Objectives for Session 2: Angels at their creation and fall
1) Review what follows from the fact that angels are immaterial, pure spiritual beings
2) Consider the ways in which an angel, though perfect in himself, could possibly fall
3) Consider the wonderful obedience of the good angels
A Course
on the Angels: Session 2, Angels at their Creation and Fall
Fr Ryan Erlenbush
I. Review
of last session – leaving being our imagination
A.
Angels have no bodies, they are incorporeal and immaterial
B. Angels are each their own
species, and the perfection of that species
C.
Angels are not outside of time, but they are not restricted to continuous
material time
D. There are many angels
D. There are many angels
II.
Completion of what was not covered last session
VII. Are
there many angels?
A.
Diversity among material things, compared to diversity among spiritual
realities
B.
Perfection in the multitude of the angels
C. The
witness of Scripture
D. That
the “choirs” are not to strictly “classify” the angels – each is its own order
VIII. The
life of grace in the angels
A. As
rational creatures, they are called by God to the life of grace
B. By
God’s grace, many further truths are revealed to them
C. The
angels and men are to make up one society in the life of grace
III.
The Angelic Life: 12 points about the angels from Anscar Vonier
1. Angels
have a beginning, but they cannot perish; they remain everlastingly the same
2. Angels
are not subject to the laws of time, but have a duration measure of their own
3. Angels
are completely superior to space, so that they could never be subject to its
laws
4.
Angelic power on the material world is exerted directly through the will
5.
Angelic life has two faculties only, intellect and will
6. In the
sphere of nature an angel cannot err, either in intellect or will
7. An
angel never goes back on a decision once taken
8. The
angelic mind starts with fulness of knowledge, it is not, like the human mind,
subject to gradual development
9. An
angel may directly influence another created intellect, but he cannot act
directly on another created will
10.
Angels have free will; they are capable of love and hatred
11.
Angels know material things and individual things
12.
Angels do not know the future; they do not know the secret thoughts of other
rational creatures; they do not know the mysteries of grace, unless such things
be revealed freely, either by God or by the other rational creatures
IV.
The Angels at their Creation
A. God
creates all things immediately, without the assistance of the angels
B. The
angels were created in the state of grace, but not in heavenly glory
1. There
is the “Empyrean heaven” which is above earth
2. There
is the “Heaven of the Blessed Trinity” which is heavenly glory
C.
Although created in the state of grace, the angels had a choice. They underwent
a test
1. First
thought: Self-consciousness
2. Second
thought: to cooperate or reject grace
3. Either
fly to heaven, or fall to hell
V.
The Fall of the Wicked Angels
A. How
could an angel fall from heaven?
B. How
many angels fell?
1. Did
more angels remain faithful?
2. Did
angels fall from each of the hierarchies?
C. Was
Lucifer the leader?
1. Was
Lucifer the greatest of the angels?
2. What
was his sin?
D. What
was the pride of the fallen angels?
E. Will
hell last forever?
VI.
The Salvation of the Good Angels
A. The
proportionate glory of the good angels
1. Grace
given in proportion to their nature
2. Glory
given in proportion to grace
B. In
what did the perseverance of the good angels consist?
“There
is, however, one aspect of angelic sanctity which we might almost call its
moral side: it is expressed generally as the obedience of the angels – more
truly it might be called their “order”; that the spirits keep the order in
which they were created, carry out the missions which are entrusted to them,
that all their mighty activities are an unceasing dependence on God’s will;
above all, that they accept the kingship of a nature lower than their own. They
have not rebelled against the exaltation of the human nature in Christ Jesus,
and the Catholic Church never ceases to speak of the Mother of God as Queen of
the angles. This observance of the order established by God is the true angelic
virtue, the one thing in which they might fail; it might even be called their
temptation, and if the temptation be overcome, it is their victory. […]
Fidelity to God over a great, a mightily debated issue seems to be an essential
portion of angelic sanctity.” (Anscar Vonier)
C. The
Beatific Vision and the Angels
D. The
Angels and the Mystical Body of Christ
1. The
angels and Jesus in his humanity
2. The
angels and the Blessed Mother
3. The
angels and the saints together in heaven
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A Course
on the Angels: Session 2, Angels at their creation and fall
Fr Ryan Erlenbush
II.
