Question 65 - The Creation of the Material Universe

Preamble

Aquinas has already talked about creation in Ia.q44-q49. Here he returns to the subject but in the context of a commentary on the creation account contained in the opening pages of the book of Genesis. Such a commentary on the six days of creation, the latter usually designated as the hexaemeron, can be identified as a particular genre of biblical commentary. Aquinas was well aware of the patristic and medieval tradition of writing on the hexaemeron that preceded him, and his account follows the patterns of those who went before him. It’s quite noticeable that although Aquinas frames his account in the context of the philosophical controversies of the time between Neoplatonic and Aristotelian schools, the writing in this section of the summa is much more sharply focused on biblical and patristic exegesis that the sections around it.

One of the things that makes this section of the summa difficult for modern readers to assimilate is that is presupposes knowledge of much medieval science and cosmology. Since the modern scientific revolution has created a world view that is quite different from the medieval world view, it can be difficult to appreciate the force of what is being discussed because it appears obscured by outmoded thought. However, it is worth the effort, and not just for historians of thought, to persevere in the study of this commentary!


Why this Question Matters.

This first question in Aquinas’s treatment of the hexaemeron revisits some old material in new contexts; little that is covered here is not an immediate corollary of earlier teaching. Aquinas’s main concerns appear to be to start his commentary on the creation account in Genesis by looking at some of the most influential mistaken accounts of creation and of the relationship between God and His creatures. Aquinas’s theology is thoroughly rooted in biblical exegesis and he is able to dispose of some mistakes by simply dismissing them as inconsistent with scripture; others require enquiry into the metaphysical background behind the scriptural account.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Aquinas asks whether material creatures come from God. For anyone who’s been paying attention so far, this must seem like a very odd question. We’ve already seen how God is the first efficient cause of the being of all things and we’ve had a whole “Treatise on Creation” in Ia.q.44-49. Aquinas’s concern here seems to be to set the stage for his account of the hexaemeron but also to explicitly deal with the ancient and tenacious heresy of dualism. There were (and are) many forms of expression of the dualistic heresy; but they all basically boil down to the belief that there are two opposing principles, good and evil, in reality. This is sometimes expressed as a belief in an evil creator God (or demiurge) and a good but distant transcendent God. Aquinas probably has the Manichaeans in sight here; and one must always recall that the young St Augustine was a Manichaean.

If the dualists are right then the creation of the material world is down to the demiurge; as the objections point out, scripture appears to talk of material things in term of corruption and of evil whereas all that (the transcendent) God creates is good.

In answer, Aquinas returns to his philosophy of being; existence is shared by all things that have being and there must be some common first efficient cause of this existence. Therefore one cannot divide off material creation from everything else as having its being from some other cause. God creates everything that has being and holds it in existence.

If one thinks about material things in terms of their corruptibility or of their being sources of evil, then one must remember that all things are good insofar as they exist and that their evils amount to privations of the goods that they are in potentiality to be. Material things do come into and go out of existence, but underlying them is the permanence of prime matter; substantial forms may come and go but prime matter endures underlying these changes.

A2: As with the subject of the first article, asking whether all material creatures were made in order to manifest God’s glory might seem to be going over old material. Indeed it is; but here the focus is on Origen’s teaching that the creation of material creatures was a punishment for the evil choices of spiritual creatures. This is a subject that was raised in Ia.q47.a2 in the context of the diversity of material things; here the context is God’s justice in creating things unequal. The context is set by the third objection: justice would seem to require that God must create every material thing equal unless there was some prior inequality that would justify unequal material creation. The only possible source of such inequality would be the free-will choices of spiritual creatures. Therefore we can conclude that God created material creatures as a result of justice applied to the free-will choices of spiritual creatures who had been created before the material; but not in order to manifest God’s goodness.

Aquinas replies by returning to the theme introduced in Ia.q47.a2. Creatures make up the universe in the way that parts make up a whole and there is an inherent teleology and ordering in the way it is all put together. Each part has its own function; less important parts function for the benefit of more important parts; individual parts function for the benefit of the whole; the whole created universe is ordered towards God; and rational creatures have a special ordering towards God through their knowledge and love. There is inequality amongst material creatures simply because that inequality is required for the orderly functioning of the whole; God’s goodness and mercy are prior to His justice. God’s goodness is what all things are ordered towards as parts of this whole. In his reply to the third objection, Aquinas points out a parallel with a builder making a house: all the parts of the house are ordered towards the end of the house; there is no injustice in the fact that different parts of the house play different functions in the house.

In the body of his answer, Aquinas addresses Origen’s position directly with two arguments. The first argument is simply that Origen’s account cannot be made commensurable with the account of creation in scripture. The second argues that the extreme diversity amongst things in material creation surely cannot correspond to the diversity of erroneous free-will choices made by spiritual creatures.

A3: If we grant that God created all material creatures we can still ask whether He did this directly or through some intermediaries. In particular we can ask whether He created material reality with the angels as intermediaries; either instrumentally or through their own proper powers. The position in view here is that of Neoplatonist systems; in such systems creation spreads out from God as through a hierarchy. God creates the top level of the hierarchy, which in turn creates the next level and so on. With this sort of system in mind it is quite natural to enquire as to the role of the angels in the creation of the material world, as they lie high up in the hierarchy of creation.

We must, of course, note that Aquinas has already dealt with the more general case of creation as a whole in Ia.q45.a5 and this question might be seen as a special case of that one. Here he reiterates the earlier argument; secondary causes certainly act to bring about new states of affairs and new beings but they have to have some something already pre-existing to act upon. As creation considered here is creation ex nihilo, there simply is nothing for any secondary cause to act upon and therefore the act of creation must be attributed to God.

Even though Aquinas rejects a creative role for the angels, either through their own proper powers or acting as instruments of God, he will allow for the fact that they play a central role in the mediation of God’s providence (Ia.q103.a6).

A4: All material bodies are composites of matter and form. The idea of prime matter, some sort of universal substrate underlying all actualized matter, doesn’t seem too foreign to us; indeed some have identified the idea with that of the mass-energy of Einstein’s theory of relativity. But the idea of form is stranger; what are these forms and where do they come from? As angels are forms that subsist in themselves without any matter, is it possible that the forms of material bodies come from them in some way?

Aquinas runs through a brief history of some of the approaches taken to forms throughout history. Platonic and Neoplatonic thought considers forms to be subsistent entities that exist in some realm of their own. For example, in some realm of the forms there is the form of horse that is the formal cause of all real horses; above this, there is the form of animal which is the formal cause of all animals; above this, there is the form of life which is the formal cause of all living things, and so on culminating in the form of existence itself, arguably to be identified with God. In these systems, material bodies participate in the forms in order to be in-formed as what they are.

On the other hand, various Arabic thinkers who attempted to reconcile Neoplatonic thought with that of Aristotle, maintained that the forms of material things exist in some mind or minds; in particular in the minds of the angels. Finally some “modern heretics” (a reference to the Albigensians) maintained that God created all things which were then informed by the devil.

The mistake common to the systems that Aquinas has listed is that they assume a separate existence for material forms. He takes an Aristotelian point of view; in a material body form and matter are not two separate things that come together to make the body, rather they are two principles of the body that always co-exist. You can never find the form of a material body in isolation from its matter; you can never find uninformed prime matter. When something material is created it is created as a composite of matter and form and if it undergoes substantial change it does so by being acted on by an agent that educes a new form from the potentiality of the old composite. The correct way of thinking of the role played by spiritual substances such as angels is that they act as agents that can act on already created material bodies.


Handy Concepts

• The later Dominican translation of the summa has many very helpful footnotes and appendices that explore the history and set the context for Aquinas’s treatment of the hexaemeron.
• In following Aquinas’s commentary on the hexaemeron, it can be useful to have a copy of the text of scripture that Aquinas would have followed. This was the Latin Vulgate version of the bible; the Douay-Rheims English version is translated from the Vulgate.
• God is the first efficient cause of all things and in particular of material creation. Dualistic notions of a creator God subsidiary to a distant transcendent God are incorrect.
• All God’s creatures, including material things, were made to show forth the glory of God. Inequality amongst God’s creatures can be traced to the different roles that each thing plays in creation as a whole, rather than to any injustice in God.
• Creation ex nihilo is God’s immediate work; no intermediaries are involved.
• Material bodies are directly created by God as composites of matter and form. Matter and form are two principles of material things, not things with separate existences that are brought together.

Difficulties

• In the second article Aquinas argues that the diversity in material creation cannot be accounted for by the diversity amongst erroneous free-will decisions made by spiritual creatures. He argues that the same error would lead to identical material beings. In the light of the modern understanding of cosmology, his choice of the sun as an example is unfortunate. Aquinas considered heavenly bodies to unique in their kinds, so there could only be one sun, for example. Our modern knowledge might be seen to weaken this argument in that there are many examples of replication in the universe; but equally it might be seen to strengthen it because we are aware of much more diversity in material creation.
• In the fourth article Aquinas rejects the Platonic idea of forms and variations upon it. In particular he rejects the idea that material things participate in their forms, where these forms exist in some separate realm. However, it’s important to remember that he retained some of these ideas and terminology in his own metaphysics. In particular he considered that God is self-subsistent existence and that all other things that exist derive their existence in a secondary way from Him. In this sense, all existing created things participate in God’s existence. Similarly, although he rejects the idea that the forms of material things exist in the minds of the angels, Aquinas does teach that all created things pre-exist in God creative knowledge (Ia.q14.a8).

