The Los Angeles Times reported on Thursday that a New Hampshire company is offering post-Rapture pet care for Christians who believe, according to the predictions of Christian radio personality Harold Camping, that Judgment Day is this Saturday. Those willing to pay the (recently increased) $135 fee for the service seem to be operating under the principle that their pets will not be saved. But what is the official word on Fido's chances of making it through the Second Coming?
Not very good. Like all matters of theology, the question of animal salvation is complicated and subject to much interpretation. Camping, who has not been affiliated with a church since 1988, believes that animals do not have souls, and therefore do not experience salvation or ascension to heaven. An animal, when he dies, simply ceases to exist. Many mainstream Christian theologians agree with him. Since the high Middle Ages, when the Catholic Church began framing its understanding of nature and the supernatural in Aristotelian terms, the standard Christian interpretation has been that human beings have an immortal soul, and cannot die, but other forms of life do not, and can.