Finishing up our series on Life after Death, Joe asks Jamie a series of rapid-fire questions, including: Do all dogs go to Heaven? And Jamie's answer may surprise you.
Jamie Dew: Hey, everybody, I'm Jamie Dew.
Joe Fontenot: And I'm Joe, Fontenot.
Jamie Dew: Welcome back to the podcast, The Towel and Basin.
Joe Fontenot: That's right. And so the past few episodes we've looked at this question, basically life after death. We've looked at the Christian doctrine of life after death. We've looked at the two kind of forms, the intermediate state, and then bodily resurrection, and just the things that we have to keep in mind in a way, as we consider those. Now, this is just kind of like some miscellaneous questions that are just sort of random and leftover. These are some questions, I'm going to say them real quick, and then just maybe you can take them one at a time or something like that.
Jamie Dew: All right. Sounds good.
Joe Fontenot: Just to kind of give you an idea of what we got. So first of all, do all dogs really go to heaven? Serious question. Are you laughing at my serious question?
Jamie Dew: Yeah.
Joe Fontenot: What happens to the soul, whether you're Christian or even non-Christian after we die, where is heaven physically, is the question? Can we sin in heaven? And this is really, I think a question about free will because sin down here. And what do we know about this existence of life after death? For instance, people have this image in their mind of is grandma looking down on us. Is that true? These are kind of [crosstalk 00:01:29] the miscellaneous random questions.
Jamie Dew: We could say this real quick though. I mean, those are all fun questions. I'll take a shot at each of them though. But on each of those questions they're asking about areas that we may or may not have clear and distinct answers. There's varying degrees of certainty we would have, given what scripture says on all those questions, which means on every single one of those questions, there's going to be a level of speculation. I'll be glad to try to speculate. I think in these moments, what I'd say to listeners on this, when we try to speculate what we utilize in our speculations are the clear principles of scripture that we do have. So in other words, based off of what we do know, those principles, we can try to piece together some answers on those questions. Take anything we say here just as grain of salt, two folks just trying to think it through is really...
Joe Fontenot: That's a really good point. So do all dogs go to heaven?
Jamie Dew: All dogs, yes, but not cats. You get asked this question a lot, do animals go to heaven? The default answer that most Christians will give is no, that animals don't go to heaven, that our dogs and our pets don't go to heaven. I think the reason most people would say something like that, and I'm not necessarily differing with that. But I would say, I think the reason most Christians will answer no in that case, is simply because the scriptures don't say anything about it. We should know that that is an argument from silence, which may or may not be indicative. The scripture doesn't say anything about it, but there is a deeper theological question and that is, well, if animals get to go to heaven, is there some kind of soteriology for them? Is there a way of salvation? Does there have to be a sort of dog atonement if you will, or something like that. How do we reconcile their sin or something like that.
That's an important theological question. I'm not convinced that if animals such as dogs and cats and things of that nature, hamsters and gerbils really have moral constitution in the first place. I don't think that they have sufficient cognitive capacities that would generate and give to them the moral compass necessary to actually have guilt in the first place. Now, that doesn't mean that they don't experience the fall because they come into this world with diseases as well and they behave in certain ways that are contrary to perhaps their design. So they experienced the fall, but I don't know that they experience the fall as moral agents like you and I are. A moral agent is a being that is capable of moral actions. And we have that, angels have that, but I don't know that animals have it. So I don't know that there would have to be some kind of a doggy atonement if you will, for that to happen.
I think the bigger trouble here on this question is, man, the scriptures are just silent. Well, I should say this, they're silent about your dog, your specific dog. You do have to note if the question is asked, is my dog and heaven? I don't know. If the question is, are there animals in heaven? Absolutely, yes. Clearly, throughout the prophecies about heaven, throughout the book of Revelation, I mean, Jesus himself comes back, riding on a white horse for crying out loud. So there's at least one animal, and there's a place where the lion and lamb lay down together.