Spring Cleaning

When we started this escapade back in the dim distant days of 2009, it was not at all clear to us how to use the blog to support our activities. Stuff just got written and put up on the blog based on the materials that Steve and I prepared for our face-to-face sessions. As time went by, the sort of structure that we wanted and the amount and scope of the material appropriate emerged from just doing it. By about the time we got to Ia.q12 I was beginning to feel comfortable with what we were posting. However, I’ve been keenly aware for some time that the material for the first few questions in the summa is inadequate in comparison to the later stuff.

So, it’s time for a bit of a revision. Before proceeding on to the hexaemeron, I’ll be posting revisions of at least the first eleven questions (and maybe more). We’ll see how blogger copes with the revisions, but I’ll try not to lose any of the original comments!

If any of you out there reading this stuff want to suggest some revisions to these particular questions, now is the time to get your comments in!

Question 64 - The Punishment of the Demons

Why this Question Matters.

After having discussed the fall of the bad angels, it would seem quite natural to ask what happens next. This final question in the so-called “Treatise on the Angels” deals with the condition of the fallen angels after the fall. Possibly the most important question asked here is whether the bad angels, having fallen, can repent; this is the subject of the second article.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: Are the fallen angels, or demons, deprived of all knowledge of the truth? It seems clear that the demons must be cut off from at least some aspects of supernatural knowledge in their refusal of grace, but does their isolation from the truth extend further; perhaps even to their natural knowledge?

Aquinas distinguishes between two forms of cognition of the truth. On the one hand he identifies natural knowledge, on the other knowledge attributable to grace. He further distinguishes two sub-types of the latter: speculative knowledge that concerns divine things revealed to someone; and affective knowledge which produces love for God. Aquinas claims that of these three types of knowledge, the first is undiminished in the demons, the second is diminished, and the third is entirely absent.

The demons’ natural knowledge is not diminished because, being simple spiritual forms, to take something away from their nature in the way that we might have a foot removed is impossible without changing their nature. To change their nature would be to make them something they are not. The second type of cognition is a gift of grace, so that it is not surprising that it is at least diminished in the demons; but why is it not taken away entirely? God may reveal to them whatever He wishes to reveal for His purposes. Of the third type, which pertains to charity and to wisdom, no trace is left in the demons.

A2: Having turned away from God, as described in Ia.q63, is it possible for a demon to “change its mind” and to turn back to God, or is it obstinate in its evil? The objections suggest a number of powerful reasons that would support the idea that the demons can turn back to God after their fall. For example, freedom of choice would appear to be fundamental to creatures with a rational nature and to deny them the ability to turn back to God would appear to contradict this. Similarly, God’s mercy is infinite; therefore it is within His power to turn a demon back to Him.

Aquinas begins his reply by referring to Origen who argued in concurrence with the first objection that, because of their free wills, the demons could turn back to God. But having done this Aquinas immediately states that such a position is incompatible with the catholic faith and that one must firmly hold that the will of the good angels is confirmed in the good and that of the demons is obstinate in evil. The reason for this lies in the nature of the angels. As immaterial beings they do not have to go through a process of deciding something and they can never learn anything new as they immediately know all that they can naturally know. Even their supernatural knowledge is immediately assimilated. John of Damascus put it succinctly: the fall is to the angels as death is to humans. Humans are able to repent during their earthly life but once death comes, there is no repentance. For the angels, their one moment of decision is decisive.

To the argument from the freedom of the will, Aquinas answers that the nature of this freedom differs according to the nature of the intellectual creature. A human’s free will is flexible with respect to opposites both before and after the act of choice; the angel’s free will is only flexible with respect to opposites before the act of choice. This line of thought also explains why God’s mercy will not extend to the fallen angels. God’s mercy is applied to those who repent; but the demons are incapable of repentance.

A3: Passions such as fear, sorrow and joy cannot exist in the angels in the same way that they exist in us because they are passions that are proper to the sentient appetite. So if one asks whether the demons are sorrowful for their condition, one has to be careful to define what this might mean. If we take sorrow as an example, then it is possible to give it a transferred meaning that applies to any will, human or angelic. One simply identifies it with that resistance of the will to situations that exist (and which the will wishes did not exist) and vice versa. With this analogous meaning, it is quite proper to attribute sorrow to the demons. They are deprived of the beatitude that they desire and their evil will is frustrated by the good in many things.

A4: The phrasing of the title of the final article in this question may raise eyebrows: is the air the place of punishment for the demons? Indeed, the body of the question refers to the aer caliginosus (“misty air” or “dark atmosphere”). The sense of this strange phrase is to ask whether the punishment of the demons is restricted to hell or whether it extends to earth. The demons are hidden from us in the normal course of events, so presumably they inhabit the parts of earth’s atmosphere hidden from us.

Aquinas answers by claiming that the good of lower creatures is mediated by higher creatures and this can come about in two ways. In the first way people are induced towards the good by the good angels. In the second way they are induced towards the good by resistance to temptation from the bad angels. Therefore there must be some bad angels on hand to tempt us! This situation will endure up until the last judgement, when all the demons will be consigned to hell. Until then, some demons will be punished in hell; others will serve their time on earth.

In the reply to the third objection Aquinas mentions the opinion that the punishment of the demons may be postponed until the last judgement. The argument against this position is one of symmetry: the good angels are able to minister to us here on earth without any diminution of their heavenly glory. By symmetry, the demons must be able to tempt us on earth with no diminution of their punishment.


Handy Concepts

• The fallen angels are not deprived of their natural knowledge, but some elements of their supernatural knowledge are diminished and some are extinguished altogether.
• The fall of the bad angels and the glory of the good angels are both irrevocable.
• Although passions cannot exist in angels (good or bad) one can meaningfully talk of the bad angels being sad about their condition.
• The good angels minister to us here on earth; likewise the bad angels tempt us. Therefore the punishment of the demons is both here on earth and in hell before the last judgement.
• In the fourth article Aquinas argues that divine providence is mediated through the angels. It appears unclear from the text whether he means that all of providence is mediated through the angels, but the implication from the Doctor Angelicus is there. Aquinas will return to this topic at the end of the first part of the summa in Ia.qq103-119 when he discusses the Divine governance of creatures.

Difficulties

• Although Aquinas does not mention the temptation of Job in the first article, perhaps this is an example of what he was thinking about when he argues that God may reveal to the demons what He wishes for His purposes.

Question 63 - The Sin of the Angels

Why this Question Matters.

The questions leading up to this one have built a picture of the angels as quite extraordinary creatures. But it is part of Christian doctrine that some of the angels, the devil chief among them, turned away from God and fell. The obvious question arises: if the angels were so perfect how come some of them fell from their lofty heights? In this question, Aquinas addresses this issue. He does so in a tour-de-force of theology, building up the tension by chipping away piece by piece at the problem before arriving at the final answer in the third article. The sin of the fallen angels was to aspire to the beatific vision through their own natural powers, spurning God’s gift of grace which would have given them this vision anyway. The remainder of the question picks up loose ends such as when the angels sinned, how mighty were those that fell, and how many of them there were.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: The perfection of the angels raises the nagging doubt that they couldn’t possibly sin. One line of reasoning, voiced in the third objection, is that it is natural to the angels that there is a movement of love towards God; but in loving God they cannot sin. Aquinas has already laid the ground for an answer to this objection in the previous question: the angels turn towards God in the natural sense of God as creator and sustainer, but they need supernatural grace to turn towards the God of the beatific vision. However, the fourth objection seems more pointed: the fact that the angels have infallible knowledge would mean that there is no such thing for them as an apparent good that is not, in fact, a real good. Therefore angels cannot desire anything that is not in fact a real good, therefore they cannot sin.

Aquinas, following Christian doctrine, affirms that, in its natural state, any rational creature is capable of sin; to be incapable of sin requires a gift of grace from God. In order to address the problem of sin in angels, Aquinas takes the point of view that sin can often be seen as an act that deviates from the rectitude that the act ought to have. Now, where does the rectitude that an act ought to have come from? If the rule about the correctness of how a craftsman cuts something lay within the craftsman, then any old rubbish that he produces would have to be considered correct. But of course, the rule does not come from within; the craftsman’s cut can be correct or incorrect by an objective rule. More generally, the rectitude of a creature’s act derives from God’s will. So, it is only in God’s will that there can be no sin; in its natural condition any creature’s act can be misaligned with the rectitude supplied by God’s will.

But this explanation, although it argues that creatures cannot be sinless in their natural condition, seems inadequate to explain how the angels can sin. In the reply to the fourth objection, Aquinas turns to the angels in particular.

He argues that sin can exist in the choice of the free will of a rational creature in two ways: first of all, it can be the choice of something evil, like an act of adultery chosen for the apparent good of pleasure; but in a second way, it can be the choice of something in itself good but chosen as misaligned with the rule of rectitude. For this second type of sin, Aquinas gives the example of praying in church (itself a good) but in a way forbidden by the Church (therefore misaligned with right order). Angels cannot sin in the first way because of their infallible knowledge; but they are capable of sinning in the second way when they choose a proper good without ordering that good to the rule of God’s will.

