I believe all of creation, including animals will be made new. How the exact details of that works out when it comes to plants and lesser life forms like worms, insects, bacteria, etc, is not something I even want to guess at! But I see no reason to doubt that those creatures which we have been given charge over – who have feelings, will, personality, and character – will live in the New Creation.
Sonia
Exterminating that which is apart from a perfect you that is fashioned in the likeness of Christ? Yes. Restoring, healing, bringing out the true-you that is divine and holy and glorified? Yes.
Kinda like a perfected human, sinful, wicked, murdering, raping, pillaging…Human…is a Hellish concept?
So much for Universalism.
I think you limit God a wee bit too much. I recall God can do the impossible, like saving a human being, cleaning him from his sins, perfecting him, and turning him into a glorified, useful, benevolent creature - and still be himself, a new creature, and yet still himself.
I’m sure God can do the same for a parasite…In much the same way we’ve sucked out vast amounts of the natural resources around us to survive and reproduce, with little regard for the health of our natural sources.
Again I say - God can do the impossible.
This is something I was always confused about. If our characters are perfected, then what becomes of the characteristics that define our personalities? Any likeable aspects of my personality only exist in contrast to my deficiencies. Without any character deficiencies I am another God, but even if God perfects us all (despite allowing some “deficiency”), what would separate my person from everyone else? Surely God would not “perfect” us unequally? Would our only distinction be in the context of our relationships with others, like the Trinity (…if my understanding of the Trinity is correct)? This is why people are attracted to the concept of being absorbed into God (I’d call it the annihilation of the redeemed). CS Lewis said we would retain some aspect of our personality, as to salt our being or something. What is there to salt perfection with but deficiency? Any thoughts?
I’d say that suggests we are, at the least, mostly parasitic, if you take the earth as one integrated organism. We have neglected the first stewardship (to protect and subdue the earth) that God had given us, wrongly absorbed every resource we can and have contributed practically nothing to the survival of it. So yeah, I think we’re mostly parasitic. And yeah, I think man, outside the active grace of God, is totally depraved. This properly taught, in that every faculty is prone to depravity – not that each faculty is totally prone to depravity. I probably do have a pretty low view of man if yours is higher. But I should note that total depravity doesn’t imply that man shouldn’t be loved or afforded due dignity.
thought provoking responses. thank you.
if someone lived their whole lives using drugs and abusing people, and then became a Christian and dramatically had everything in their life turned around: the drug addiction healed and the abusive behaviour replaced with love, then is that person destroyed?
if a worm lives off human blood all its life and Jesus comes to restore creation and that creature’s nature is turned around to become a life giving element of the new ecosystem, is that creature destroyed?
the lessons we’ve learned, the weaknesses we’ve had to deal with in our natures, the negative things we all struggle with…if these are placed into our past and forgiven and overcome, are we destroyed, or are we better people for having struggled and having been redeemed and restored? is it any different for any other creature that lives according to the nature with which it was born?
if God can embrace me and change me without consuming me utterly, then He can manage a flea or a tick or a worm. all will have their place when God is all in all.
I’d disagree that “perfection” must equal uniformity! Flowers are all beautiful, yet different; I see amazing sunsets all the time, with our high mountains and clouds, and none of those are the same. “Perfect” babies all look different – unless they are identical twins, and the most perfect singers are readily distinguishable from each other, not by their deficiencies but by their qualities. Individuality is not tied to our deficiencies. In fact, I wonder if our deficiencies might serve to smear our individuality more than increase it. Perfection will, I think, allow our uniqueness to be seen. A ruby and an emerald look the same when they’re caked with dirt; wash them off and they shine forth in their different beauty.
Sonia
I totally agree. 
animals are true living beings. sole with a true living heart.
Thanks Sonia! It was a lovely post. I don’t actually know whether I agree, but I enjoyed your post
I think that the bible is pretty clear on all of creation being included in Christ. I’m just thrilled to learn that the whole creation includes all humans!!! I had seen humans as a sort of special class, responsible for our actions and so not necessarily to be redeemed along with the rest of creation. 
Soul means, imo, “life.” The same word is used in the OT of the souls of animals as of the souls of humans, and it does seem to mean simply “life.” If you can go by that, I guess everything having the breath of life has a soul, given by God, and returning to Him at the appointed time. Even ugly worms of various denominations.
Speaking of ugly worms, nothing lives unless it first falls into the ground and dies, and the plant that grows from that seed may not bear any outside resemblance to the seed at all. An oak tree looks nothing like an acorn and a mushroom looks nothing like a spore. I wonder what WE will look like? We will still be ourselves, but glorified – fully revealed! The DNA of the oak tree was there all along, snuggled up in that little acorn, but not fully revealed (glorified) as it is in the oak tree. What may the glorified body of a worm look like? Caterpillars turn into butterflies . . . .
And whether all of this is my wishful thinking or not, I KNOW my sweet doggies will all be with me! I read about it in the Great Divorce, so it MUST be true! 
well said!
also, your dogs will be there, as will mine and all the other animals i’ve known and loved…
hopefully the crickets i have to feed to my tarantulas will forgive me 
Thanks, CL
Perhaps your glorified tarantulas will then be beautiful even to me 
and will have learned to feed on bananas like other tarantulas I’ve known.
i think it’ll be more likely that our ability to perceive beauty where we never saw it before would be increased…
…bananas? lol…who knows! it’ll be interesting to see
Will I be introduced to all three when I reach heaven?
I would love to believe that I will see my deceased pets again, but is there anything in scripture to suggest that the “setting free” of the whole of creation must include a bringing back to life of every deceased creature?
I dunno. Could be. CS Lewis believed that our close pets who have been elevated by their association with humans, learning to obey and serve their masters, etc. would be brought back. It’s been a long time ago and I’m definitely not quoting him, tho. I think this was in “The Problem of Pain,” but I don’t remember him giving any scripture for that. I actually do believe that all of creation may very well mean all of creation, but I wouldn’t get into an argument over it. I’m sure there isn’t enough scripture to prove that either way.
i think it’s quite simple. All means all. it has to, or it could exclude some humans…
That’s exactly right! If universalists do not insist it means all creation, including the smallest of ants, and the weediest of plants. Then the Colossian Hymn ceases to be the UR proof-text that it is.
precisely…though the metanarrative still holds
i think we have some great promises about that, especially in the OT
the lion shall lay down with the lamb, and a child shall put his hand in a viper’s nest, and no harm will come to him
Interesting thread, and some awesome thoughts here
My two cents:
Well, for one, I would love to see animals I’ve known and loved again.
And here’s another, with all respect to vegetarians: for those of us who just love the taste and texture of meat, would there still be something akin to meat that meat-lovers could eat, that isn’t actually meat? Something better than tofu, perhaps?
And here’s another question… would there be any eating at all, at least in the traditional sense?
Just thought I’d throw these thoughts out there.
Blessings
Matt