Scotus Academicus, Tomus quartus: De Angelis

Note 1. A twofold beatitude can be distinguished in the angels: one Natural, which is the ultimate perfection that the angelic nature can attain for itself by its innate powers through its most excellent operations, namely the cognition and love of God as the Author of nature; the other Supernatural, which is the ultimate perfection of the angelic nature, exceeding all its natural capacity, and which it can attain only by the benefit of divine aid elevating it supernaturally. This latter, moreover, is again twofold: one of the way, the other of the homeland; the former inchoate, the latter consummated; the former which comes about through the knowledge of faith, by which we know God obscurely and in an enigma, and through the infused habit of charity we love him; the latter which consists in the clear vision of God and his perfect fruition, which the blessed souls in heaven enjoy.

Note 2. For the perfect and consummated supernatural beatitude three things are especially required. The first is the clear vision of God, most excellent love, and perfect fruition; for beatitude consists in the attainment and enjoyment of the highest good, which takes place through knowledge and love. The second is the inability to sin; since sin is the greatest misery, it cannot coexist with true and perfect beatitude. Add that it is impossible to behold God intuitively and to love him supremely and not prefer him to all other things that could allure the will and turn it away from God. For that supreme majesty of God is of such excellence that, clearly seen, it seizes the created will into its own most excellent love, and that with every effort and with such necessity that from love of him the will can neither be diverted nor recalled, and consequently one so affected cannot sin. The third is the perpetuity and immutability of the beatific state; otherwise there will be either fear and sadness, if the blessed understand that they will fall from such a state; or error, if they believe they will remain forever; or anxiety and disquiet, if they are in doubt and do not know what the lot of that state will be. All these things, as is evident, are repugnant to true and perfect beatitude, and therefore that state must be perpetual.

Note 3. In resolving this Question, there are chiefly two opposing opinions of Authors. For some hold that the angels were gifted from the very beginning of their creation with the perfect vision of the divine essence, not abiding but transitory, so that at least for some instants of time all the angels, both good and reprobate, enjoyed the delightful fruition of God, which takes place through knowledge and love; and they strive to establish this by very many statements of St. Augustine, to be brought forward in the objections. But the second opinion, entirely opposed to this, is held by nearly all Theologians, who assert that no angels were de facto created in the state of supernatural beatitude, although some, with the Subtle Doctor, judge that they could have been so created.

Three things therefore are chiefly to be resolved here: First, that all the angels were created in natural beatitude. Second, that none of them was gifted with supernatural beatitude in the first instant of their formation. Third, that nevertheless they could have obtained that supernatural beatitude from the very beginning of their creation, had God so willed.

First conclusion. — All the angels were created in the state of natural beatitude. So hold all the Scholastic Doctors with the Subtle Doctor in dist. 3. q. 9. n. 8., where he proves that there was granted to the angels the species representative of the divine essence, by which they knew God distinctly.

Indeed, he says, it is possible to have distinct cognition even though abstractive; for abstractive cognition is divided into confused and distinct, according to one or another manner of knowing: and it does not seem unfitting to posit that such a species representing the divine essence was given to the angelic intellect from the beginning: so that although it is not natural to the intellect in such a way that this intellect could acquire it from its natural powers, nor yet that it could have it from the action of any object acting naturally, because it cannot have it from the presence of any finite object moving it, except the divine essence alone, which causes nothing else of itself by natural causation naturally; nevertheless, just as the perfections given to the angel in his first creation, although they do not necessarily follow his nature, would be called natural, distinguishing them against those merely supernatural, namely of grace and glory: so that perfection given to the angelic intellect, by which the divine essence would be present to him distinctly though abstractively, can be called natural, and belong to the natu> ral cognition of the angel, so that whatever the angel knows of God by the power of this species, he knows in some way naturally, and in some way not naturally, inasmuch as it is not the principle of an act either of grace or of glory; not naturally, however, inasmuch as he could not attain it from natural powers, nor by any natural action.