A2: Having established that angels can sin by choosing a proper good without ordering that good to God’s will, Aquinas asks what specific sins of this type can exist in the angels. His answer is that the sins of the bad angels lie in pride and envy.

Sin can exist in creatures in two ways: it can exist as guilt and it can exist as an inclination. The devils can clearly be guilty of sin in that they tempt others to do evil deeds. But as far as sin-as-inclination is concerned, they can only sin in what they are drawn towards. Angels are simply not drawn towards bodily goods (or apparent goods), so cannot be guilty of sins such as lust. But they can be drawn towards goods appropriate to the spiritual creature. As we saw in the first article, the only way that these spiritual goods can be sinful is if they are chosen in a way misaligned with the rule of their superior, God. It is this that is the sin of pride: choosing not to submit to the rectitude defined by their superior.

As a consequence of the sin of pride, the sin of envy can exist in an angel as well. Envy occurs when the rational creature is saddened by the good of another, insofar as the other’s good is seen as an obstacle to his own good. In the case of the bad angels, their envy arises in the desire to be uniquely excellent. God choosing humanity for His own glory can be seen as an example of which the devils would be envious as they would not be uniquely chosen to reflect His glory.

A3: So, the sins of the bad angels lay in pride and envy. But can we be more particular? What sort of pride and envy? Aquinas considers the devil himself; the devil sinned by wishing to be like God.

Aquinas has to specify exactly what this means because it’s pretty clear that a creature cannot desire (in any concrete sense) what it cannot possibly be. The devil’s infallible knowledge will reveal to him that he is a finite creature and that God is infinite being; he will realize the infinite gulf between them and the fact that it cannot be crossed. As the third objection puts it, one would have to be out of one’s mind in order to wish to be the equal of God.

The first point to be made is that “to be like God” can be understood in two ways: to be equal to God and to be similar to God. Clearly, the reasoning above shows that the devil could not have wished equality with God. If we turn our attention to the idea of similarity with God we see that here also there are two possibilities. The rational creature can desire to be similar to God in a way apt or not apt to its nature. Now, although it is possible to be sinful even with respect to the first of these possibilities, Aquinas focusses on the second way as far as the devil is concerned.

The devil did not desire to be like God in the sense of not being subject to anyone; as God is naturally known to be the source of being of everything, this would involve desiring one’s non-existence! However, his sin lay in willing his ultimate end in the beatific vision of God to be achievable through the power of his own nature rather than receiving it as a gift of God; he desired to be like God in having the power to give the beatific vision. In other words, the devil desired what he would have received anyway as the gift of God; but the fact that it would have been a gift was too much for his pride.

In the middle of his response Aquinas bolsters the argument that the devil could not have wished actual equality with God by claiming that truly wishing to be something of a higher order would be impossible. A donkey has no desire to be a horse because in becoming a horse it would lose its being as a donkey. The idea here appears to be that the desire of a creature is ordered to the perfection of its being, rather than to the replacement of its being with some higher order of being. I may desire to fly like a bird, but this does not mean that I wish to become a bird; I may wish the perfections that I see in other creatures, but that does not mean that I wish to lose my being.

A4: Is it possible that some of the fallen angels were bad by their very nature? Aquinas argues that because the demons are intellectual substances, and every intellectual nature is ordered towards the universal good, they cannot have any natural inclination to evil. Creatures that are ordered towards particular goods (like humans) can tend naturally towards evil but only because the evil is conjoined to a particular good; the evil occurs per accidens. Another way in which badness might be called “natural” for some humans is when their badness occurs in either of the following two ways. The first possibility is that doing bad things has become habitual to a person; badness has become “second nature” to them. The second way is that the sentient part of the soul might be ordered towards a disordered passion; so we might call someone “naturally” angry or lustful.

A5: When did the devil fall? In this article and the next, Aquinas asks whether the devil (or other demons) fell in the instant of their creation or whether there was a period of time between their creation and their fall. We have seen in the previous article that the demons did not fall through a fault of their nature but by a choice of their will. The main problem for the idea that they fell in the instant of their creation is that scripture appears to discount the idea: the devil and the fallen angels are part of creation and as created are therefore good (from the account in Genesis); also they are portrayed as having fallen from a position of favour.

Therefore the next position that Aquinas considers is whether the angels were able to sin at the very first instant of their creation but in fact did not do so until later. He considers an argument against this, based on an analogy with the instantaneous state of temporal motions in the material world, but he is not satisfied with this, precisely because it is an analogy that does not seem to be appropriate. Better is the argument that observes that the operation of anything in the very first instant of its existence comes to the thing from the agent that is giving it its being. So, in order for there to be a defective movement in the first instant of existence of a patient, the agent would have to be defective in some way. This is clearly not possible in the case of God and therefore it must be impossible for the angels to have sinned in the first instant of their creation.

A6: The previous article has shown that the angels could not have fallen in the very first instant of their creation. This must surely imply that there was an interval of time between their creation and their fall. However, if we recall the discussion in Ia.q53.a3 concerning the angels’ movement in time, we may be prepared for a more subtle answer. Indeed, Aquinas reports that there are two opinions on the matter. The first opinion, that he considers the more likely, is that the devil sinned immediately after the first instant of his creation. The second opinion is that nothing prevented there from being an interval between creation and fall.

But even if the demons fell immediately after their creation, does this not imply that there must be an interval of time between the two events as the second opinion holds? In the reply to the fourth objection, Aquinas argues that this implication need not hold. When we consider time as it flows in the (classical) material world, then between any two times, there is another time; that is, the flow of time is continuous. But for the angels, time is not necessarily continuous: for them, “time” is the succession of intellective and affective operations. This allows for the possibility of their creation in one discrete “instant” and for their fall in the next instant. In the first instant they were good; in the second bad.

A7: Were the angels that fell the riff-raff amongst the angels, or were some of them amongst the most important? More pointedly, Aquinas asks whether the highest angel that fell was the highest amongst all the angels. There are two opposing arguments working in answering this question: the higher an angel in the hierarchy the less prone it would be to sinning; yet the higher the angel, the greater the motive towards sinning. The former comes from the fact that the nearer an angel is to God the more perfect it is; but the latter comes from the fact that the sin of the angels lay in the pride that suggested to them that they could achieve beatitude through their own natures. Being closer to God by nature would strengthen the idea that they could achieve this by their own powers.

Aquinas does not deny the force of the first argument and identifies St John Damascene as one of the Fathers of the Church who held that this consideration was the stronger. Yet he considers the second argument as the more probable; the sin of the angels arose solely from free choice rather from their proneness to sin.

The second objection pointed out that if the highest angel sinned this would imply that God’s plan was frustrated by His noblest creation; this would seem absurd. Aquinas answers this by recalling the key note of predestination: He knew how all would turn out and has glory from the goodness He shows to those he saves as well as glory from the justice He shows to those who are punished. God is not at all frustrated by the fall of the angels.

A8: The fact that the first angel sinned caused the other angels to sin; not by coercion but by example. In addition, all the demons are subject to the devil himself. Aquinas argues that when a rational creature sins at the suggestion of another, he is then subject to that other’s power as part of the punishment for the sin. The fact that all the demons sinned at the same instant is no obstruction to the sin of the first being a cause of sin in the others; angels come to decisions instantaneously.

A9: What proportion of the angels sinned? Did more sin than not, or vice-versa? Aquinas argues that because sin is unnatural to the angels and that things that are contrary to nature are the less frequent, then fewer angels sinned than did not sin.


Handy Concepts

• Sin can sometimes be seen as an act that deviates from the rectitude that the act ought to have.
• Even though for the angels an apparent good is necessarily a real good, they are still capable of sin. They can sin in the choice of something which is truly good in itself, but which is objectively misaligned with the rule of rectitude willed by God.
• Choosing not to submit to the rectitude defined by a superior is the sin of pride. In the angels this first sin of pride led to the sin of envy; their desire to be uniquely excellent.
• Pride and envy was instantiated in the devil by his willing his ultimate end in the beatific vision of God to be achievable through the power of his own nature rather than receiving it as a gift of God.
• The fallen angels were not naturally bad.
• The devils did not fall in the very instant of their creation. Aquinas gives two opinions: on the one hand that there was an interval of time between their creation and their fall; on the other hand that they fell in the instant after their creation. Aquinas considers the latter to be the more probable opinion and reminds us that this makes sense because for the angels, time is not necessarily continuous.
• Aquinas thinks that the highest angel that fell was the highest of all the angels. However, he does allow for other opinions held by eminent theologians.
• The first angel to sin provided an exemplar cause for the other angels to sin even though they all fell in the same instant.
• Fewer angels fell from grace and glory that achieved the beatific vision.

Difficulties

• If the rule about the correctness of how a craftsman cuts something lay within the craftsman, then any old rubbish that he produces would have to be considered correct. Some might be reminded of the case of modern art.

Question 62 - The Perfection of the Angels

Why this Question Matters.

