@SecularOutpost Sincere questions to Christians who own pets: when your pet dies, what religious practices, if any, do you observe? Do you pray for the deceased animal, for the humans who cared for the pet, etc.?
https://twitter.com/SecularOutpost/status/12563799191577559041. Not all pets are alike. As a boy I had hamsters and turtles, but that's quite different from a dog. I'm too much of a mammal to feel emotional affinity with turtles or reptiles. In addition, hamsters lack the intelligence to be very responsive.
By contrast, dogs are bred from social animals, so they form a psychological bond with humans that cats don't. In addition, dogs generally have the IQ for meaningful rapport–although wolves are generally smarter than dogs.
2. As a boy I had a dog I was very fond of. Although I toyed with getting another dog, I never did, in part due to convenience and in part because it was the right dog at the time and the right place. That was an ideal combination I couldn't duplicate, so that's a nostalgic part of life which is unrepeatable. If I have an ideal experience, I don't feel the need to duplicate it. It's enough to have one ideal kind of experience and make the most of that.
3. I didn't replace my dog in part because I didn't think it would be fair to my dog to share me with someone else. I was all she had.
4. I missed my dog after she died. I had her euthanized after she had a stroke. It was a snap decision. With the benefit of hindsight I would have taken her home for a few days for a proper farewell. Held her in my lap. Stroked her face. Then taken her back to the clinic to be euthanized.
5. My grandmother predeceased my dog. Even though my grandmother was incomparably more important and even though I adored my grandmother, I initially missed my dog more than my grandmother.
That's in part because I saw my dog every day, whereas my grandmother moved out of town. In addition, it was a resilient time of life. And I was sure I'd be reunited with my grandmother.
6. My attitude at the time reflected social, emotional, spiritual, and psychological immaturity. With the passage of time you can miss people more than shortly after they died. You have more time to reflect on the loss. Death has a cumulative effect and a retrospective effect. The significance of death can loom larger in hindsight.
7. It's funny that Scripture has so little to say about certain things, like family reunion or the death of children. Scripture doesn't promise reunion with Christian pets. By the same token, it doesn't forbid it. I had a few nice dreams about my late dog.
8. There was a time when I prayed for reunion with my dog. I stopped doing that after her death was overtaken by the death of close relatives. It would dishonor the separation to pray for her when there were far more significant losses to pray about. I prioritize the dearly departed I pray for. I'm grateful for the dog I had, and would be grateful to have her back, but that's far behind other things. It'll take care of itself one way or other. It doesn't preoccupy my hopes. Death is a sifting process to find out what we should really cherish, long for, and look forward to.
9. I've discussed retroactive prayer on several occasions. For instance:
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/praying-for-future.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/praying-for-past.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/03/gods-time-travelers.html
10. If I think one or more of my relatives died in the faith, I can pray about them in the sense of praying for reunion with them when I die. Pray that they are waiting at the end of my journey to greet me.
11. If I'm unsure that one of my relatives died in the faith, I can still pray for them after they died, not in sense of postmortem salvation, but in the sense that I can pray for the victim of mine cave-in. By the time I hear about the mine cave-in, they're probably dead or alive. I'm not asking for God to bring them back to life. I'm asking that they survived the accident.
Even though it's a past event, it's not too late to pray since God isn't bound by the timing of my prayer–so long as the outcome is unknown.
12. In the case of animals, it's possible that every animal has a temporary existence. There's no afterlife for any animal.
Or it's possible that God makes exceptions for Christian pets. Since animals aren't sinners, since animals aren't damned, to pray that God will restore a Christian pet to life in the world to come carries no implication of postmortem forgiveness.
13. There's a conceptual distinction between:
i) The dead praying for us
ii) Praying to the dead
iii) Praying for the dead
Apropos (i), it's possible that dead Christian relatives pray for us. But we have no evidence that's the case, and it would be presumptuous to ask them to pray for us. Just pray to God/Jesus.
Apropos (ii), there are different scenarios, but one example might be telling a dead Christian relative that you look forward to seeing them against. You hope for reunion.
It's verbalizing a wish about them, directed at them. It doesn't presume that they can actually hear you. It's analogous to talking to someone in a coma, or someone with senile dementia, or brain cancer, or autism, or a sleeping child. You don't know how much of anything gets through to them. That's up to God.
Apropos (iii), that's traditional in the context of prayers to change the situation of the dead after they die. Purgatory, postmortem salvation. For theological reasons, I reject that. But I do think retractive prayer is logical in some situations.
//I prioritize the dearly departed I pray for.//
ReplyDeleteSteve, are you saying you pray for your dearly departed and not just about them? If so, doesn't that goes against the usual Protestant tradition that prohibits praying for the dead? Or do you agree with C.S. Lewis' statement:
//"Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to Him? On the traditional Protestant point of view..."//- C.S. Lewis in his Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer
1. Since I've discussed my position on multiple occasions, I don't know why you ask. Have you forgotten by position? For instance:
Deletehttp://triablogue.blogspot.com/2008/08/praying-for-future.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2009/04/praying-for-past.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2010/03/gods-time-travelers.html
2. If I think one or more of my relatives died in the faith, I can pray for/about them in the sense of praying for reunion with them when I die. Pray that they are waiting at the end of my journey to greet me.
3. If I'm unsure that one of my relatives died in the faith, I can still pray for them after they died, not in sense of postmortem salvation, but in the sense that I can pray for the victim of mine cave-in. By the same I hear about the mine cave-in, they're probably dead or alive. I'm not asking for God to bring them back to life. I'm asking that they survived the accident.
