Do animals have souls?

By Albert Gardner

Animals have breath but they do not have a spirit as do human beings.  They act by instinct; we act by instruction.  “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go:  I will guide thee with mine eye.  Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle, lest they come near unto thee” (Psalm 32:8-9)

The destiny is different.  “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” (Ecc. 3:21).

We were made in the image of God (Gen 1:26), which includes intellect, emotion, and will.  We can hear instructions, consider evidence, and make decisions and even change the direction of our lives.  Animals can be trained to do some wonderful things but cannot make decisions based on what they hear and reason about.

  “Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.  But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat” (Gen 9:3-4).

Since animals are creatures God made, they should not be purposely abused or mistreated, though we do have dominion over them.  “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him?  For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.  Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of they hands; thou has put all things under his feet: All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas” (Psalm 8:4-8).