Aquinas is moving towards the culmination of the “Treatise on the Angels” where he will address the puzzling question of how such naturally perfect creatures could possibly have fallen from favour with God by their own choice. Having dealt with the creation of the angels in the previous question, and aiming to address the question of the fall of the bad angels, it is quite natural that he continues to prepare the ground by asking about the elevation of the good angels to grace and glory. If one is to answer the question of how the bad angels fell from grace, it is necessary to understand the mechanism and movement of grace ordered to the beatific vision.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: All rational or intellectual creatures naturally desire their ultimate perfection; that is, all such creatures naturally desire their beatitude. But, Aquinas argues, there are two sorts of perfection for such creatures. On the one hand there is the perfection that follows on from the nature of the creature and which the creature is naturally capable of attaining. One recalls Aristotle in the Ethics concluding that the ultimate human happiness lies in the contemplation of God. But this is contemplation of God considered as first cause rather than contemplation of God in the vision of the divine essence. This latter is the seond perfection of the rational or intellectual creature, when we look forward to seeing God as He is. As we saw in Ia.q12.a4 this sort of perfection lies beyond the natural capabilities of the creature.

Angels seem so wonderful that one might ask whether they were created in beatitude. Aquinas, making the distinction above, answers that they were created in the first sort of natural beatitude. They do not have to go through any sort of discursive reasoning to get to their natural end; it is immediately present to them. However, their supernatural end exceeds the power of their nature and they were not created in the state of contemplating the divine essence.

A2: The ultimate beatitude of the rational creature lies in the vision of God through His essence. If we enquire into how the rational creature can have a movement of the will towards such beatitude, we have to realize that the will’s natural movement is towards what is naturally fitting for it. Hence if the rational creature is to have a movement of the will towards supernatural beatitude he requires the assistance of a supernatural agent; this is what we call grace.

Therefore, despite their many perfections, even the angels need the assistance of grace in order to turn towards God.

The third objection and its reply contain an interesting discussion of the first movement of the will towards God. Zecheriah 1:3 can be read as suggesting that the first movement of the will towards God, preparing for grace, can be within the natural powers of the rational creature. The objection argues that to suggest, on the contrary, that such a preparation for grace requires grace itself would lead to an infinite regress. In answering, Aquinas makes an important distinction between three different types of “turning towards God”. The first type consists in the turning towards God that occurs in the creature that is already enjoying the beatific vision; this is facilitated by the gift of consummated grace. The second type corresponds to the gift of God that justifies the rational creature, making them pleasing to the eyes of God; this is the gift of habitual grace. The third type corresponds to the preparation for grace which is itself a gift of God (sometimes called prevenient grace); God’s gift makes all of this happen and therefore there is no infinite regress. Zecheriah must be interpreted in the light of Lamentations 5:21.

A3: Even though the angels were not created in supernatural beatitude and require grace to turn towards God, it might be the case that they were created in grace. This might appear to be a difficult proposition to argue for, since one would then have to explain how it was possible for some of the angels to fall from grace, given that grace is that supernatural gift that inclines the rational creature towards God.

Aquinas admits that there are different theological opinions on this matter, but favours the opinion whereby the angels were created in habitual grace. The argument that he puts forward is rooted in St Augustine’s notion of the seminales rationes (“seminal reasons”) implanted in creatures. Creation not only creates things in a certain state but also gives to them their developmental direction and the powers with which to go off in those directions; a modern physicist might refer to the initial conditions imposed upon, and the differential equations obeyed by, physical systems. Habitual grace is that grace which is directed towards beatitude but it does not necessitate beatitude (in contrast to consummated grace).

A4: The concept of merit has been controversial in the history of theology, especially in the polemical battles between the Catholic Church and other denominations. Aquinas raises the question of whether the beatified angel merited its beatitude. In order to answer this question in the affirmative, he has to clarify the notion of merit.

The beatific vision of God is the ultimate end of the rational creature. Now, once the rational creature is in a position to be able to attain to the beatific vision (through the gift of sanctifying grace) they attain that ultimate end through their own operation. Now, an operation can be of two kinds: it can either have sufficient power to achieve the end or it does not, in which case it requires further assistance to reach the end. The power of achieving the beatific vision is of the latter kind; even if it is operating for the ultimate end the rational creature requires that end to be given to it as a gift. That gift is given as a result of the merit attributed by God to the rational creature cooperating with sanctifying grace. It is vital to remember that the actions of the rational creature cooperating with sanctifying grace are themselves gifts of God, sometimes called actual graces.

Applying this reasoning to the angels it is clear, pretty much by the definition of the terms involved, that we must say that they do merit their own beatitude. Indeed, Aquinas spends some time in his answer showing that alternative explanations of the relation of grace, merit and beatitude are simply muddled.

A5: We’ve seen (Ia.q58.a3) that the angels attain natural perfection immediately through their natures rather than having to acquire it through some sort of process. A similar thing is true of their attainment of beatitude: an angel is ordered to glory by its merit in the same way that it ordered to natural perfection by its nature. Therefore, as soon as an angel has merited beatitude, it attains it. As the title of the article suggests, the angel attains beatitude immediately after just one meritorious act. Although Aquinas does not discuss here what this single meritorious act may be, he goes on to discuss (in Ia.q64) the fall of the bad angels arising from their refusal to accept the gift of beatitude as gift. From this we may infer that the meritorious act of the angels is to accept that gift as gift.

A6: Given that the angels were created in a hierarchy, one might wonder whether that hierarchy is respected when considering God’s gift of grace and glory to them. In other words, do angels receive grace and glory in proportion to their natural gifts?

Aquinas gives arguments to support the affirmative opinion. The very fact that God created the angels with diverse grades of the angelic nature together with the fact that they were ordained to the beatific vision suggests that the hierarchy would be respected in the consideration of the supernatural gifts. Why else would God have created them in a hierarchy? A second argument is based on the fact that human beings are impeded in the movement of their intellective part by their sentient part; there are plenty of sensuous temptations out there for us. This doesn’t happen in the angels and their intellectual nature is not impeded in its movement which will therefore move with all its strength. Therefore those angels with better natures will turn towards God more firmly and efficaciously. As with humans, angels will receive grace and glory in proportion to the intensity of their conversion to God. Hence the better angels will receive greater grace and glory.

A7: Asking the question of whether natural cognition and natural love remain in the beatified angels allows Aquinas to reiterate his fundamental axiom that grace does not destroy nature, rather it perfects it. So, the natural cognition and love of the angels remain and are perfected when they are raised to the beatific vision of God.

A8: In Ia.q63 Aquinas is going to turn to the difficult question of sin in the angels. As with the other articles of the current question, this article can be seen as laying the preparatory foundation for the later enquiry. Once an angel is beatified, are they able to turn away from God and to sin? Of course not! The beatific vision is the vision of the absolute good; as the will is inclined to the good, so is it impossible for the will to turn away from the good as good.

The third objection claims that to say that the angels cannot sin once they have the beatific vision is to deny them free will. Aquinas parries this argument by claiming that the perfection of free choice lies in the ability to choose whilst maintaining the order imposed by the end. (Recall that free choice is a choice amongst means to an end.) Therefore the fact that the angel is unable to sin means that the choices available to the angel are all truly good (rather than a mixture of true goods and only apparent goods). Therefore the free will is actually perfected in this situation.

A9: Once a creature has achieved beatitude, it is possible for it to progress to a higher level of beatitude? Although Aquinas casts this question in the case of the angels, the answer applies more generally to all rational creatures. Every creature moves towards an end and it is impossible for this end to be indeterminate. It may be that an ultimate end is broken down into a sequence of intermediate ends, but each of these must be determinate or else they simply could not function as ends. If we consider the ultimate end of the rational creature in the beatific vision of God, then it is clear that the creature cannot attain this without the help of God. God provides this ultimate end and, as an end, it must be determinate. This determinacy of end demonstrates that the rational creature attains that particular end in beatitude and no more; God’s predestination for the rational creature determines where they end up.

Aquinas makes the clarification that the degree of beatitude does not lie in what is seen in the beatific vision (the essence of God) but rather the mode by which it is seen. It is only for God to see His own essence in the highest mode; for the rational creature, by nature finite, only a finite mode of the vision of God’s essence is possible. As there is an infinite distance between the creature and the creator and the creature may only have a finite mode of the vision of God’s essence, there are infinitely many finite modes of such vision.


Handy Concepts

• There are two ends open to the rational creature. On the one hand is the natural end in the contemplation of God as first cause; on the other hand there is the contemplation of the very essence of God. The first is naturally open to the creature; the second is the supernatural gift of God. Angels are created in natural beatitude; to achieve supernatural beatitude, they like humans require the grace of God.
• Even the first movement of the will towards God requires grace.
• Habitual grace (gratia gratum faciens) is also called sanctifying grace and sometimes justifying grace. Habitual grace is ordered towards, but does not necessitate, beatitude.
• Although Aquinas admits of diverse opinions on this matter, he takes the position that the angels were created in habitual grace.
• The rational creature operating in the friendship of God with the gift of sanctifying grace requires actual graces to co-operate with sanctifying grace in order to merit the beatific vision. Angels, like humans, merit their beatitude.
• An angel achieves beatitude by means of just one meritorious act.
• The natural hierarchy of the angels in their creation is reflected in their supernatural hierarchy.
• Rather than destroying nature, grace perfects it. So the angels’ natural cognition and natural love are perfected in beatitude rather than destroyed.
• The rational creature in beatitude in unable to turn away from God and sin; rather than representing a constraint on free will this represents its perfection.
• Angels, like humans, make no progress in beatitude once they have attained it.