Now, people could say, "Well, that's just metaphorical. It's suggesting that there's an easement of hostility and there's now peace and things like that. Yeah, but still, if you strip the metaphor of any kind of actual literal sense, then I don't know that we have a whole lot to base our knowledge on. All that to say the natural reading of the texts would take us in the direction of saying yes, there are animals there. So if you're asking me, do I think animals are there? Yeah, I do. And does that mean it's possible your dog? Maybe. I don't know, but maybe not either.
Christians again, are very dogmatic on this point and they're dogmatic on this point because indeed the scriptures don't say anything about it. And so you'd be really hard pressed to argue that your animal, your dead pet is in heaven. At the same time, I think you're equally hard pressed to make a case that they're not. So at the end of the day, for animals, yeah. I think they are. For your specific pats, I'd have to be agnostic on.
Joe Fontenot: Sure. Next question, what happens to the soul when we die, Christians, but also non-Christians?
Jamie Dew: So a little bit different than from the podcast two, where we talked about the intermediate state then.
Joe Fontenot: Right.
Jamie Dew: First of all, we did in podcasts to talk about the intermediate state and that at death, the soul goes to be back in the presence of Christ and that's kind of where we left it. We unpacked a whole lot of different things about it, but the soul goes to be in the presence of Christ. We didn't say anything about the non-believer there.
For the believer, let's just say this first. As that soul is in the presence of Christ, I don't think it's sleeping. There are some theories throughout church history that talked about that, soul sleep. They believe the soul is there, but it's asleep or it's unconscious, and therefore it's unaware. So from the conscious experience of a person, they fall asleep in death, here on this side and they wake up immediately in glory. It's as if they've had an immediate resurrection, but there actually could have been on that view a long period of time where the soul is just sleeping. I don't think that's what's going on. I really don't. The depictions are that this soul is in the presence of Christ and it's conscious. So the very thing in you right now that is conscious and aware and remembering, that very thing, that soul is still conscious and still aware and remembering and loving.
It goes to being the presence of Christ. The scriptures talk about to be in the presence of the Lord is to be made whole and to be made pure. So I think you could say from that just by virtue of being in the presence of Christ, the soul is purified of all of its sinful longings and dispositions. It's healed if you will, even if it's disembodied and waiting for the resurrection of the dead. It's nevertheless, morally and spiritually purified and cleansed in that moment and resting there in the presence of Christ and basking in his glory.
For the nonbeliever, well, it too will be resurrected. The resurrection when it happens, the dead, the righteous and the unrighteous erased and reembody according to the Christian tradition. Christianity has tended to say that the souls of lost persons are there, also conscious and aware, and therefore in misery. Misery, the questions here are these statements in the New Testament metaphorical, or are they literal? Lake of fire, gnashing of teeth and things like that. A literal view would say, "No, there really is a fire there." But this is why the metaphorical question there is a legitimate question.
If a lake of fire and a gnashing of teeth are supposed to be bad, how could they be bad if the soul is disembodied? There's nothing to bite with those teeth. There's nothing there to burn with that fire. So, could those just be metaphorical? Potentially. Either way, it's a very, very clear. I think you could say that the clear reading of the text is that's really bad, that the soul is in a really bad, bad place there and conscious of it. Probably the greatest torment of all is the solidification that this soul is now bent, broken forever, gotten exactly what it wanted, separation from God, and that goes on for all of eternity. So I think that's what's going on. I don't think that what I'm saying there is out of bounds with the Christian tradition.
Joe Fontenot: Okay. Next question.
Jamie Dew: You certainly wouldn't want that.
Joe Fontenot: Sure. Absolutely. Next question here, where is heaven
Jamie Dew: Oh gosh.
Joe Fontenot: Dropping them all on you right now.