Even though it's a past event, it's not too late to pray since God isn't bound by the timing of my prayer–so long as the outcome is unknown.
4. In the case of animals, it's possible that every animal has a temporary existence. There's no afterlife for any animal.
Or it's possible that God makes exceptions for Christian pets. Since animals aren't sinners, since animals aren't damned, to pray that God will restore a Christian pet to life in the world to come carries no implication of postmortem forgiveness.
I say usual Protestant tradition because, as you probably know, some denominations or strains within some denominations that do/did pray for the dead.
DeletePrayer for the Dead Wiki article.
When I visit the graves of loved ones, I don't talk to them. To avoid occultic necromancy or to attract demonic attention, deception and oppression [or worse].
I pray to God and ask that if God be willing and IF God sometimes does it, one of the persons of the Trinity might convey to the loved one that I miss/love, appreciate and am still thankful to him/her/them for what they did while on earth. All on the condition or assumption that they are in heaven. If they are not in heaven, then I understand that such a request wouldn't be granted and would be inappropriate. But I leave it in God's hands since I have no certain knowledge of who is or isn't in heaven.
I even have prayed conditional retroactive prayers. that IF God does answer retroactive prayers regarding issues I have no certainty about one way or the other, that God might do X so long as it doesn't contradict known history to me [or the created realm], or with God's own eternal decree. Knowingly praying contrary to past history or God's transpired providence would seem to be sinful, unbelieving, distrustful of providence and blasphemous. But praying for something that's unknown [at least to me] does not seem to be. So, for example the salvation of distant ancestors. For example, 3 of my four grandparents were Roman Catholic and one grandmother was Seventh Day Adventist.
I give a lot of conditionals like those and never attempt to speak directly to the spirits of deceased humans or angels. I always and only communicate with one or all three persons of the Trinity. And never with a confidence regarding things not addressed in Scripture.
Ah..okay. So, you meant pray for them in the ways you mentioned hypothetically in the past. I wasn't sure if you actually did that, but I've practiced it myself on because I've been influenced by your past blogs on the topic of retroactive prayer.
DeleteThere's also the issue of prayers for the dead regarding issues that aren't salvific and are for their present condition and experience. I thought maybe that was what you were referring to in this blog. As Protestants we wouldn't pray for their souls exiting purgatory sooner, but presumably we could pray for the saved deceased to.....say....have a good day, or something along those lines.
//4. In the case of animals, it's possible that every animal has a temporary existence. There's no afterlife for any animal.//
Because of the law of identity, I doubt that animals can resurrect in the way some annihilationists claim since it would be replica of the original, rather than the original animal itself. That is, unless Peter van Inwagen's hypothetical is applied to pets. That at or right before the moment of death the animal is replaced by a non-living duplicate and the original is transported to some other location or to the future to by-pass the problem of resurrected physicalist/materialist identity.
BTW, I can see how someone might argue for Universalism or (at least) near Universalism by appealing to retroactive prayers. For example, generation Z can pray for some or all in generation Y that they be saved. Then generation Y in heaven can do the same for generation X. Then generation X for generation W....all the way back to generation A. The deceased would just have to be segregated in heaven for awhile from each other to make their fate uncertain enough that those who were born afterwards could pray for the salvation of those who were born before them. Moreover, right up to the moment of death an apparent unbeliever could believe just before dying. That would leave room for the hypothetical retroactive prayer for salvation to be answered.
DeleteBut then, proponents of Universalism, and/or post-mortem salvation and/or purgatory would point out that we who believe that death seals the fate of persons are being arbitrary. They'll ask, "Why is salvation possible for a person 1 minute before death but not 1 minute after death?" At least Catholics require a person to die in a state of grace in order for them to be eligible for purgatory. Universalists of course would argue THAT was arbitrary. They'll point to passages like 2 Sam. 14:13-14 in support of Universalism:
13 And the woman said, "Why then have you planned such a thing against the people of God? For in giving this decision the king convicts himself, inasmuch as the king does not bring his banished one home again.
14 We must all die; we are like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. But God will not take away life, and he devises means so that the banished one will not remain an outcast.
What seems to be clear in Scripture, at least to me, is that some will not be saved [i.e. some will be eternally lost]. But the percentages aren't clearly revealed [despite one interpretation of Matt. 7:13-14; Luke 13:23-24].
Hypothetically, so long as individuals are properly segregated for the right amount of time in the afterlife, any person or generation could pray for all previous [or all future] generations or individuals. So, generation Z could pray for generation, Y, X, W, V etc. But praying for very distant ancestors [or descendants] wouldn't be as fervent because we know little to nothing about them.
DeleteThis has gotten very abstract, but we're trying to take seriously and rationally Scripture's teachings, boundaries and silences.
There's a conceptual distinction between:
Deletei) The dead praying for us
ii) Praying to the dead
iii) Praying for the dead
Apropos (i), it's possible that dead Christian relatives pray for us. But we have no evidence that's the case, and it would be presumptuous to ask them to pray for us. Just pray to God/Jesus.
Apropos (ii), there are different scenarios, but one example might be telling a dead Christian relative that you look forward to seeing them against. You hope for reunion.
It's verbalizing a wish about them, directed at them. It doesn't presume that they can actually hear you. It's analogous to talking to someone in a coma, or someone with senile dementia, or brain cancer, or autism, or a sleeping child. You don't know how much of anything gets through to them. That's up to God.
Apropos (iii), that's traditional in the context of prayers to change the situation of the dead after they die. Purgatory, postmortem salvation. For theological reasons, I reject that. But I do think retractive prayer is logical in some situations.