Difficulties

• The first article makes reference to the two ends of the rational creature. This is an important text used in the twentieth century debate over the supernatural.
• Commentators have noted that the positions that Aquinas takes in the fifth and sixth article are especially speculative.
• In the ninth article one may ask whether God might have determined intermediate ends in beatitude. Aquinas’s answer discounts the possibility of such intermediate ends by appealing to the predestination of the creature. It seems slightly curious that Aquinas doesn’t attempt an answer based on showing that there could be no means by which the rational creature could progress whilst in beatitude. For the angel, they are all they can be at their creation (they are comprehensors) and only one meritorious act attains their beatitude; for humans, their progress in grace lies in their earthly course as viators. It is worth noting that in the reply to the third objection Aquinas admits that the angels may progress in joy whilst in beatitude.

Question 61 - The Creation of the Angels

Why this Question Matters.

This question summarizes a number of questions about the creation of the angels and ties up a few loose ends about their creation, allowing us to turn in the next question to consideration of grace and glory in the angels.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: After all that Aquinas has said about God being the source of the being of all things, it might seem strange for him to ask whether angels have a cause for their being. The question does, however, allow Aquinas to summarize the argument so far and to clear up one or two loose ends. For we have seen that there is a unique self-subsistent existence and that therefore if anything else exists, it can only participate in existence and this participation must have come from the self-subsistent existence.

One might have tried to argue that there is no composition of matter and form in the angels as they are pure form, so there is no call for anything to cause a non-existent composition. Aquinas argues that neither do they have any agent transforming their matter from potency to act. But this is irrelevant; they do not have an agent cause or a formal cause, but they do have an extrinsic efficient cause that creates their whole substance.

A2: Are the angels co-eternal with God? They seem such perfect beings that it might be thought fitting that they exist with God from eternity. Aquinas dismisses this as simply contrary to the Christian faith. Referring back to Ia.q19.a3 and to Ia.q46.a1, we recall that God produces creatures by His act of will and that will is not necessitated. God can create whatever creature He wishes whenever He wishes it. As with the previous article, this one seems somewhat superfluous in the light of what Aquinas has already shown. Perhaps, this is included here as a recollection; perhaps it is aimed at Averroism, which was growing in popularity at the time Aquinas was writing.

A3: Were the angels created before the material world was created. The account in Genesis “In the beginning God created heaven and earth” would seem to suggest that the angels were created at the same time as the material world. This is the position that Aquinas argues for; the angels should not be considered as a separate universe of things. However, Aquinas is not willing to condemn the contrary point of view, because the great Father of the early church, St Gregory Nazianzen held this latter opinion. Aquinas indicates that if this opinion is to be held then the opening words of the Genesis account have to be interpreted differently; “in the beginning” as “in the Word” or as “at the beginning of time”.

A4: The empyrean heaven is the highest reaches of heaven. Aquinas asks whether this is where the angels were created. Aquinas argues that as angels were created with material creatures in one universe and as they preside over the whole of the material part of creation, it is fitting that they were created in the highest part of heaven.


Handy Concepts

• The angels, like all other created entities receive their being from God.
• The angels are not co-eternal with God.
• Whether the angels were created at the same time as the material part of creation is open to theological opinion, but the most probable opinion would affirm this.
• The angels were created in the highest reaches of heaven, reflecting the ordering they have to preside over the material parts of creation.

Question 60 - Angelic Love

Why this Question Matters.

In Ia.q59.a1 Aquinas divided appetite into three classes: the natural, the sensory and the intellectual. What characterized the natural appetite was the lack of any presupposition of awareness. Sensory appetite involves the movement towards what is sensed and intellectual appetite (or will) the movement towards the good, perceived as good. In appetite there is a certain affinity between subject and object; and back in Ia.q20.a1 Aquinas insisted that this affinity, when it is in act, is love “the primary movement of the will and of every appetitive capacity”. In this question Aquinas is going to look at love in the angels from the point of view of what is in act prior and posterior to the act of free choice. Thus in the five articles of this question, we get a refinement of the notion of “natural” love preceding free choice; the idea of love as after a free choice; an enquiry into the egoistic and altruistic aspect of love; and finally, the most profound aspect of love in its orientation towards the creator.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: The first article asks whether there is a “natural love” in the angels. One’s first thought might be to attempt to take this question as referring to the idea of a natural inclination as defined in Ia.q59.a1. Doing this would lead to the denial of a “natural love” as angels are purely intellectual and therefore inclined to things purely by their wills. But here Aquinas is actually asking whether there is a love that follows on from the nature of an angel, before any free choice of the will. The answer to this question is in the positive. Aquinas quotes St. Augustine in the sed contra to the effect that there is natural knowledge in the angels (they don’t have to learn everything in the way we do) and love follows on knowledge. Then he argues that every nature is the subject of some tendency, which is its natural appetition, or love. The mode of this differs in different creatures according to their mode of being; in the angels their mode of being is intellectual and therefore their natural love takes the form of willing.

A2: One might also ask whether angels can choose to love something. After all, their knowledge of natural things is infallible and they don’t have to go through a process of working things out, so it is unclear what choices might be left to them (c.f. Ia.q59.a3).

Answering in the affirmative, Aquinas makes a comparison with humans. Our natural willing is for our ultimate end. On the other hand, our willing by choice is of those things that help us attain that end. So, our natural love is of the good which we desire as our end; our love of choice is of the goods that we desire in view of that end. Now, the human intellect does not, by its nature, know all that it is capable of understanding; we have to work things out. There’s a sort of duality going on here: our wills proceed from the general (the good in general) to the particular (individual goods that will help us attain that end) whereas the intellect works from the particular towards the general. The intellect makes speculative judgements about what is true and false, but also practical judgements about how particular things or actions stand in relation to our final end. In the angels the speculative judgements are infallible and do not involve any cogitation, but as they are creatures falling short of perfection, some choices may still need to be made with respect to practical judgements. There may still be pro- and con- to consider for any practical judgement relating to their ultimate end. Therefore we can say that angels do love by choice as well as by nature.

A3: This article and the next form a pair and may also be seen as preparatory to the fifth article. This article considers the love that an angel has for itself, the next considers the natural love an angel has for other angels and the fifth considers the natural love an angel has for God. Here Aquinas asks whether angels love themselves both naturally and through choice.

Aquinas starts his answer by making a distinction: one the one hand we have love considered as desire (or concupiscence) and on the other hand love considered as friendship. In the latter we love a thing as willing the good for it (or as a subsistent good); in the former we love as willing it for some other (or as an accidental or inhering good). So, for example, we desire knowledge because we wish to have it for ourselves, rather than willing that knowledge may itself be good.

In humans, as in angels, there is a natural desire for fulfilment; but so also are there choices made in reaching for our fulfilment. So in angels and in humans there is both a natural and a chosen love for our own selves; but this is the love of friendship rather than the love of desire.

A4: The types of natural love that exist between individuals will depend on the actual bond between those individuals. So, the nature of the love of friendship between family members may be seen to be different than that between citizens of the same city or between human beings in general. If we consider only the natural love that exists between angels then we can see that they must love each other because they are of one kind. One may doubt that this shows that they love each other as themselves. However, the sense that Aquinas is using here is shown by the answer to the first objection. An angel knows himself as having the nature of an angel and recognizes another angel as having the same nature; the type of love of friendship that Aquinas is using here follows upon this knowledge. If we try to take a wider sense of knowing and loving the other as self, we have to recognize that an individual knows himself through his own essence and cannot know another through their essence. Therefore, in the wider sense defined by this knowledge, one individual cannot love another as self as the individual does not possess the knowledge required for this love.

A5: Finally Aquinas argues that an angel’s natural love for God is stronger than the natural love that it has for itself. His argument is based on an analogy of the natural movement of those things that lack reason. For such things that belong by their very nature to something else move more intensely towards that thing than they move towards themselves. As an example of this Aquinas claims that a part naturally exposes itself to danger for the sake of conserving the whole; a principle of altruism is embedded naturally within such things. As “reason imitates nature” we also see that an individual citizen is willing to lay down their life for the good of the community in times of war, for example. Now, God is the universal good containing within Himself all creatures and therefore all creatures have a natural inclination towards Him stronger than they have towards themselves. In particular, this applies to the angels.

The first objection claimed that since the nature of God is utterly different from the nature of an angel, therefore the love of friendship of an angel based on the similarity of nature cannot be stronger towards God than towards even another angel, let alone itself. Aquinas replies that the idea that love of friendship is based on similarity of nature applies only within creation; God is the whole reason for the being of things and the natural love that things have for God is based on them being a part of this whole.

The fourth objection makes the important argument that it would appear that it is supernatural charity that allows us to love God more than we love ourselves; in other words, it is a supernatural grace, given to us by God, rather than a natural movement that lies behind such love. Aquinas demurs; God is the universal good upon which everything depends and that is the basis for the natural love of creatures for their creator and sustainer. The supernatural love that creatures have for their creator is based in the beatific vision as end that creatures may be gifted by God.


