Pets and the Afterlife

By Virginia State Parks staff (Ghost Dog Uploaded by AlbertHerring) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This is a good time of year for some speculation about what role, if any, animals in general and pets in particular might have in the afterlife.  The traditional conclusion, of course, is that they have none, but until it can be shown to me that this is actually a binding Teaching of the Catholic Church, I will feel free to entertain other ideas.

Let me begin by putting forth a few thoughts and observations that can serve as the raw material for a hypothesis (though certainly not a hypothesis in any of the natural sciences).

1. Ghosts are usually -- in fact almost without exception -- reported wearing clothes.  Most ghost stories are pure fiction, of course, and most sightings are the result of excessive imagination or some sort of altered state of consciousness, but anyone who believes in God, angels and demons, the survival of the soul, and the final resurrection should be open to the possibility that sometimes, for reasons that may not be clear to us, the spirits of deceased humans may have some business in our world.  The fact of ghosts wearing clothes, though, is frequently noted with surprise or even derision; after all, clothes are not actually a part of a living person, right?  Consider, though:  hair is also not living (at least above the root), and it likewise contains little DNA; hair is basically a kind of natural clothing that mammals produce for themselves.  No one seems to expect ghosts, should they appear, to appear without hair or nails, so why should clothing be any different?  After all, ...
2. According to Peter Kreeft, though I forget in which book, it is a mistake to picture, as most people do, the body containing the soul.  A more accurate picture would be the soul containing the body.  In fact, Abbot Alois Wiesinger goes quite a bit farther in Occult Phenomena in the Light of Theology.  Wiesinger claims that the traditional belief is that Adam had the preternatural gift to understand and control objects outside his body.  He even claims that this remains possible after the Fall under certain circumstances, though he emphasizes that it is a very bad idea to attempt to extend the soul beyond the body.
3. Back to reported ghosts.  One thing that stands out is that although animal ghosts are reported, they are almost always the ghosts of pets or of working animals (mostly horses, especially when ridden by a human ghost or pulling a ghostly wagon or carriage).  Wild animals and food animals seem not to leave ghosts.  The obvious objection is that if ghosts are the effect of psychological biases, or even disorders, it makes sense that we would most often see as ghosts the animals we interact with while they are alive; once again, I assume there is more to the story than that, though.  Also, I have to exclude "animals" that are believed to be demonic manifestations -- hell hounds, the Black Shuck, etc.
4. Finally, animals that become cherished pets often behave in ways that are surprising for animals.  Part of this surprise is no doubt due to the inadequate credit we give animals -- wild elephants and chimps have been observed to grieve the death of family members, for example -- but again, nearly every culture has stories of dogs who guarded the graves of their masters until they themselves died.  On a less dramatic level, it has often been observed that pets and their owners start to look alike, even physically; much more obvious is that they begin to act alike, at least as regards being friendly, or suspicious, or nervous, etc.

The cat is also a ghost, as the full performance makes clear.

At this point my conjecture should be fairly obvious:  pets become extensions of their owners, and so they participate in some way in their owners' immortality.

If true, this would parallel our relationship to Christ.  The Church is, after all, called the Body of Christ, and each Christian is a member of that Body -- not by nature, but by adoption, because we are loved.  As such, we participate in His immortality.

Why I Find Materialism Unconvincing.

It is not uncommon to here people make statements like, "Consciousness and thought are emergent phenomena from the physical processes of the brain.  Consciousness and thought may not be present in the individual neurons, true, but neither is ferromagnetism present in individual atoms.  Bringing a lot of neurons together makes a qualitative difference, just as bringing a lot of iron atoms together does."

I've never found this kind of statement to be at all convincing, and I think I should explain the foremost reason why. 

We start out with no ideas or experience of the world.  First come our sensory experiences:  we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel.  Rather quickly we form ideas about these experiences:  for instance, that the toy does not cease to exist just because we cannot see it any more.  

One of the first divisions we make is between things and people. (We undoubtedly think of plants as like things and animals as like people, at least at first.)  People are in some ways like things; they both persist in existence.  In other ways, though, they are different.  People have intentions; things do not.  People have knowledge; things do not.

When we are a little older, we give names to these.  What behaves like a thing is a material object, what has been called in philosophy for millenia a body.  People are said to have bodies, too, which accounts for why they are in so many ways like things; the differences are accounted for by saying that they have spirits, which have the properties not found in bodies (knowledge, intention, etc.) and lack those properties that are found in bodies (position, size, shape, color, etc.).

