaven like, Can dogs go to heaven?, all dogs go to heaven, do dogs go to heaven, dog videos, will i see my dog in heaven, heaven

Id: VOzNefPuLwg

Length: 18min 51sec (1131 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 15 2020