Handy Concepts

• In this question, “natural love” refers to the inclination of the creature that follows on from the nature of the creature.
• Even though angels have an infallible knowledge, they love through choice as well as naturally.
• There is a distinction between the love of desire and the love of friendship. The first is egoistic; the second altruistic even though it may be directed towards the good of the self. Humans and angels have both a natural love of friendship and chosen love of friendship for themselves; the latter constituted by the choices made to promote individual good.
• The fourth article differentiates between the type of love one individual may have for another. If we recall the gospel injunction to “love your neighbour as yourself”, we must recall that once we have considered the question of “who is my neighbour?” we must consider the question of “how can I love someone that I know nothing about?” Aquinas’s answer is that we must distinguish between types of love; in general the love we have for neighbour is, by default, love of neighbour as being of the same nature as ourselves.
• The natural love of angels (and of humans) for God is stronger than natural love for self. This is based on the fact that creatures are but a part of creation depending utterly on God for being.
• In the reply to the first objection in the fifth article Aquinas makes much of the natural inclination of a part towards the whole; for example the individual naturally loves its species more than itself.

Difficulties

• The distinction in the third article between the love of desire and the love of friendship, identifying self-love as the love of friendship, might be compared to those with certain personality disorders. One symptom of these might be self-love considered as love of desire.
• In the fourth article Aquinas identifies that angels have a love of friendship for each other based on a likeness of kind. What he does not consider is the fact that angels are individual within their own species; does this have an effect on the strength or nature of the friendship between angels?
• The reply to the fourth objection of the fifth article distinguishes between the natural inclination that creatures have for their creator as creator and the supernatural inclination that rational creatures have for their creator based on the beatific vision of God as end. This idea of the two ends of humans, the natural and the supernatural, underlies the theological argument over the supernatural in the twentieth century.

Question 59 - The Will of the Angels

Why this Question Matters.

Having dealt with knowledge and the angelic intellect, Aquinas now turns to the question of angelic will. Are angels like humans in having a will distinct from their intellect? If so, is this will distinct from their intellect and is this will free in the sense that humans have free will.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: The attentive reader will have observed that, in asking whether angels have a will, Aquinas posits two of the same objections that he put forward in Ia.q19.a1 where he asked whether God has a will. In the case of the angels, the answer that Aquinas gives has a distinct neo-Platonic feel about it: all things emanate from the divine will and therefore everything has an appetite for goodness. All that needs to be done to sort out the answer to this question is to inquire into the nature of this appetite for goodness in different classes of things.

Aquinas distinguishes between three classes of the appetite for goodness. The first two of these are natural appetition and sensible appetition. Harking back to the “fifth way” in Ia.q2.a3, the first of these refers to the movement of things like inanimate objects or plants towards their natural ends. The second refers to objects that sense their environments, moving towards sweetness for example. In both of these first two cases the direction towards the good derives from some external power supplying the end-as-good. In contrast, the third class of appetite for goodness lies in those beings who move towards the good and at the same time know it to precisely to be good. This tendency of moving towards the good as known to be good is precisely what is meant by the will; hence angels (and, of course, humans) have such a will.

A2: Following the pattern set in Ia.q54. we must distinguish between the will and intellect & nature in the angels. The strategy for distinguishing between nature and will applies more generally than to just the angels: a nature is by definition included within the thing itself, whereas the will extends to things (identified as good) outside the thing. This argument applies to all creatures that have a will, and therefore to the angels. We do recall, however, that in God the object of the will lies within Himself and therefore, for God, this argument does not work; in God, we can only make an intellectual distinction between God’s nature and His will.

When it comes to the distinction between the will and the intellect, Aquinas observes that the intellect knows things that exist outside the knower insofar as that external thing can exist within the intellect. The will, on the other hand, involves an inclination towards something outside the one who wills. The power by which the creature has some exterior thing within must be distinct from the power by which it tends to something exterior.

A3: Part of the function of the intellect is to inform the will, so that the latter may take decisions based on this information. The will tends by its nature towards the good, but if it is presented by a number of different possible courses of action in some circumstance, each of which is equally good, then it has to take a decision between these choices. This is the basis of what we call the freedom of the will, the ability to choose between apparent goods.

Aquinas has built up a picture of the angels that identifies their intellects as being extremely powerful (Ia.q58), even to the extent of their knowledge being infallible. Can we make any sense, then, of the idea that angels have free will? As the second objection implies, if their intellects are so powerful, it would seem that there is very little scope for there being any indifference between alternate goods and therefore no choice for them to make!

The answer is swift and sweet: wherever there is intellect, there is freedom of the will. Replying to the second objection, Aquinas concedes that an angel would be imperfect if it did not know all it was able to know naturally. However, as we saw in the second article, the knowledge of the intellect is internal to the knower whereas the will reaches out to things external to the one who wills. Tending to things that are better than the angel will move the angel towards perfection, therefore non-determination of the will in the contemplation of higher things would be indicative of an imperfection. However, if the angel contemplates things lower than it, indifference between choices offered to the will is not indicative of imperfection.

A4: In Ia.q81. Aquinas will identify the irascible and concupiscible appetites in humans and will go into detail about them in the “Treatise on the Passions” (I-IIae.qq22-48). For the moment it is sufficient to note (I-IIae.q23.a4) that the irascible appetite is to do with our inclination towards objectives that are arduous to achieve; so that hope, despair, anger, courage and fear are passions of the irascible appetite. The concupiscible appetite is to do with our simple inclination towards things that are attractive; so that love and hatred, desire and aversion, joy and sadness are passions of the concupiscible appetite.

Aquinas asks whether these irascible and concupiscible appetites are found in the angels. He justifies his negative answer by arguing that angels only have intellectual appetites and that as the division into irascible and concupiscible appetites applies only to sensible appetition, therefore this division does not apply to the angels. The fact that this division applies only to the sensible appetite follows from the fact that distinct powers of appetite arise only from formal distinction between their objects rather than a material distinction. So, for example, the formal object of vision is colour; therefore there are not two separate powers that correspond to sensing black and white respectively, but only one. The formal object of the will (or intellective appetite) is the good considered generally; it is not split up into particular goods as considered by the will. Therefore there is no division in the intellective appetite such as happens with the sensible appetite.


Handy Concepts

• In creatures the appetite for goodness is divided into three classes. Of the first two, natural appetition corresponds to the movement of inanimate objects and plants towards their end; sensible appetition corresponds to the movement of a sense towards its object. The third class, the will, corresponds to a movement towards the good as known as good. Angles and humans, as intellectual creatures, have such a will.
• Despite the infallibility of angelic knowledge, angels still have choices to make and they have free will in making these choices.
• There is a similarity between the third article and the question of the necessity of God’s will in Ia.q19.
• There are no irascible or concupiscible appetites in the angels, as their appetites are purely intellective.

Difficulties

• It’s unclear to me that Aquinas’s answer to the second objection in the third article actually addresses the problem, which is that the infallible intellect of the angel would know the (unique) right thing to do and therefore would have no choice to make. Aquinas chooses to address the consequences of choices involving lower beings. It seems odd that he hasn’t considered the possible objective indifference between choices, or the uncertainty of the prediction of future consequences or the possibility of incommensurability between different goods.

Question 58 - The Mode of Angelic Knowledge

Why this Question Matters.

This is the last question in the series on angelic knowledge. If the previous questions have their centre of gravity in distinguishing God from his creatures, this question looks forward to the “Treatise on Human Nature” in distinguishing the angels from humans. We will see in this question that Aquinas attributes to the angels processes of thinking that many of us would wish for ourselves! Angels simply so not have to grind through information to arrive at a conclusion; they have a direct intuition of everything that is implicit in their premises.

Articles 6 & 7 refer to the morning and evening knowledge of the angels. These strange names, referring to the mornings and evenings of the days of creation, come directly from St. Augustine’s account in his commentary on the book of Genesis. Indeed, these two articles can be seen as St. Thomas’s summary of a section of this book.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: When we think of something, whether we perceive something new and come to an understanding of it or whether we contemplate something brought forth from our memories, our intellects move from potentiality to actuality. Is the same true of the angels? To answer this question, Aquinas has to distinguish between learning something anew and thinking about something we already know.

In the first case, angels do not have any potentiality as they have been brought into being by God with all the intelligible species that are connatural to them. In this sense, what they know, they know from the first instance of their creation. However, Aquinas observes that there may be an exception to this general rule: God may choose to illuminate an angel with some particular divine revelation and in that case their intellect will be moved from potentiality to actuality.

In the second sense, an angel need not be thinking about everything that it knows at the same time. Therefore, in this case, it is true to say that its intellect moves from potentiality to actuality. Aquinas notes that angels are always contemplating the Word of God for “it is this vision that the angels’ beatitude consists in”.

A2: Multitasking or thinking of more than one thing at once is seen as being a very valuable gift. Humans are capable of very complex tasks that involve many simultaneous considerations, but we tend to be best at these tasks when we have learnt them; when they have become habitual to us. Similarly our minds are capable of flitting from one subject to another with great rapidity; however, can we truly think of more than one thing at the same instant?

