My question, to both religious and non-religious people is, do some other higher-order animals possess souls? Christianity doesn't think so. Some other religions do, but not in the mainstream.
Do they possess a soul? They possess
something--some kind of life force, though I do think it's different than what humans possess.
It may not be a popular idea nowadays, but I do think it's pretty plain that humans are
unique. That is not to say that animals are unimportant or less worthy of our love and care. It's just that they're, well, not human. Do they have personalities? I think so. Do they have feelings? Yes, I think so, some more pronounced than others. Do they think? Some do, yes, but it's not the same as human intellect. (Some of the higher order animals may come close, but they're still not quite on our level.)
I don't think the Bible specifically addresses the idea of what happens to an animal's life force when it dies. Therefore, I won't really speculate. Who knows?
And I do think that our souls are more than just some sort of system to avoid punishment and pain.
Are we the Gods to (some of) our soulful pets? Hamsters and goldfish excluded
That's an interesting question from a Christian perspective. God gave this world, including animals, to humans for us to govern over. (I guess the hope was that we'd do so wisely.
) In a way, maybe we are demi-gods, but God has the ultimate authority over this world.
I found this interesting account based on the Biblical accounts (emphasis mine):
So according to Genesis 2, God formed both man and animal from the ground, any difference being that man was formed from "dust from the-ground" while animal was formed "from the-ground" proper.
One might argue for a distinction between man and animal by saying that God breathed the breath of life into man, and not into the animals. Whether God also did that to the animals is not stated, but neither is it explicitly denied.
Note that after God breathed into the man the breath of life, he became a "living being" (nephesh chayyah), Genesis 2:7. In Genesis 1:24, God says re: the creation of animals: "Let the earth bring forth living beings." It's the identical nephesh chayyah as in Gen. 2:7, and in both cases "living" is a feminine singular adjective, modifying the feminine singular nephesh (often translated "soul").
Thus, a case could be made that there is no distinction between the creation of man and animals: i.e., both were created/formed/made to be a "living being" and both were formed from the ground - save that Man was made after God's image and likeness, and [the other] animals were not.
Thus it appears that the primary difference between man and animal, according to Genesis 1 & 2, is that man was made in the image and likeness of God.
[An aside: The word usually translated "formed" (yatzar) is not used in Genesis 1:26-27, which uses asah (made) and barah (create). Genesis 2, which does use yatzar, does not mention man being made in God's image. Likewise, Genesis 5:1 only uses "create" and "made" when referring to man/Adam being in God's image. The passages referring to man being made in God's image do not use the word "formed."]
The text does not say that the animals did NOT have life breathed into them by God. That both man and animal were given life and both were termed nephesh chayyah - and man was not called nephesh chayyah until God breathed into him the breath of life - suggests that God likewise breathed the breath of life into animals, too, so that they, too, could become nephesh chayyah.
However, people might still argue as another distinction between man and animals that animals only have a body and soul, whereas man has a body, a soul and a spirit.
Granted, God breathed into man the breath of life, and man thus became a nephesh chayyah, a "living being." The word nephesh is the word that's often translated "soul." So one could perhaps translate Genesis 1:20 ("living beings") and Genesis 1:24 ("living beings") and Genesis 2:7 ("living being") as "living soul(s)," and not "living being(s)." This also suggests that God doesn't give man a soul; rather, man is a soul. And the Hebrew use of nephesh supports the idea that it refers to the totality of a creature's being, not one-third of man's nature (assuming a trichotomous view of man), or one-half of man's nature (assuming a dichotomous view of man).
(Thus, nephesh doesn't have the mystical inner-part-of-man’s-nature sense that our word "soul" tends to convey. People have likely drawn some incorrect inferences about man's spiritual makeup by an inadequate understanding of the frankly mundane meaning that nephesh commonly has, as seen by these verses and other uses of nephesh in the Hebrew Scriptures.)
The common Hebrew word for "spirit," ruach, is also the word for "wind" or "breath," just like the Greek word pneuma also means "spirit/wind/breath." Some say that God breathing the breath of life into man gave man a spirit, which made him distinct from animals. In Genesis 2:7, however, the word ruach (breath, spirit) is not used. The Hebrew states: "wayyippach b'appayw nishmat chayyim - and he-blew/puffed in-his-nostrils breath (n'shamah*) of-lives (pl. of chayyah)." There is no mention of spirit/ruach here. While one might infer that this is what happened, ruach is not said to be imparted to man in the text, and God's ruach is not explicitly involved.
* This word n'shamah (translated here as "breath") is frequently used with the same meaning as nephesh in rabbinic literature. In the Kaballah, it is used for the part of man that is higher than the nephesh, i.e., the intellectual and spiritual aspects as opposed to the instinctual and physical aspects.
Since man didn't become a nephesh chayyah until God breathed into him the breath of life, and animals, too, are designated nephesh chayyah, one cannot rule out that God breathed into animals the breath of life also, just like He did to man. Genesis 7:21-22 reads:
"And-died all flesh that-moved on the-earth with-the-fowl and-with-the-beast and-with-the-living-[things] (chayyah) and-with-all the-creeping-thing the-creeping on the-earth and-all the-man[kind]. All which breath (n'shamah) of-spirit (ruach) of-lives (chayyim) in-his-nostrils from-all which in-the-dry-land they-died."
It thus appears that n'shamah ruach chayyim (breath of spirit of life) and n'shamah chayyim (breath of life) may be interchangeable terms, which suggests that man also received ruach when God breathed into him. And because the same language used here with respect to all living things is the same language that was used with respect to man in Genesis 2:7, it suggests that birds and beasts and all living things also received n'shamah [ruach] chayyim at some point in order for them to have life. This again supports the idea that the primary difference between man and animal is that man was made in the image and likeness of God, and other animals were not.
In John 20:22 where Jesus blows and tells the disciples to receive pneuma hagion (holy spirit), it says that Jesus enefusesen (3rd person singular aorist active indicative of emfusao). It's the identical word (same tense, person, etc.) as used in the Septuagint (ancient Greek translation of the Pentateuch) in Genesis 2:7. Some have thus seen a correlation between Jesus blowing (the) Holy Spirit into(?) the disciples at John 20:22 and God blowing breath of life into Adam at Genesis 2:7. It may be from this that the idea comes that God imparted "spirit" to Adam when he blew/puffed breath of life into his nostrils. However, because it caused Adam to become a nephesh chayyah, and the animals are also termed nephesh chayyah after they are created, if one argues that in Genesis 2:7, based on the words used and not used, that God breathed "spirit" into man/Adam, one could argue that He likewise might have breathed "spirit" into animals to cause them to have life. (See also above comments re: Genesis 7:21-22.)
Also, Psalm 104:29 says with respect to the animals: "Thou dost hide Thy face, they are dismayed; Thou dost take away their ruach (breath? or perhaps spirit?), they expire and return to their dust." This indicates that animals, like man, might have a ruach, and they, like man, return to dust (aphar), indicating that they, too, were probably formed from dust.
This further supports the conclusion that the primary distinction in Genesis 1 & 2 between man and animal seems to come down to man being made in the image and likeness of God. To argue that other differences include that man was "formed" whereas animals were "made," or that man came "from the dust of the ground" whereas animals only come "from the ground," or that man has a "spirit" but animals do not, is difficult to prove or conclude from the text, as the Hebrew Scriptures use basically identical wording for the creation and giving of life to both man and animals.
Something to think about anyway! I think it's that part about being made in God's image that makes us unique from the other animals and gives us what one might call our soul or our spirit, as well as our intellect.