Aquinas at 800 – Papers from the 2024 Notre Dame Conference: The Fittingness of Including Animals in the Glorified Universe

In this paper, I examine Aquinas’s arguments for the absence of animals in the glorified universe. In my response, I turn to Aquinas’s account of fittingness with respect to God’s nature, utilizing this account to argue that it befits God for some animals to exist in the glorified universe and to be ordered to Him as the final cause. I raise and resolve several potential Aquinian objections to this conclusion and I offer three possible, interrelated reasons as to why God might include animals. In conclusion, I present three additional theological considerations that accord with my conclusion.