In this article Aquinas is asking this question of the angels; in order to answer it he has to be specific about how we can understand complex matters. He observes that we do contemplate complex things but he claims (with the backing of a long philosophical tradition) that in understanding such complex ideas we understand them as a unity. So, for humans beings things cannot be understood all at once insofar as they are distinct, but they can insofar as they are taken as a complex unity. Translating this into the language of intelligible species, this means that if a complex idea can be grasped by means of a single intelligible species then all the sub-ideas within that idea can (in a sense) be grasped at once; if, however, multiple intelligible species are required then the complex cannot be grasped all at once.

Applying this reasoning to the angels, Aquinas searches for those things that could be the principles of unity for complex ideas. For angels the special principle of unity that they have lies in their contemplation of the Word of God; things they know through this vision they know all at once. But for things known through intelligible species, the same considerations apply as for humans: if there is a single unifying intelligible species then knowledge can be all at once; if not, it cannot be.

A3: Human reason is capable of coming to a knowledge of things through a direct intuition (intellectus) and though a process of discursive reasoning (ratio). In the latter the process of reasoning proceeds from point to point by logical inference. Do angels think the same way or is their thinking all by a process of direct intuition?

Aquinas argues that lower intellects of their very nature attain perfection in their cognition by a process of movement and discourse; higher intellects have no need for this process. It is the weakness of our intellects that necessitates the process of discursive reasoning as we cannot see immediately the consequences inherent in first principles. The angels have a “fullness of intellectual light” that gives them all the consequences of these first principles.

A4: Continuing the theme of the previous article, Aquinas asks whether angels know things through composing and dividing (see Ia.q16.a2). Aquinas observes that if the intellect were capable of seeing every possible conclusion implied by a first principle (or set of first principles) then there would be no need for a process of composing and dividing. In a similar way, if an intellect upon apprehending an object were able to fully comprehend the what-ness of the object, then there would be no need of discursive thinking or of composing and dividing in coming to know about that object.

Since the intellectual light in angels is perfect, they comprehend all that is virtually contained (i.e. all that which is implied) in anything that they apprehend. Therefore they have no need of composing and dividing.

A5: The preceding articles of this question make it clear that angels have an extraordinarily powerful means of knowing things. They simply do not have to go through all the painful and mistake-prone steps that we do to arrive at knowledge; they know things through a direct apprehension of those things. But now an obvious question rears its head: however can such a being make a mistake? Christian doctrine, when it contemplates the fallen angels, is quite clear that the angels can be mistaken, and can be mistaken in a thoroughly spectacular way.

We came across the idea of the first act of the intellect (or simple apprehension) in Ia.q17. Like a correctly functioning sense organ the intellect is infallible in this first act; it is in the second act of the intellect (also called judgement) that mistakes are made. In us, with our processes of composing and dividing and of discursive reasoning we are prone to erroneous judgement, making a mess of what the first act delivers accurately. In the angels, on the other hand, all they have is the act of simple apprehension; as they don’t make judgements in the way that we do, they cannot make mistakes in this way. However, Aquinas identifies that they can still make mistakes; it is just that the mistakes that they can make are precisely the big ones! Their natural cognition is perfect, but their supernatural cognition, their cognition of things ordained supernaturally by God, is fallible. We will see more about the fall of the angels in Ia.q63., but for the moment, the consequences of this are that the good angels do have infallible knowledge both of natural and supernatural things. On the other hand, the fallen angels have infallible knowledge of natural things but can only make judgements about things based on their natural knowledge. Therefore if some object of knowledge combines the natural and the supernatural (such as whether a dead man may rise from the grave) they will be mistaken.

A6: In his commentary Super Genesim ad Litteram St. Augustine interpreted the Genesis account of the six “days” of creation not as literal solar days but as the creation of six different types of thing as made known to the angelic intellect. He called that primordial knowledge of things as they exist in the Word of God morning knowledge and the knowledge of things as they actually exist in themselves evening knowledge. In asking the question of whether angels have both morning knowledge and evening knowledge, Aquinas is summarizing Augustine’s teaching and making it his own.

A7: St. Augustine taught that there is a big difference between knowing something in the Word of God (morning knowledge) and knowing it as it is in its own existence (evening knowledge). Aquinas argues that since angels do not receive their knowledge of things from the things themselves (Ia.q55.a2) one has to be careful with the notion of evening knowledge. The object known by the angel does not make itself know to the angel, so to speak, but rather the knowledge comes via the intelligible species implanted by God. This means that evening knowledge is the knowledge of the thing as existing in its own nature.

Aquinas goes on to argue that angels have this latter type of knowledge in two ways: in the first case through their innate intelligible species; and in the second case through the ideas of things in the Word of God. This means that they know things in the word of God in two ways. They know things as they are in the Word of God (morning knowledge) but also in seeing the Word of God they see things as they exist in themselves. It is as though they not only see the plan for the thing in the Word of God, they also see the thing itself as constructed from that plan, in its own existence.

This means that we have to be careful in differentiating morning and evening knowledge. Morning knowledge and evening knowledge are the same in essence if by evening knowledge one is referring to knowledge of things in their own existence known through the Word of God. On the other hand, if we consider evening knowledge in the sense of knowledge obtained via intelligible species, then evening knowledge and morning knowledge are distinct.


Handy Concepts

• Angels come into being knowing all that is connatural to them; but they do not necessarily think about everything all the time.
• However, they are much better at integrating complex ideas into a unity than us; moreover, when they contemplate what they know through the Word of God, they contemplate it as a unity.
• Angels know things through direct intuition; they have no need of discursive reasoning or of composing and dividing.
• Angels’ natural cognition is infallible but their supernatural cognition is fallible.
• St. Thomas assimilates St. Augustine’s ideas about morning and evening knowledge into his teaching about the angels. Morning knowledge is the primordial knowledge of things in the Word of God; evening knowledge is knowledge of things as they actually exist in themselves.
• Aquinas will say more about intellectus and ratio in Ia.q79.a8-10.

Difficulties

• In the first article, Aquinas does not explicitly differentiate between angels in the state of grace and glory and those who fell as to the constant cognition of the word of God. His answer seems to suggest that he is excluding the fallen angels from the constant vision of God.
• When Aquinas talks about the unifying of ideas into a complex idea, he does not go into any details of how this really works. There’s probably a lot more to say about focussing the attention on one thing as it occurs in itself and as it occurs in a complex.

Question 57 - The Angels' Knowledge of Material Things

Why this Question Matters.

Having discussed the angels’ knowledge of immaterial things in the previous question, it seems quite natural that he now asks about their knowledge of material things. The general answer to how angels know of material things is that God puts the knowledge there as part of their natures. Aquinas is not satisfied simply with such a deus ex machina answer and insists on spelling out how this knowledge comes to be in a number of particular cases that would at first seem to be awkward.


The Thread of the Argument

A1: The intellect of an angel is simple in the sense of not having all of the components that the intellect of a human being has. Angels do not know things through sense data nor do they have an imagination. How then can they know material things? The objections and the sed contra of this question hold in tension the ideas that “of course angels know about material things because they are higher beings than us” and “but they lack the means by which material things are understood”.

It is no surprise that the former observation wins out: the mistake in the latter position arises from thinking that angels must perceive material things in the same way that we do. Angels participate more perfectly in God’s goodness, as they are higher in the order of creation. This means that material things pre-exist in the intellects of angels (having been put there by God). As angels are purely intellectual beings and because the existence of a thing is in the mode of that in which it exists, this pre-existence of material objects in the angels must be an intellectual existence (an esse intentionale as we saw in Ia.q56.a2). Hence angels do know material things.

In the reply to the second objection, Aquinas reinforces the point that the intellect apprehends the essence of a thing, the what-it-is-ness of the object. In contrast, the senses apprehend the some of the exterior accidents of a thing (from which the active intellect derives the intelligible species, which in turn allows the intellect to infer the essence of the thing). Likewise the imagination apprehends likenesses of sensible things rather than the essence of the thing. Therefore it’s important to note that the angels’ knowledge of material things is a very direct knowledge of unmediated perception.

A2: Returning to a theme raised in Ia.q56.a1, there would seem to be a tension between the angels’ guardianship of singular individual human beings and the possibility that angels can actually have any knowledge of singulars. That the latter might be a problem, recall that Aristotle argues that intellectual knowledge is the knowledge of essences and thus of universals whereas sensation is the knowledge of singulars; as angels only have intellectual knowledge, they surely cannot have knowledge of individuals.

Aquinas gives a surprisingly long answer to this question, a fact that probably reflects the diversity of philosophical opinion at the time. He is, however, quite uncompromising; to deny completely the knowledge of singulars to the angels would be to deny the Catholic belief that angels minister to singulars lower in the hierarchy of creation. He also alludes to an intermediate position that the angels have knowledge of singulars but only through knowledge of the universal causes of these singulars. Aquinas discards this position as inadequate as it fails to do justice to what it means to have knowledge of singulars; predicting that an eclipse will happen by analysing the motion of the sun and moon is not the same as experiencing the eclipse as it happens here and now. Aquinas will return to the theme of knowledge through causes in the next article when he considers the angels’ knowledge of future things.