Jamie Dew: Well, little Johnny asks mama, "Mama, where's heaven?" So three possibilities. Possibility number one is the way we answered little Johnny most of the time, and that is to say, "Oh Johnny, that's a silly question. Heaven is not physical, so it's not in time and space." There is one big problem with that and that is that Jesus himself is at the right hand of the Father. Jesus himself is there. He's going to prepare a place for us, we're told in John 14, and he's there embodied. So remember Acts 1, he ascends in his physical body up into heaven. And according to the Christian tradition, he is still embodied right now, and according to the Christian tradition, he will come back embodied.
So if he's there now and he's embodied, well, then that's physical. I don't know that the typical answers that we give to the little Johnny work, to be candid. So two other options, and both of these other options assume that there is some kind of physicality to it, even now because of Jesus's resurrection of body. Option one would be that no, there is an actual place within the four-dimensional time space dimensionality that we live in right now, that he is, maybe some far corner of the universe or something like that. I don't know that that makes any sense to be candid with you.
Another possibility is that maybe as scientists and some of my friends that do work in these areas are going to love this little shout out, many scientists have discovered that there's really more than just these regular four dimensions that you and I live, and move, and have our being in, and all physical space as we know it right now lives and moves and has its being in. That there are actually multiple other dimensions that you and I don't have the keys to. We don't have access to those other dimensions. They're part of the physical world, nonetheless, but they're not dimensions that you and I have access to. And therefore, they could be right here with us and yet you and I don't have access to them, can't see them, can't touching them, or anything like that. I think that's a possibility. Bottom line is I have no idea.
Joe Fontenot: Okay.
Jamie Dew: I just don't that it's helpful to little Johnny when we say, "Oh, it's just not in time and space." I don't know what to do with the ascended Christ at that moment.
Joe Fontenot: What should we say to little Johnny? This is a side question, what should we say to little Johnny in this case?
Jamie Dew: I think we take a page from the politicians and all joking aside, and we change the subject, and we let little Johnny know that we're doing that. The politicians are famous for getting asked a question, and what they say is just a red herring. They don't actually answer the question because they know they can't. I think in many ways, we just have to let little Johnny know that that's the reality, "Johnny, that's a great question. I don't know the answer to it. What we do know Johnny, is that it's glorious, and it's wonderful, and it's beautiful."
Joe Fontenot: Deflect to what we know.
Jamie Dew: Well, deflect, but let him know you've deflected. It doesn't help a child when you deflect and you're not honest about it, because then they feel like we're always hiding something. Let's not do that with our kids. Let's just be straight up with them. "Johnny, that is a good question. That's a real question. It's a question that we, as human beings don't know the answer to fully, but what we do know is this," and now we tell him what we know. It's glorious, it's good, and it's beautiful.
Joe Fontenot: That makes sense. Next question here, can we sin and heaven? And the obvious question sounds like no, but the point of the question to me is if we cannot sin, do we really have free will? Right?
Jamie Dew: Right. This is a good question. I think universally, Christians will say, myself included, that in heaven, no, we can't sin. Or maybe we could at least say, we won't sin, that in heaven, we won't sin. What's tricky about the question though comes from our debates about free will in the here and now on earth.
Let me give the listener two views of freedom, as theologians debate it. View number one is called libertarian freedom. Libertarian freedom, this is not libertarianism that you're familiar with in politics. Libertarian freedom is a view of freedom that basically says you are free with respect to some choice, call it the decision to choose A, you are free with respect that choice if you have the ability to not choose A. In other words, A or B, pork or chicken for lunch. You chose pork. You were free in choosing pork, on this view, if you actually could have chosen chicken. So you had what they call it, the power of alternate possibilities. That's libertarian freedom.
For example, I chose to wear this gray pull-over this morning. Well, I could have chosen the blue one, or the red one, or a different thing. I could have chosen not a pull-over. I could have come in here without a shirt on today and been a redneck or something like that. Who knows? I had an alternate possibilities. That's a libertarian view.