From this perspective, it is clear that if anything is to have wrong knowledge -- if anything is to be deceived -- it must be a spirit, not a body or a material object.  Material objects are what is left when we have abstracted away traits like knowledge, so they cannot even have mistaken knowledge.  The idea that "consciousness is an illusion of the body" is just nonsense.

This is, however, precisely the idea put forward by many philosophical materialists.  They believe the universe and everything in it to be bodies in the sense discussed above.  The awkward fact remains that each of us knows the universe only because we have knowledge, and we are aware of the universe only because we have awareness; as soon as we formulate the concepts of spirit and matter, it is first of all clear that we have spirits, and only secondarily clear that we also have bodies.  Without spirits we would not even know the meaning of matter.

What, then, are we to make of the fact that the condition of the brain has such an obvious influence on the ability to think?  First of all, I would say that this is probably analogous to the obvious influence that the condition of the eye has on the ability to see; yet no one would today say that vision is actually in the eye.  Secondly, the approach of Aristotelian philosophy to which we are heirs does not by any means deny the existence of a strong but mysterious connection between the spirit and the body; the soul is the form of the body.

How can anyone think this way in the information age?  Doesn't artificial intelligence prove that knowledge can emerge from carefully arranged material objects?  What about the Turing Test?

Material objects can obviously store and manipulate information.  A library of books is an example; an Egyptian temple wall covered with hieroglyphics is another.  Even without knowing how to read the symbols, we can quantify the information by calculating the Shannon entropy.  Books do not actually contain knowledge, though, because the symbols do not have meaning in themselves.  

The same is actually true about AI.  A machine running an AI program can respond in an appropriate way to external stimuli, but it does so without understanding the meaning of the stimuli or the purpose of the reactions; those are known only to the programmer and the user.  It is really no different than the speaker in a telephone handset; the speaker can transform electronic signals into the sounds of a human voice, but it neither has nor needs any understanding of what is being said.

As for the Turing Test, that really works better as a test for how gullible someone is.  For some people, an 8-ball would pass the Turing Test.

Finally, one might object that the whole problem arises from dividing the world into people and things in the first place.  Maybe things have thought and purpose, too, either in a way we might not understand or as a latent ability -- like a man who is blind because of a problem with his eyes, even though he has no problems with his visual cortex.  If you think that and that different objects remain distinct, you might be an animist; if you think all things together have a collective knowledge and purpose (both perhaps latent), you might be a pantheist.  Many people and many cultures have embraced some variation on this theme.  Such ideas may have no room for the separate existence of spirits, but they are still very different from materialism.

String Theory: Did God Have Any Choice?

I am reminded of this question by the opening chapter of a book I have just started reading: The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next by Lee Smolin.  Smolin, who is skeptical of string theory, has justified criticisms about the extent to which string theory has monopolized particle physics and the over-exuberance of some of the proponents of the theory's proponents.  He does not quote them asking, "Did God have any choice?" but it actually has been suggested by some enthusiasts that no, God did not have any choice; no other laws for the universe were possible.

You don't have to be either a physicist or a theologian to see that this is poppycock.  We can imagine all kinds of laws that might govern the universe.  We do this not only in scientific conjecture, but also whenever we write books of fantasy or science fiction.

Not only does such a suggestion both border on blasphemy and also contradict the everyday experience of telling, hearing, and reading stories, it perpetuates the idea that modern physics advances very much like it did in ancient Greece:  scientists sit around and tell stories, and whoever tells the best story "wins".  This completely obscures the fact that physics is an intrinsically experimental science.  The literature is full of elegant theories that nevertheless are contradicted by experiment, and Mother Nature always gets the last word.  Of course, the most damage was done by Albert Einstein, who really did think his theory was so beautiful that it must be true; so far, Mother Nature seems to agree.

In reality, the situation is not that bad.  The best book I have finished on string theory and why it is appealing is Out of This World: Colliding Universes, Branes, Strings, and Other Wild Ideas of Modern Physics by Stephen Webb.  Webb's book makes it clear that the "inevitability" of string theory is a conjecture (not proved) that is constrained by the known symmetries of the gravitational, strong nuclear, and electroweak forces, together with a dash of aesthetic beauty. 