By these words the Doctor openly teaches that there was given to the angel a species representing God abstractively, not only confusedly but also distinctly, and which was at once natural and supernatural: natural, I say, insofar as everything that is not of the order of grace or glory is called natural; but supernatural, because it would be infused by God alone, nor could the angelic intellect acquire it. — But that it is probable that that species was granted to the angels from the beginning of their creation he proves first because a distinct knowledge of God of some sort seems to have been granted to man before the Fall, which he could not have had without such a species: therefore, since the cognition and natural beatitude of the angels is more excellent than man's, that species seems much more to have been granted to the angels. He proves secondly from the fact that St. Augustine grants that there was in the angels the cognition of creatures in the Word, or morning knowledge, before evening knowledge was granted them, which is the cognition of things in their proper genus; for he says in book 4. Super Genesim cap. 30:

Then night pertains to day, not day to night: when the lofty and holy angels refer to the honor and love of the Creator what they knew of creature in the Creator himself, in whom they contemplate the eternal reasons by which it was created, which by their most harmonious contemplation are one day, which the Lord made: to which the Church, delivered from this pilgrimage, is joined, that we too may exult and rejoice in him;

from which words the Doctor infers that this cognition in the Word naturally preceded the cognition of creatures in their proper genus. But, he says, then the angels were in the state of innocence, and not blessed, because there was some little delay of time between their creation and their fall: there was therefore some morning cognition of the angels, namely of creatures existing in the Word, in natural matters, or at least of angels not yet blessed. But this distinct cognition could not be had without an impressed species: therefore it is likely that that species was granted to the angels, by which they might know God distinctly.

It is further proved. The angels, both good and bad, received from the beginning of their creation whatever pertains to the integrity of their own nature, and also to their natural perfection: therefore they were created in natural felicity. The antecedent is evident, since, as the works of God are perfect, and he has brought to completion all things that he made from himself with all their numbers, he does not seem to have denied anything to the angelic nature, most excellent of all, that would conduce to its perfect and natural beatitude. — Moreover, the angels had from the beginning cognition and perfect love of God as the Author of nature: since they were gifted with the perfect power of understanding and loving, they were able to know and love the object intelligible and lovable above all, which is God: but beatitude consists in that twofold operation of intellect and will; for that is the ultimate perfection which the angelic nature can attain by its innate powers: therefore the angels were created by God in natural beatitude.

You will say. If the angels had been created in natural beatitude, they would certainly have remained in it, for inamissibility belongs to the nature of beatitude: but the apostate angels do not have natural beatitude, for they are affected with the greatest sadness and punishment: therefore they were not created in natural beatitude. It is confirmed. Natural beatitude consists especially in the love of God as the Author of nature: but that love does not abide in the demons, for they pursue God with the utmost hatred: therefore they were not blessed.

I answer. by denying the major: for although natural beatitude is inamissible with respect to an angel constituted in pure naturals; nevertheless an angel raised to the supernatural order can lose it per accidens and indirectly, by sinning directly against the supernatural precepts. Nor does it matter that St. Dionysius said that natural things remained intact in the demons: for he must be understood of natural things considered in their physical being, such as substance, powers, intelligible species, and the like; but not of natural things that have something of morality mixed in, of which kind are practical cognition and the rectitude of the will toward the ultimate end; for these, at least in some respect, were destroyed in the angels by sin. In a similar way the answer must be given to the confirmation: for although the demons did not persevere in that love of God as the Author of nature, they are no less to be said to have had it from the beginning of their formation, while they were still wayfarers.

Second conclusion. — The angels were not de facto created in supernatural beatitude. This is the Doctor's teaching in dist. 5. qu. 2. n. 3., where, inquiring whether the good angels were de facto blessed in the first instant, and the damned ones condemned, or miserable, he answers first concerning the wicked, that they were not blessed in the first instant, and proves it: Because then, he says, they would not have been certain about their beatitude; for thus afterwards they would not have fallen: but if they were not certain about beatitude, they were not blessed. Similarly, as St. Augustine says in book 4. super Genesim, God did not distinguish the good from the wicked before they were separated from one another: therefore those who are now wicked were not blessed in the first instant, because they were created uniform, both good and wicked; in the same way, he adds, it is evident concerning the good. St. Thomas and all his disciples concur.

