I believe that animals do have souls as they are just as much apart of gods creation as we are. Humans are made in the image of god and because of this, he gave us power over this realm. we were given power over the animals and the land and told to command them as he commands us.

If god had created these animals without a soul, how would they recognize human emotions? They would have no concept of emotion themselves if this was the case. In my opinion, animals are more in touch with god than humans often are, because they aren’t distracted like we are, they know of the Lords presence.

To say that animals don’t feel pain is ludicrous, human beings are animals, and it doesn’t take a human brain to know something hurts. animals simply don’t express it the same way humans do, we can yell, talk and cry. animals can bark, squawk and meow.

I have just preached a sermon on animals in the Christian faith and did massive research on animals and souls.

We need to go back to the original Hebrew in which the OT was written. The animals were created as “nepesh chaya”, which means “living creatures” or “living souls”. When God breathed into Adam, which you referred to, he became a “nepesh chaya”. Same term.

The use of words like soul, spirit, immortality and redemption as applied to animals (or humans for that matter) need proper study and explananation, but traditional myths such as “Animals do not have souls” are handed down incorrectly from generation to generation. It’s a big subject, and much has been written. On January 19th, 1990 Pope John Paul II said publicly that animals have souls – google it for reports and a joyous welcome from many.

You may want to know where I am coming from. I am a middle of the way Anglican, not fundamentalist or liberal, but holding the traditional Christian faith. For authority I attach main importance to Scripture and the workings of the Holy Spirit. I have studied, written and spoken on animal theology for twenty-five years. I deal with the above issue and similar ones in my most recent booklet, “Not Forgotten by God – Animals as Part of God’s Community”, published by The Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals, and if you would like one go to http://www.aswa.org and make contact. Say that I said you could have it free. If you, or others, want to have personal discussion with me by phone, e-mail, etc, tell ASWA and they can arrange contact with me.

Hope this helps.

Regards

Barry Miles

Animals do not have souls. I the book of Genesis, God just makes the animals and sets them loose. However, when he made man, he breathed life into him (Gn 1:20-25, Gn 2:6-8). Now, the with Man, he actually breathed life into him, since the official language of Catholicism is Latin, we use the First Latin Correct Bible (The Vulgate), so we believe that that is the true Bible. Now I said earlier that God breathed life into man, well, the word breath and soul are the same in latin (Anima, -ae F.), so Another way of saying it in English is that God put a soul into man, Not the ANIMALS.

Again, this is from my Catholic point of view, if you disagree with Catholicism, then please don’t troll, thank you for reading.