To illustrate what this means, imagine I am trying to understand how many finger are on my right hand.

1. I perform one experiment and find that there are fewer than 6 fingers on that hand.  
2. I perform another experiment and find  that my right hand has more than 4 fingers.  
3. Finally, I declare that the laws of nature are beautiful, and a beautiful law would be that the number of fingers on a hand is an integer.  

There is only one solution left:  I have 5 fingers on my right hand.  I might make a brash statement that "God had no choice" but to give me 5 finger on that hand, given conditions 1, 2, and 3.  But of course, the experiment does not really constrain God's choice; God's choice constrained the experiment.  I could easily have been born with more or fewer than 5 fingers on my hand, as was the case with some of my acquaintances.  As for the requirement of an integer number of fingers, some people lose part of a finger, and in any case one might argue that the thumb does not count as a whole finger.

Why then is such a ridiculous claim made about string theory?  Either because the speaker does not really understand what he's talking about, or because he wants to make a shocking statement that makes him seem more important than he really is.

What Are Rights?

It may not be entirely fair, but I'll use a comment on another blog to illustrate a problem with the way people use the term "rights" in disputes these days.  "Michael" wrote, 

Religions always have [t]he right to discriminate, by gender, by colour, by race, by sexual orientation and of course by religion. In secular society you can not do that anymore (thank goodness) but religions have those rights and they must be respected when dealing with matters pertaining to that religion.

To start out, let's differentiate the different things people mean by "rights".

1.  Sometimes a "right" is the result of a rule agreed upon by a society.  

(a) For instance, under certain conditions a quarterback has the "right" to deliberately throw an incomplete pass to avoid a sack.  

(b) Another example is the "right" of someone accused of a serious crime to a trial by a jury. 

Such rights are obviously limited to the society in question and last only as long as the agreement in the society remains, with some lag time built in for the rules to be updated to adjust to new opinions within a society.  This illustrated by the fact that the same crime may be judged by a juries of different sizes, or by a panel of judges, or by a single judge, depending on where the crime was committed, whether the accused is military or a civilian, etc. 

2.  Sometimes a "right" is something that is inherent in being a human being -- something that is always the same, regardless of time, place, or culture.  An example would be that anyone accused of a serious crime has a right to some kind of trial before being punished for that crime.  It may be very formal or quite informal; it may be before a single judge, a panel of judges, a jury, or the community as a whole; the burden of proof may be on the prosecution, the defense, or somehow shared between them; but it should always and everywhere actually be somehow established that the person is guilty and not innocent before punishment.

(Note:  Someone is going to bring up something like a situation in war in which each side shoots at the other without any kind of "individual trial".  That's really something different, because a (sane) soldier does not try to punish his adversary, he tries to stop his adversary.  There is a difference.)

In defiance of a great deal of popular opinion, to say nothing of plots constructed by fiction writers, I will maintain that rights of this kind never truly contradict each other, though they may be in tension.  The cliche, "Your rights end where mine begin, and vice versa," is obviously too simplistic, but if genuine rights of this kind are indeed God-given, there must be rational means of resolving the apparent contradictions.

3.  Sometimes a "right" is the result of a rule agreed upon by a society, but one that is arguably always the best practice.  These are somehow intermediate between admittedly arbitrary rules ("Do we drive on the left-hand side of the road or the right?") and the proscriptions of natural law.  

I think the "right" to use money to pay debts (of wealth) might be a good example.  Money did not always exist, after all, and it is possible to get by on barter.  However, few would dispute that history shows a monetary system to be in the public interest. 

..ooOoo..

The problem comes when people confuse these meanings.  A common example would be, "The Supreme Court has established that a woman has a right to have an abortion."   This is typically thrown out as though it were an unchangeable human right (type 2), when in fact it is something established by the Court (type 1).  It is like saying that a cornerback has the "right" to jam a receiver within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage; that may be true now, but we can change it to 10 yards or to zero yards if we want.  Perhaps one could argue that a "right to abortion" is not arbitrary but a best practice, but (a) it would need to be explained why it is a best practice and (b) such a claim falls far short of being an argument-stopping moral imperative, as is usually intended.