Completion of what was not covered last session:
(VII.)
Are there many angels?
A. Diversity
among material things, compared to diversity among spiritual realities
There
is a greater diversity between difference substances than many individuals of
one substance. An ant and a horse, compared to one million ants.
Furthermore,
greater diversity is possible among spiritual realities, even as the diversity
of thoughts is far greater than the diversity of material objects (compare
thinking about a piece of clay).
B.
Perfection in the multitude of the angels
There
is a perfection in the multitude of angels that doesn’t exist by multiplying
material things. Each angel shows forth another aspect of God’s perfection.
C. The
witness of Scripture
Daniel
7:10, “Thousands upon thousands attended
him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.”
Revelation
5:11, “And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the
throne, and the living creatures, and the ancients; and the number of them was
thousands of thousands.”
D. That
the “choirs” are not to strictly “classify” the angels – each is its own order
“The
secrets which are revealed to us in those traditional names [of the angelic
hierarchies] are just the few hints given to us of the glorious variety in
God’s spiritual world. To make of those names categories and exclusive partitions
would be contrary to the intentions of the Spirit who whispered the great
secrets. We are expected to multiply, not to divide, in our thoughts of the
heavenly citizens. We should not divide them into classes, but we should be
ready for endless varieties of spiritual splendours. […] Did we know more
clearly, then we should really see that every angel is in himself an order.”
(Anscar Vonier)
(VIII.)
The life of grace in the angels
A. As
rational creatures, they are called by God to the life of grace
B. By
God’s grace, many further truths are revealed to them
C. The
angels and men are to make up one society in the life of grace
III.
The Angelic Life: 12 points about the angels from Anscar Vonier
“Our
theology concerns itself with the general angelic features, not with their
special attributes, and we know no more about the highest angel than about the
lowest; we give them the generic attributes which belong to all finite
spiritual substances, the human soul alone excepted.” (Vonier)
1. Angels
have a beginning, but they cannot perish; they remain everlastingly the same.
They
were created by God’s omnipotence out of nothingness. All created in the same
moment. A perfect substance, unalterable in his essence, but only changes of
thought and will.
2. Angels
are not subject to the laws of time, but have a duration measure of their own
Angelic
time is a measure of thought. The poem of Cardinal Newman “Dream of Gerontius”
3. Angels
are completely superior to space, so that they could never be subject to its
laws
Angels
are present in a place by acting on that place. But they do not truly move from
place to place – they are simply in a place, then in another.
4.
Angelic power on the material world is exerted directly through the will
5.
Angelic life has two faculties only, intellect and will
Angels
cannot be said to have imagination, passion, sentiment. Angels are pure from
all sensuality not through virtue, but through nature.
6. In the
sphere of nature an angel cannot err, either in intellect or will
There
cannot be in an angel any source of sin or error within his own sphere of
existence, but he may sin and err in the mysteries of grace, as those mysteries
are above him.
7. An
angel never goes back on a decision once taken
Vacillation
of purpose in man comes from a predominance of the sentimental element over the
intellectual element. With spirits, as may easily be perceived, there could be
no such source of weakness, no such hesitancy of purpose.
8. The
angelic mind starts with fulness of knowledge, it is not, like the human mind,
subject to gradual development
The
profoundest difference between spirit intellect and human intellect. A spirit
starts his existence fully endowed with all knowledge -he applies his knowledge
to new objects, but he does not acquire ideas that were not infused into him by
the Creator in the very making of him.
9. An
angel may directly influence another created intellect, but he cannot act
directly on another created will
10.
Angels have free will; they are capable of love and hatred
11. Angels
know material things and individual things
12.
