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Real Answers™
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Copyright: © ©2004 William E. Cripe, Sr.
610 words

DO DOGS GO TO HEAVEN?

By: William Cripe Sr.

With the heartache of loved ones lost in the war I am reticent to mention having to put down my dog. But I am human, he was with us for 13 years, and he was part of the family while our children went from kids with band-aid knees to adults with children; and now he’s gone.

Max was a stray, just a mutt we picked up at the local shelter. He was one of those dogs who was inexplicably low maintenance: trained (without us ever having to train him) and content to be alone for hours on end. To top it all off, one day last summer, after I had just learned of my dad’s passing, Max, himself ailing, struggled up into my lap without coaxing. I swear he knew I needed a special touch.

As one who deals with weighty life issues, heavy theologies and sticky matters of cultural wisdom, being asked about the eternal fate of one’s family pet is not one I ever gave much energy to, until Max was gone and the question was posed to me during one of my segments on talk radio.

My knowledge of Scripture couldn’t produce anything relevant except one obscure passage I recalled from the book of Ecclesiastes. It says, “…Man's fate is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; man has no advantage over the animal. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the spirit of man rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?" (3:18-21)

While Solomon’s intent was not a dissertation on the fate of our beloved pets, it does seem to leave the door open that, perhaps, such animate objects of our love are not gone forever. I am not willing to die for the defense of such a notion, but it does have me wondering. At any rate, with the profound intricacies of the Imago Dei not withstanding, maybe my son, in his letter of condolence to my wife and me, says it all.

He wrote, “I don’t know that there are any appropriate words to say. I know you know intellectually that putting Max down was the right decision. I know that you know intellectually that all things of this earth come to an end.

“Still, it is saddening to let the ‘Dice’ go. He was a wonderful dog and companion and friend. I still remember when you both brought him home and we all sat around the kitchen table thinking up names for him (Beethoven, Sebastian were among those considered) in the end he was Max, Modice, the Dice, Motie, and a slew of other ‘pet’ names.

“Mom, Dad, you and I have discussed before my eco-theology. One thing that we’ve agreed upon is that the whole of the non-human created order, though tarnished and affected by sin, is still giving glory to God in much the same way He originally intended. I’ve no doubt that God was glorified by Max’s existence. In that there is cause for praise and fond remembrance…I won’t bore you with any ‘he’s still with us in our memories’ twaddle, but know that we’ll miss him, too.”

I do believe that once we see the Lord face to face, many, if not all of our questions will melt into irrelevance consumed by the awesome spectacle of God’s glory. But for now, though he was just a dog, I miss him, and I am sad and I think it’s okay that I am.

"Real Answers™" furnished courtesy of The Amy Foundation Internet Syndicate. To contact the author or The Amy Foundation, write or E-mail to: P. O. Box 16091, Lansing, MI 48901-6091; amyfoundtn@aol.com

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