The same kind of confusion is evident in the comment above from "Michael".  He says that "Religions always have [t]he right to discriminate" and "religions have those rights and they must be respected."  He is definitely claiming this to be a God-given, inherent human right (type 2), because what he says is "always" the case has not been recognized by society in most times and places.  On the other hand, it is by no means clear why "religions" in general, without regard to whether or how much they are true, should enjoy such "rights" -- if these are "God-given rights", why would God grant them to religions which teach falsely?  (Given the many and fundamental disagreements between different religions, they cannot all be even remotely correct.)

This may seem to be an idle distinction, but it isn't.  If something is a God-given right and you don't like it, tough.  It's not within your power to change.  It's not within the power of the President of the United States to change, or a unanimous vote of everyone on earth to change.  You may ignore the right, but the right you ignore is still there; you may run roughshod over it, but it remains all the same.  If, on the other hand, it is something that was made by man, it is something that man can unmake, and its existence today is no guarantee that it will still be around tomorrow.  If you like it, you had better always be able to explain why it is desirable to keep it around.

Another important consequence has to do with the very issue of freedom of religion.  It may be a political tradition (imperfectly observed) in the United States, but the question of whether it is a fundamental human right is an interesting one, and it is a question that divides certain traditionalist communities (like SSPX) from the Catholic Church.  If religion has an important impact on the eternal destiny of one's soul, why would there be a right to hold, practice, and teach a false religion?

My understanding of this is, of course, subject to being corrected by the Church, but here's how I understand it at present. 

1. The real, root human right is not to "freedom of religion" as it is understood in a secular context, but the freedom (in an Augustinian sense) to truly observe the true religion.
2. This means one must be honestly, freely convinced of the true religion.
1. A best practice for determining/demonstrating the true religion is to allow all religions a fair chance to make their best cases -- sort of the way Elijah did with the prophets of Baal, though less dramatically and renewed for each person.  That way the choice can be made with full knowledge and consent of the will
2. This does not mean that we cannot learn over time, either as persons or as societies.  After all, we allow the same fair chance for the heliocentric model and the geocentric model of the solar system, and the heliocentric model works better.  We don't feel it necessary to tell children they must respect both equally.  Likewise, we should not feel uncomfortable about, for instance, banning the human sacrifice associated with Mesoamerican religions.  Such a ban would be hard or even impossible to justify if "freedom of religion" were a God-given right, rather than just a best practice for allowing each person to be truly convinced.
3. Whether in science or religion, we must "be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason."
3. The problem that arises when freedom of religion is not present is not necessarily that the wrong religion is observed, because of course it is possible to forcibly repress all false religions and leave only the true religion free.  Nor is the problem that "we can't ask them to do what we don't do ourselves" -- that would be fine as it applies to people, but true ideas, when they are truly understood as such, really should be treated differently than false ideas.  No; the problem is that it would make it impossible to recognize the true religion from its contrast with false alternatives, and it would leave the nagging doubt that the only reason it was accepted was because no alternatives could be considered. 

Forgiveness

A few days ago I stumbled across an article in which a father talks about his need, as a Christian, to forgive the man who murdered his daughter.  Let us not forget what an amazing thing this is; this kind of forgiveness, I firmly believe, is supernatural. There are substitutes that are merely natural, including rationalization, forgetfulness, and despair of justice, but true forgiveness goes beyond what we can naturally supply.

But.... You knew there was a "but" coming, didn't you? 

But we need to bear in mind just what it is our business to forgive.  We also need to remember that forgiveness doesn't undo the offense.

For example, what if I were to say, "I forgive Yigal Amir for assassinating Yitzhak Rabin," it would not show me to be exceptionally magnanimous.  Everyone would notice that I am not a friend or family member of Rabin.  I never met the man.  Furthermore, I am not even Israeli, nor am I Jewish.  If I were to presume to forgive Amir, it might reasonably be expected that I really meant there was no crime to forgive.

We can only really forgive what someone has done to us -- even in the Our Father, we pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us."  The murder of Michelle Millare caused her father, Roland Millare, unimaginable grief, as well as the loss of his daughter's presence, the hope of grandchildren though her, etc.  He can, by the grace of God, forgive her murderer for the pain and loss he has suffered on account of the crime, and it is a very good, even saintly, thing for him to do.  In a real sense, though, he cannot forgive the harm done to others by the crime:  to Michelle herself, to Michelle's mother, to any siblings, to her friends, and even to the community as a whole -- which is one reason the forgiveness of family is not enough to prevent prosecution.  

The scribes and Pharisees were right to wonder, "Who can forgive sins, but God alone?"