Another view is called compatibility freedom. On this view, it would deny that you have power of alternate possibilities. It would say you're free to do what you most want to do. So you chose the pork, and the pork or chicken, those were real choices available to you from the standpoint of, if you'd said pork, she'd given you pork, and if you'd have just said chicken, she'd have given you chicken. But it wasn't free internally to your own being, meaning while those were real options in front of you, you did not have the capacity to do the opposite. You chose pork and you had to choose pork because you wanted pork, and you always do what you most want to do. Now, people push back on that and say, "Well, how is that free?" Well, because you get what you want. And essentially those are two big views today. All right?
Now, the reason this heaven question is sticky is because in apologetics for many Christian philosopher theologians, the way we answer questions about the problem of evil depends on libertarian freedom. So God could have eliminated all this bad stuff in the world, and the response would be something like this. "Well, he couldn't have eliminated all the bad stuff in the world and allow us to be free. And since he wants us to be free so that we can love him, we need libertarian freedom. So the upshot of all that is to say, man, a world without libertarian freedom would be a really, really bad world." That's essential to many of our arguments in response to the problem of evil from atheism.
For now, if you hold so all that to say, if you're a compatiblist I don't know that the question of freedom and heaven's a tricky question, because you don't have it down here in the first place, so if you don't want to have it up there, it's not a big deal. It seems to be this question of sinning and not sinning in heaven, it seems to be a problem specific for libertarianism. And to put my cards on the table, I tend to lean libertarianism. So guys like me will have this question, this problem. The question or the problem is this, that if freedom is such a big deal down here, such that we'd say it'd be a worse world without freedom, well, then how do we get heaven, which is supposed to be the very, very, very best world, and you don't have freedom there? That's an interesting question and a unique problem that I think libertarians have. I don't know that I know exactly how to answer that question, just to be intellectually honest.
I think you could say something like this, that take my son, Samuel when he was a little boy. He's 10 now, he's still a little boy. When he was three, or when he was four, Samuel was the kind of kid that when you took him out of the minivan and put him on the sidewalk, he would bolt across the road if you left him to himself. But dad would always intervene. And while Samuel himself was the kind of being that had the capacity to bolt across the road, when daddy reached down and grabbed him by the hand, there was no way Samuel was going to bolt across the road. Not because Samuel ceased to have the abilities himself to bolt across the road, but because something else restrained him.
Now, some people will push back and say, "Well, then that ceased to be libertarian freedom, and that gets into a technical debate there. And I would grant, maybe it does. I just think at the end of the day, that's probably about the best we can do, say things like that. At the end of the day, I think all Christians, even the libertarian stripes would say, "No, we don't sin in heaven," even if we don't understand the mechanics of how that happens.
Joe Fontenot: Last question I have here, on my list anyway, I think there are probably many questions left. But last question I have is this, what do we know about life after death, the experience? And really the example here I'm thinking of is the one that we hear a lot is, granny is looking down on us now.
Jamie Dew: This idea that people up in heaven, our dead relatives are watching us, this is an idea that I would say is more of an idea from what I call folk Christianity than actual Christianity. Folk Christianity is a Christianity of the masses. It's the popularized version that everybody believes. And so, I mean, folk, Christianity, even lost people, clearly lost people, people that would say that they're lost people, believe in this stuff, these popularized versions of something that, "Oh yeah, they're up there watching us," and everything. I think we take comfort in thinking that they're watching us because it keeps them with us. I certainly understand that idea. I mean, my dead relatives, I love these people. I mean, just the other day, I was thinking about my grandfather and just how much I wish I could talk to him right now about some of the things in my life and stuff like that. But I don't have that ability.
There's something warming and reassuring to think that they're still with us. And I think that there's ways that they are still with us. But I don't know that up in heaven, they are indeed watching us. I would hope that they're not, not just because I don't want him to see the bad stuff down here, but I want heaven to be sweet for them. I want their time in the presence of Christ to be glorious.
