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Do animals have souls?
Answer to Question 594 When you say soul what do you actually mean, because from previous posts on the subject, most people associated a soul as having feelings, but that is something completely separate from having an eternal soul. Dogs and all animals have feelings and can show love and fear and many other kinds of sentiments, but this is not what the church understands as having a soul. When God created man from the dust of the earth, He then breathed into his face a breath of life, and the man became a living soul. Man therefore is a special creation like no other creation: he is a psychosomatic being, in other words he is both body and soul. Man’s soul is eternal and that is why it lives on in paradise. God did not breathe into the face of animals so they do not possess a living (eternal) soul.
Same member So I guess that the dove that appeared to Mary mother of Jesus was not really a dove. Why did then God or the Holy Spirit choose to appear in the form of a dove?
Reply When did a dove appear to the Mother of God? The Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove at the Lord's Baptism, but we must be careful how we interpret this. It says in the "FORM" of a dove and not as a dove. There are descriptions of animal type creatures in heaven, but they were created specifically for heaven and not as animals for earth.
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