The Conclusion is therefore proved. first indeed concerning the wicked angels: If the demons had been so blessed, and had seen God clearly in the first instant of their creation, or somewhat after their formation, then either they would have been deprived of this vision on account of supervening sin, or from the mere good pleasure of God, who offered himself to be seen clearly by them for a little while, and afterward hid himself by his own will: but neither can be said. Not indeed the first: because, as we said in the second note, the clear vision of God excludes all sin: nor yet the second, for the gifts of God are without repentance, says the Apostle, Rom. 11.; and therefore he does not withdraw his benefits from creatures unless moved to do so by their ingratitude. Moreover, even if that clear vision of God had been granted to the angels in the first instant of their creation, the demons would not on that account have been called blessed because of the lack of impeccability and permanence in that happy state: for security and innocence, at least consequently, are required for the state of beatitude. — The same is evident concerning the good angels, that namely they did not see God in the first instant of their creation: both because the reason is the same concerning the good as concerning the wicked, nor was there any distinction between them in creation itself; but only while they were on the way, since, as the Doctor praised above says in n. 14., all the angels were uniform in their creation, but the good were distinguished from the wicked on the way: whence he concludes that on the way there were three delays: the first, in which they were uniform in grace, (if we wish to say that the wicked had grace) or at least uniform in nature; the second delay, in which, still existing on the way, they were unlike, namely so that these merited ultimately, and those demerited ultimately. The third delay was the final necessary distinction of one from the other.

But the Conclusion is proved. at once concerning the good and the wicked: If the angels had seen God clearly in the first instant of their creation, then neither would any have freely stood firm after the wicked fell; nor would they have had the faculty of meriting or demeriting: but this is absurd: therefore also that from which it follows. The major is evident; for the clear vision of God renders the seer impeccable, at least extrinsically, and it is of such efficacy on account of the supreme goodness and beauty of the object that it necessarily attracts the seer to the knowledge and love of itself, and therefore if the angels had seen God clearly from the first instant of their creation, they would not thereafter have been free to merit or demerit. — The minor is therefore proved. from the Holy Fathers affirming that all the angels had the liberty of cleaving to God, or of turning themselves away from him, and that the holy ones freely stood firm in the love of God, while the wicked fell away from him. Thus teaches above all St. Augustine, book De Correptione, et gratia cap. 10., saying: God so ordered the life of angels and men that in it he might first show what free will could do, then what the benefit of God could do. By which words St. Augustine makes all the angels equal, not only among themselves, but also with the first man; and consequently, as man and the angels who fell were created without the vision of God, so it must be said of the other holy angels. Whence he subjoins concerning those holy angels: By free will (helped surely by grace) they stood in truth, and they merited to know it most certainly, that their fall would never come. — St. Damascene subscribes, book 2. cap. 3., and also St. Gregor. homil. 7. in Ezechiel., where he says:

when the angelic nature was created, it received the free choice whether it wished to persist in humility and remain in the sight of almighty God; or whether it would slide into pride and fall from beatitude: but because, while others fell, the holy angels persevered in their beatitude, they received this as a gift, that now they could not fall at all.

Nor does it matter that he inserts the word persevered in beatitude; for he does not wish the holy angels previously to have had consummated beatitude, but only inchoate, or not in fact, but in hope. Or because, persevering in the beatitude and natural love of God, they obtained the supernatural, whereas the demons had lost both. — Now this truth St. Prosper explains best of all, book 1. De Vita Contemplativa cap. 3.

It was, he says, by the will of the holy angels that, while the wicked fell of their own accord, they themselves remained in their dignity: and by divine and just judgment it was brought about that the will they had of remaining with their God became a voluntary permanence and a happy necessity. And therefore, because they never sinned nor can now sin, having been made once partakers of that contemplative life, they behold inexpressibly the Author of their beatitude: and made happy for eternity by the merit of their stability, they are secure about their remaining.

You will say 1. The holy Fathers constantly affirm that all the angels were beatified from the beginning: therefore this must truly be so judged. The antecedent is proved from St. Augustine in many places, especially book 4. De Genesi ad litteram cap. 24. where he asserts that all the angels were created with morning knowledge: but this is beatific:

• ergo they did not have this fullness of beatitude; but because they did not know their future misery, they enjoyed a lesser yet still a beatitude without any defect; for if they had known their future fall and eternal punishment, they certainly could not have been blest, whom the fear of so great an evil would already then have compelled to be miserable.

