Section V: The Intelligence of Angels, § 44
SECTION V: ON THE INTELLIGENCE OF ANGELS
Angels understand and will.
§ 44. As far as essential properties are concerned, angels are endowed with intelligence and will (2 Sam. 14:20). From this, Damascenus ([Orth. fid.,] bk. 2, ch. 3) concludes that the angels were created in the image of God. (See Bonaventure, Sent., part 2, dist. 16, q. 3.)
Man understands in one way; angels, in another; and God, in yet another. God’s understanding is God’s essence. An angel’s understanding is different.
How angels understand.
§ 45. The Scholastics debate this subject in the following way: an angel’s understanding is not his very being because it is not pure actuality but has some potentiality mixed with it (Thomas, [ST,] part 1, q. 54, art. 1). Neither does an acting and possible understanding3 exist in him, because he understands not only at times as concerns potential with respect to those things he understands naturally (Thomas, [ST,] art. 4), but an angel understands through connatural or innate representations4 ([Thomas, ST,] q. 55, art. 2). However, Biel (Sent. 2, dist. 4, art. 2, conc. 2) follows Occam and denies those representations in the angelic understanding. He also claims that an angel knows things intuitively through the essences of the objects he has known and not through superadded representations.
The morning and evening knowledge of angels.
§ 46. The Scholastics also distinguish between the morning and evening knowledge of angels on the basis of Augustine (De Gen. ad lit., bk. 4, and De civ. Dei, bk. 11, ch. 29). They call the knowledge of things in the Word (which knowledge is beatific) “morning”; and the knowledge of things in the light of nature they call “evening” (Biel, Sent. 2, dist. 3, q. 1). Thomas explains the reasoning ([ST,] part 1, q. 58, art. 6): “Just as the morning is the beginning of the day and evening the end, so the knowledge of the primordial essence of things in the Word is morning knowledge, while the knowledge of a created thing as it exists in its own nature is evening knowledge.” Alexander of Hales ([Summa], part 2, q. 23) establishes a threefold knowledge that angels have: one by which they know the Word and themselves as creatures shining back to themselves in the Word, with one indistinct knowledge in the light of glory, and beatifically. The second is that by which they know God, themselves, and other things through representations that were concreated with themselves. The third is that by which they know through representations taken from created things. The latter two knowledges are called “evening” [knowledge] because by them the creation, which is tending toward its downfall, is known. The first is called “morning” [knowledge] because that is knowledge in the Creator, who is the beginning of all creation in the way that morning is the beginning of the day. (See Scaliger, Exerc. 359, sects. 9–11.)
§ 47. But what can we worms who creep on the ground determine in the darkness of our mind about the knowledge of heavenly spirits when we do not even know our own knowledge precisely? Therefore it is better to give devout thanks to God for the ministry of His angels, which He presents to us every day, than curiously to examine secrets and things not revealed, outside the limits of the Word.