Angels have been the subject of human fascination for millennia. As the subject of countless works of art, music, literature, and legends, the fate of angels and man has been divinely intertwined in mysterious ways. Learn from St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor the answers to commonly held questions about these holy creatures.
What Does St. Thomas Say About the Angels?
St. Thomas trains all of his considerable abilities on sounding the depths of the mysteries of God and salvation. This gets at the reason for his love of order—the clear structure that you find in each day’s reading. St. Thomas believed that God and his creation are orderly. It says so in the Scriptures. Just read Genesis 1. What is more, our lives are patterned after the same order. And so, for St. Thomas, the cast of his work—his theological style—is aimed at reflecting the order that he discerned in creation. Why? Well, because our minds ought to be conformed to what is. That’s just the truth. No, seriously, that’s how he defines truth.
So when surveying the order of creation, certain things cause St. Thomas a particular wonder. In ascending the ranks of creation, he noticed a kind of “gap” between God and man, between unlimited Spirit (God) and spirit in matter (man). He was delighted to discern there a place for the angelic choirs. Now, it goes without saying that St. Thomas believed that angels exist because the Scriptures reveal it. But when reading these passages, St. Thomas was not content to leave the scriptural data unexamined. He was interested in explaining what it means to be a pure, limited spirit. In fact, St. Thomas is so famous for his speculation on the angels that he is often referred to as the Angelic Doctor.
In his theology, St. Thomas considers angels in themselves as created by God and destined for beatitude, but he also considers them at great length by comparison to God and man. On the one hand, angels are wholly spiritual and therefore less limited than man. On the other hand, they are created and contingent, and therefore infinitely lower than God. Effectively, by situating the angels in their proper rank, St. Thomas sheds light on what is proper to God and what is proper to man, distinguishing in order to unite.
Should We Ask the Saints to Pray for Us?
According to Dionysius (Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 5) the order established by God among things is that “the last should be led to God by those that are midway between.” Wherefore, since the saints who are in heaven are nearest to God, the order of the Divine law requires that we, who while we remain in the body are pilgrims from the Lord, should be brought back to God by the saints who are between us and Him: and this happens when the Divine goodness pours forth its effect into us through them. And since our return to God should correspond to the outflow of His boons upon us, just as the Divine favors reach us by means of the saints’ intercession, so should we, by their means, be brought back to God, that we may receive His favors again. Hence it is that we make them our intercessors with God, and our mediators as it were, when we ask them to pray for us.
Can the Saints in Heaven Hear Our Prayers?
The Divine essence is a sufficient medium for knowing all things, and this is evident from the fact that God, by seeing His essence, sees all things. But it does not follow that whoever sees God’s essence knows all things, but only those who comprehend the essence of God: even as the knowledge of a principle does not involve the knowledge of all that follows from that principle unless the whole virtue of the principle be comprehended. Wherefore, since the souls of the saints do not comprehend the Divine essence, it does not follow that they know all that can be known by the Divine essence—for which reason the lower angels are taught concerning certain matters by the higher angels, though they all see the essence of God; but each of the blessed must needs see in the Divine essence as many other things as the perfection of his happiness requires. For the perfection of a man’s happiness requires him to have whatever he will, and to will nothing amiss: and each one wills with a right will, to know what concerns himself. Hence since no rectitude is lacking to the saints, they wish to know what concerns themselves, and consequently it follows that they know it in the Word. Now it pertains to their glory that they assist the needy for their salvation: for thus they become God’s co-operators, “than which nothing is more Godlike,” as Dionysius declares (Celestial Hierarchy 3). Wherefore it is evident that the saints are cognizant of such things as are required for this purpose; and so it is manifest that they know in the Word the vows, devotions, and prayers of those who have recourse to their assistance.
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This article is taken from a chapter in Marian Consecration with Aquinas by Matt Fradd and Fr. Gregory Pine, OP which is available from TAN Books.