Aquinas observes that humans know things by a diversity of cognitive powers. For example, we know immaterial and universal things through the intellect; singular and corporeal things through senses. Angels, however, have a more unified and integrated intellective power. We can see something like this in the common sense of human beings; although we identify five different senses, we also recognize that these senses work together and are integrated to the extent that we can meaningfully differentiate between whiteness and sweetness.

Returning to the theme of Ia.q56.a2, Aquinas recalls that things flow forth from God in two modes: as existing in themselves but also as existing in angelic cognition. Just as God knows the things that He creates both in their universality and in their individuality, so also does he communicate this knowledge, universal and singular, to the angels.

A3: If angels are so smart what do they know of the future? Do they know future things to the extent that God knows future things? After all, God exists in eternity in which there is no notion of future and past; so, angels exist in aeviternity and similar considerations must apply.

Aquinas identifies that the knowledge of a future thing can be considered under two types: it can be considered as knowledge in its cause and as knowledge in itself. We know future things in their causes when we can predict what will happen based on what has happened; we see two cars skidding towards each other at high speed, we can predict that there will be a crash. Such knowledge is not infallible but probabilistic. We may simply not know of intervening causes that issue in a different outcome to that which we predict; at the last minute the driver of one of the cars may regain control and steer away from the other car. In contrast, we know things in themselves (to the extent to which we can know them) when we have cognition of them. So we do not have knowledge of future things in themselves but God does. In fact, only God has such knowledge of future things in themselves; the angels have a more perfect knowledge of future things in their causes that we do, but they do not have the knowledge of future things in themselves.

Angels may exist in aeviternity, but that does not mean that there is no change for them. There can be a succession of intelligible conceptions in the intellect of an angel as their intellect moves from potentiality to actuality.

A4: Aquinas attacks the question of whether angels can know the thoughts of our hearts in a manner that might seem dual to the approach that he took in the previous article about the angels’ knowledge of future things. There are two ways in which the thoughts of our hearts can be known by another. In the first instance they can be known by their effects: from the expression on someone’s face to their exterior acts, what lies behind may be inferred to a greater or lesser extent. This is the type of knowledge that the angels have of the thoughts of our hearts; but they are much better at it than we are! They have a much deeper insight into our hearts via externals that we can possibly hope for.

The second way that the thoughts of our hearts can be known by another is as they actually exist in our intellects (as far as thoughts are concerned) and in our wills (when it comes to affections). This type of “interior” knowledge is restricted to God.

A5: Finally in this question, Aquinas asks whether the angels know the “mysteries of grace” (or “all the mysteries of grace” if one reads the prologue to this question). By this he means those supernatural effects produced by God in creation; the effects in creation of the economic Trinity rather than things to do with the immanent Trinity.

To answer this question Aquinas distinguishes between the natural knowledge of the angels and their beatified knowledge. Natural knowledge is the knowledge that they have through their essence and the innate intelligible species implanted in them by God. On the other hand, their beatified knowledge is that which comes to them by their being raised to the supernatural (see Ia.q62 for more details of this). As so raised, they do not know all the mysteries of grace but only those revealed to them by God. Furthermore the higher the level of the angel, the more the angel knows of such mysteries.


Handy Concepts

• Material things pre-exist in the intellects of angels as an intellectual knowledge.
• The intellect (be it human or angelic) apprehends the essences of things.
• God communicates the knowledge of things in their universality and their particularity to the angels.
• God has created the angels as intellectual beings that know stuff as part of their being.
• Angels know the future only insofar as they know the causes of things; they do have this knowledge to a degree of perfection much higher than ours.
• Angels know the thoughts of our hearts only insofar as they know the effects of that flow from what is in our hearts; again, they know this much better than we do.
• Angels know the mysteries of grace only insofar as they are raised to the supernatural level and only insofar as God reveals them.

Difficulties

• It is curious that Aquinas does not raise Ephesians 3:10 in the discussion of the fifth article. The discussion that he gives in his commentary on the book of Ephesians expands on what he writes here.
• One might identify synaesthesia as a failure of the common sense.

Question 56 - The Angel's Knowledge of Immaterial Things

Why this Question Matters.

It’s now time for Aquinas to become more specific about what the angels know. In the next question he discusses the angels’ knowledge about material things, but here he turns to the topic of the angels’ cognition of immaterial things. Since we’ve already seen that angels know things through intelligible species that are connatural to them (Ia.q55.a1) it might at first seem puzzling that Aquinas would tackle this question, as one might simply argue that what angels know is determined by what God lets them know. But the point of this question is to make a principled enquiry into particular categories of the angelic knowledge of immaterial things. The division of the articles follows these categories: what do angels know of themselves, of each other and of God?


The Thread of the Argument

A1: To ask whether an angel knows itself might appear to be a strange question. But what Aquinas is really concerned with is the metaphysical mechanisms underpinning the fact that an angel must know itself. As far as Aquinas is concerned, self-knowledge is the primary knowledge that knowing things have and which follows pretty much immediately upon the being of the knowing subject. Descartes’ cogito ergo sum would have appeared to Aquinas as simply begging the question; it assumes the existence of the thinking “I” within its premise. One cannot really get started on metaphysics without the recognition that the most immediate act of apprehension of the knowing subject is of the being of the knowing subject itself.

Aquinas’s argument proceeds by observing that knowledge is an immanent action caused by a form in an agent, and that this form (the intelligible species) is united with the agent. In the case of material beings knowing material objects (even parts of their own selves), the active intellect constructs an intelligible species from sensory phantasms; this intelligible species is united with, rather than exterior to, the knowing subject. The second step is to notice that knowledge, especially in the case of humans, often involves this form bringing some potentiality within the intellect to actuality, but that it doesn’t have to involve this. In fact, a form of intelligence higher than that of humans would not involve the actualization of a potential but would correspond to the forms informing knowledge always being present to the intellect. Angels don’t have to learn these sorts of things; they always know what they know. Finally, Aquinas argues that there is no inherent reason to suppose that a form that informs knowledge in the knowing subject has to be accidental (even though it is in the case of human knowledge). In fact, an angel is a subsistent intelligible form and it understands itself thorough this very form.

The second objection raises an important issue about cognition: it makes the striking claim that no singular is intelligible. What lies behind this claim is the idea that, when we apprehend something, our apprehension starts at a general level and then proceeds to the more specific as we gather more data about the object. Our knowledge of something that comes into our field of attention starts out the universal level (“that’s an animal”) and then proceeds to become more specific (“that’s a cat” and then “that’s my cat Felix”), but never reaches the level of complete knowledge of the individual. In the case of this objection, it would seem that since angels are singular within their species, they cannot be intelligible (to themselves or to anyone else). Aquinas answers that it is not the singularity that makes things unintelligible but rather their principle of individuation. In the cases of material objects this principle of individuation is their matter. Singular things that exist without matter, like the angels, are intelligible.

A2: As with the first article, the question of whether angels know other angels seems quite uncontentious. The issue is how and what do they know? Aquinas takes his lead here from St. Augustine. Augustine had argued that things that existed from eternity in the Word of God “flowed” forth from Him in two ways: firstly as existing in their own intrinsic natures and secondly as existing as known. So when we consider one angel, this flow of being terminates in it as its nature and its intelligibility but also terminates in all other angels as it is known.

In using this distinction in the answer to the third objection, Aquinas introduces in passing the difference between natural being (esse naturale) and intentional being (esse intentionale). The idea is that the angel both exists in its natural state but also “exists” in the intellect of other angels as known. This is similar to the idea that the intelligible species of an object that exists in our intellect is a form of the object perceived that is not instantiated in matter but only exists in the intellect.

A3: Right back at the start of the summa, Aquinas proved that humans have a natural knowledge of God (however weak and inadequate that may be). Our knowledge of God is gained by inference from our knowledge of sensible things. Angels do not have sense organs, therefore they do not have sensible knowledge of things, and therefore one might doubt that they have natural knowledge of God.

Aquinas answers that there are three ways in knowledge of God may be had. The cognition of God through His own essence is the first way, and of course this way is reserved for God Himself. The way we know God is a way of knowing in which we receive a likeness of Him not directly from Him but indirectly through what He has created. The third way, which lies “in between” these two ways, is to receive a likeness of God directly from Him and this is the way in which the angels know God. This is a “natural” knowledge of God inasmuch as the image of God is stamped on the very nature of the angel.


Handy Concepts

• Angelic knowledge (in this case, of self) is different from human knowledge and more perfect in the sense that it doesn’t involve the reduction of a potency to act. What seems essential to knowledge is the existence of an immaterial form (that can, in the case of humans reduce a potency to an act of knowledge or in angels can inform from the very moment of their creation).
• Natural being and intentional being account for the existence of an angel and for it being known by other angels.
• Angels receive a likeness of God directly from God and thus have a natural knowledge of God impressed upon their nature.

Difficulties

• It seems odd that Aquinas has not tackled the question of the knowledge that angels may have about the separated souls of the faithful and the damned. After all, they are the other example of created pure spirits.
• The question of intentionality (or of intentional being) is a substantial one in philosophy. One of the major proofs of the immateriality of mind derives from the fact that minds have meanings for things (and meanings are not things that material objects have). For Aquinas, the knowledge of things goes deep into his theory of being; and hence the importance of the notions of natural and intentional being.