Angels do not know the future; they do not know the secret thoughts of other
rational creatures; they do not know the mysteries of grace, unless such things
be revealed freely, either by God or by the other rational creatures
The
future free acts of created rational beings are not knowable to a created
intellect. For the same reasons which make it impossible for a spirit to act
directly on the will of any rational creature we may say that the secret thoughts
of the heart of man or the mind of a spirit are hidden, unless freely revealed
by the one who thinks the thought. And how much more the mysteries of the mind
of God!
IV.
The Angels at their Creation
A. God
creates all things immediately, without the assistance of the angels
B. The
angels were created in the state of grace, but not in heavenly glory
1. There
is the “Empyrean heaven” which is above earth
2. There
is the “Heaven of the Blessed Trinity” which is heavenly glory
C.
Although created in the state of grace, the angels had a choice. They underwent
a test
1. First
thought: Self-consciousness
But, oh, how many earth-years could
correspond to this single angelic thought!
2. Second
thought: to cooperate or reject grace
3. Either
fly to heaven, or fall to hell
V.
The Fall of the Wicked Angels
A. How
could an angel fall from heaven? In
relation to things above him
B. How
many angels fell? Revelation indicates
1/3
1. Did
more angels remain faithful? 2/3 remained
faithful
2. Did
angels fall from each of the hierarchies? Yes
C. Was
Lucifer the leader?
1. Was
Lucifer the greatest of the angels? Yes,
and among the seraphim
2. What
was his sin?
“Thy
pride dragged thee to hell. How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, that didst arise as
the morning? Thou that sadist in thy heart, I will climb into heaven; beyond
the stars I will make my throne. I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12)
“Proud
was that angel, and on that account envious: by that same pride was he led to
turn from God and exalt himself; and by that very tyrannical habit he chose
rather to lord it over subjects than to serve.” (St Augustine)
D. What
was the pride of the fallen angels? “I
will be like the Most High”
1. That
he desired to be God? Truly in his essence to be a deity? No, for this is an irrational
desire.
2. That
he desired to be as god to the lesser angels and creation. Yes, he desired to
rule over them without being subject to God’s order. And the lesser fallen
angels consent to be ruled by Satan so as to have a certain liberty from God’s
order.
3. And
perhaps moreover: In a rejection of the Incarnation, that a lesser nature (man)
should be exalted to be united to God himself in the Person of the Eternal
Word, Jesus Christ.
E. Will
hell last forever? Remember, hell was
created for the fallen angles first, not for men
Cardinal
Cajetan argued that, in death, the human soul becomes something like the
angelic soul – as the pure spirit has a judgment that is immutable so to the
judgment of the separated human soul is immutable. Because we are now living on
earth and in terrestrial time, after making a choice we can learn something new
and successively change our will. The angels however, have an intuitive
knowledge, see reality in all its aspects, and can learn nothing new – thus
they can never change their will. So it is with the separated soul after death,
having chosen for either good or evil in the last moment of life, it can never
alter this choice. Having freely chosen for either good or evil, the separated
soul immutably fixes itself in this choice.
VI.
The Salvation of the Good Angels
A. The
proportionate glory of the good angels
1. Grace
given in proportion to their nature
2. Glory
given in proportion to grace
B. In
what did the perseverance of the good angels consist?
“There
is, however, one aspect of angelic sanctity which we might almost call its
moral side: it is expressed generally as the obedience of the angels – more
truly it might be called their “order”; that the spirits keep the order in
which they were created, carry out the missions which are entrusted to them,
that all their mighty activities are an unceasing dependence on God’s will;
above all, that they accept the kingship of a nature lower than their own. They
have not rebelled against the exaltation of the human nature in Christ Jesus,
and the Catholic Church never ceases to speak of the Mother of God as Queen of
the angles. This observance of the order established by God is the true angelic
virtue, the one thing in which they might fail; it might even be called their
temptation, and if the temptation be overcome, it is their victory. […]
Fidelity to God over a great, a mightily debated issue seems to be an essential
portion of angelic sanctity.” (Anscar Vonier)
C. The
Beatific Vision and the Angels
D. The
Angels and the Mystical Body of Christ
1. The
angels and Jesus in his humanity
2. The
angels and the Blessed Mother
3. The
angels and the saints together in heaven
