C.S. Lewis & Why All (Most) Dogs Go to Heaven
Finding Nemo taught us that all drains lead to the ocean. Maybe that was a metaphor for what happens to our goldfish when they die and receive their watery burial, but what about our other pets? Are they merely matter in motion, or is there something about them that lives on? Might we see them again? C.S. Lewis thought so.
In a letter to Marry Willis Shelburne, Lewis mentions that since much of the natural world will be made new, this likely includes animals. Lewis references his first apologetic book The Problem of Pain, in which he includes an entire chapter on animals. Here’s the full letter for those of you who might be interested:
My stuff about animals came long ago in The Problem of Pain. I ventured the supposal–it cd. be nothing more–that as we are raised in Christ, so at least some animals are raised in us.Who knows, indeed, but that a great deal even of the inanimate creation is raised in the redeemed souls who have, during this life, taken its beauty into themselves? That may be the way in which the ‘new heaven and the new earth’ are formed. Of course we can only guess and wonder. But these particular guesses arise in me, I trust, from taking seriously the resurrection of the body: a doctrine which now-a-days is v. soft pedalled by nearly all the faithful–to our great impoverishment. Not that you and I have now much reason to rejoice in having bodies! Like old automobiles, aren’t they? where all sorts of apparently different things keep going wrong, but what they add up to is the plain fact that the machine is wearing out. Well, it was not meant to last forever. Still, I have a kindly feeling for the old rattle-trap. Through it God showed me that whole side of His beauty wh. is embodied in colour, sound, smell and size. No doubt it has often led me astray: but not half so often, I suspect, as my soul has led it astray. For the spiritual evils wh. we share with the devils (pride, spite) are far worse than what we share with the beasts: and sensuality really arises more from the imagination than from the appetites: which, if left merely to their own animal strength, and not elaborated by our imagination, would be fairly easily managed. But this is turning into a sermon! Yours Jack
For those newer to Lewis, you might take note of his signature in the letter as “Jack.” That’s the name he adopted in childhood when a beloved dog named Jacksie died. “I am Jacksie,” Lewis told his family. And so Jacksie lived on in Lewis through the years, perhaps an early indicator of the theology on pets Lewis would later formulate.
Lewis’s love of animals is evident in his earliest of writings. The imaginative world he created with his brother in childhood is available in print today including their sketches. Boxen is a precursor to Narnia, where lions, horses, and beavers all talk and have capacity for good or evil. But when it comes to a theology of pets in the new creation, we have to look to another work of creative speculation, The Great Divorce, in which Lewis describes a woman followed about in Heaven by the animals she loved on earth:
And how…but hullo! What are all these animals? A cat-two cats-dozens of cats. And all those dogs…why, I can’t count them. And the birds. And the horses.”
“They are her beasts.”
“Did she keep a sort of zoo? I mean, this is a bit too much.”
“Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love. In her they became themselves. And now the abundance of life she has in Christ from the Father flows over into them.”
I looked at my Teacher in amazement.
“Yes,” he said. “It is like when you throw a stone into a pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, it has hardly come to its full strength. But already there is joy enough int the little finger of a great saint such as yonder lady to waken all the dead things of the universe into life.”
Between the letter quoted above and the excerpt from The Great Divorce, we get a clear picture of Lewis’s answer to the question, “Do all dogs go to heaven?”. It is quite particular. Lewis believed the domesticated animals of the redeemed share in their resurrection. If you think this is overly generous, it’s far more limited than the view held by John Wesley that all animals will be restored, a sort of universal salvation for all the creatures.
In a dinner conversation with some work friends, a colleague commented on this topic, “We will be whole in the new creation. But can I really be whole without those pets who played such a significant role in my life?” Lewis would affirm this notion, offering hope that we will see our furry friends in the new creation.
Jack’s love for animals and his ultimate hope for their presence in a future perfect state can be seen in his poem Impenitence, which he originally published in Punch Magazine under the pseudonym N.W. The poem ends with animals doing math with the local butcher. I liken this to the Old Testament vision of the lion lying down with the lamb. While my theology on the matter might be less certain than that of Lewis’s, I share in his optimistic picture of the future. I hope Jack’s right.
Impenitence
All the world’s wiseacres in arms against them
Shan’t detach my heart for a single moment
From the man-like beasts of the earthy stories–
Badger or Moly.
Rat the oarsman, neat Mrs. Tiggy Winkle,
Benjamin, pert Nutkin, or (ages older)
Henryson’s shrill Mouse, or the Mice the Frogs once
Fought with in Homer.
Not that I’m so craz’d as to think the creatures
Do behave that way, nor at all deluded
By some half-false sweetness of early childhood
Sharply remembered.
Look again. Look well at the beasts, the true ones.
Can’t you see?…cool primness of cats, or coney’s
Half indignant stare of amazement, mouse’s
Twinkling adroitness,
Tipsy bear’s rotundity, toad’s complacence…
Why! they all cry out to be used as symbols,
Masks for Man, cartoons, parodies by Nature
Formed to reveal us
Each to each, not fiercely but in her gentlest
Vein of household laughter. And if the love so
Raised–it will, no doubt–splashes over on the
Actual archtypes,
Who’s the worse for that? Marry, gup! Begone, you
Fusty kill-joys, new Manichaeans! Here’s a
Health to Toad Hall, here’s to the Beaver doing
Sums with the Butcher!