Let me put it this way. Whether or not they can look down on us, I have no idea. I suspect it's possible. Maybe the floor of heaven is glass, [inaudible 00:20:48] watch us. Maybe it is. But let me ask you this question. Think about the descriptions of Jesus Christ in... I think I mentioned this in the last podcast. In Matthew 17, the transfiguration, and thinking about the descriptions of Christ in Revelation 1. In those two places, Jesus is glorified, and he is there as he is in heaven. He is there as he is described throughout the book of Revelation. And John describes them, and Matthew describes him in those places as being so fantastically glorious, so overwhelmingly potent to us that you are fully and completely captivated by him, such that he has your undivided attention, such that he himself is completely satisfying.
Now, think of it this way, if that's your view, when I die or when you die and my soul goes to be in that presence and I'm so completely... Do you think I'm really going to be all that interested in what's happening down here? Probably not. I just don't think. And look, I think this insistence that they're watching us right now, cheapens the glory of that place and the awe-inspiring nature of that place. If what we believe about Christ and heaven is true, then I tell you, they've got a better show to watch up there. They've got a better thing to captivate them there. And I suspect that they are fully and completely captivated by the scene of Jesus himself in that place.
I would say to you, man, even if the floor of heaven is glass and like they could look down, they're probably just not. I remember once, and I'll use this illustration, in our family where we're big Jason Bourne [crosstalk 00:22:47] Right? And it's sad that there haven't been any more of these in recent years.
Joe Fontenot: It is sad.
Jamie Dew: But man, back in that series, we loved those Jason Bourne movies. I forget which one it was, but I remember when one of them came out in the movie theater, my wife and I, we had a date night and we took off, we went to the movie theater. I can remember, when we got into the movie theaters we're big Milk Dud people too, when we watch movies. And so we'd gotten our Milk Duds and our popcorn and our drink, and we went into the theater and we sat down. We were running a little bit late, so we walked in and sat down right as all of the advertisements for other movies were over, and then the Bourne movie was actually starting. So we sat down and we were so captivated, our eyes were real big and our attention was there on the screen and we were staring at the screen.
I looked over at my wife and she just had the Milk Duds clutched in both hands up against her chest. And she was just captivated by the movie. She hadn't started eating her Milk Duds yet. Joe, when the movie was over, I looked over at my wife, was still clutching those Milk Duds. She had not budged the entire movie with those stupid Milk Duds, because what she was watching in front of her was that much more captivating. I'm not saying earth is Milk Duds, and I'm not saying heaven is a Borne movie. I am simply saying in the same way that my wife was captivated by what was in front of her, such that she had no interest in the Milk Duds, I think that that's probably what's going on there.
And you know what? What I'd say to us, those of us down here that want to be comforted by the thought of them watching us, I understand that. But take comfort and take courage in knowing that your loved one is beholding Christ right now and they are satisfied. That's heaven. Maybe they can look down, but if they can, I just don't think they are.
Joe Fontenot: That makes a lot of sense. I think the essence of that question is comfort, but it's even more comfortable to know that they're taken care of and that we still have a relationship with God. He is with us.
Jamie Dew: And we are connected to them through him.
Joe Fontenot: Right.
Jamie Dew: We're connected to them through hope that we get to be back with them. This is that 1 Thessalonians 4, we will be caught up in the air together with them, [inaudible 00:25:07] with those words, and from their memories and all that they taught us, and all those things, that's our hope.
Joe Fontenot: Well, Jamie, thanks for taking my rapid fire questions on this and knocking them out. I think you made a really good preface earlier too, that a lot of this is just sort of best we can figure from what we know, and that makes sense, so thanks for this.
Jamie Dew: You bet.
Joe Fontenot: Hey, everybody, this is Jamie and Joe again. If you liked this podcast, would you leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to podcasts. That helps other people find it. And if you have any questions, we'd love to hear about them. Just go to Jamiedew.com/questions and send them in that way, and we'll take a look at the most frequently asked questions and give them a shot.