And immediately he adds:

So also He made man with free will; and although ignorant of his future fall, yet on that account blest, because he felt that not to die and not to become miserable was within his own power. In which upright state and without defect, if he had willed to remain in it by free will, without doubt he would have received, without any experience of death and unhappiness, on the merit of that permanence, the fullness of the beatitude of perseverance, by which the holy angels are blest... But because he did not will to remain, certainly his is the fault, whose would have been the merit if he had willed to remain, as the holy angels did, who while others fell through free will, stood themselves through the same free will, and merited to receive the due reward of that permanence, namely so great a fullness of beatitude that it is most certain to them that they shall always remain in it.

Where you see him attributing to the angels at their creation no other beatitude than that granted to man at the beginning of his formation, namely the state of sanctifying grace with liberty to persevere in it, and that without any commotion and disturbance, but with the highest internal and external concord and tranquillity of the movements of soul and body. Lest anyone should think, however, that St. Augustine placed the faculty of persevering in that happy state solely in the use of free will, he straightway adds:

But if this aid had been wanting to the angel, or to man as soon as they were made — since such a nature was not made that it could remain, if it willed, without divine aid — they would assuredly not have fallen by their own fault, since the aid was wanting without which they could not remain.

• In the same place he says they were blest with that beatitude which we hope for: but this is supernatural: which indeed he confirms in lib. 12. Confess. cap. 9. where, expounding those words, In principio Deus creavit caelum, he interprets it of the intellectual heaven, that is, the angelic nature, which he says was made a partaker of eternity, and cleaving to God from the moment it was made, and raised above all mutability and the shifting vicissitude of times by the sweetness of its most happy contemplation. — Moreover he plainly teaches in lib. De Ecclesiasticis dogmatibus cap. 9. that the holy angels persevere in that beatitude in which they were created. — Thirdly, finally lib. 11. De Civit. Dei, cap. 9. he says the good angels were never pilgrims from the Lord. A great part is theirs, he says, and the more blessed in that they never went on pilgrimage. But to be a pilgrim from the Lord is the same as to walk by faith, according to that saying of St. Paul 2. Ad Corinth. 2. While we are in the body we are pilgrims from the Lord. To this subscribes St. Bernard serm. 13. and 17. super Cantica, where he says the devil before his fall saw the Word, and things in the Word; for he asserts in sermon 17: But it could have happened, if it be not thought incredible, that one full of wisdom and perfect in beauty could have foreknown men even as future, and as about to enter into an equal glory: but if he foreknew, doubtless he saw it in the Word of God, and envied them with his spite. — I deny the antecedent. and to the first authority I answer that St. Augustine sometimes understands by morning knowledge the beatific vision, sometimes the supernatural knowledge and of faith, which compared with natural knowledge can be called morning knowledge, though obscure. Or I say that he sometimes uses morning knowledge for that abstractive knowledge of God which the angels had through the species divinely impressed upon them, and that immediately from the beginning of their creation, as we taught above with the Doctor dist. 3. q. 9. n. 9. There he says the angel had from the beginning an intelligible species distinctly representing the divine essence through abstractive knowledge of God himself, which knowledge was morning knowledge,

because according to St. Augustine 4. super Genes. c. 23. those six days were not in the succession of time, but in the angelic knowledge of creatures having a natural order: so that the angel naturally first knew the creature in the Word, secondly in its proper genus, and not standing there returned to the Word praising Him for His work: and in that same Word again he naturally saw the reason of the following creature. So that when God said let there be light, the angel saw himself in the eternal Word: when light was made, and when evening was made, he saw himself in his proper genus: and when evening was made and morning, day one, he rose from himself into the praise of God, in whom he saw the second creature: so that that vision was the terminus of the preceding day, inasmuch as from the knowledge of the first creature in the Word he rose to the knowledge of the Word, nay rather the rest of all creatures in the first Artificer and Workman. Thus does St. Augustine distinguish each day up to the seventh day, whose morning was the last creature in the Word, and which was not followed by evening, and which was the beginning of the following day inasmuch as he saw that creature in its proper genus. — Nor does it matter, says the Doctor there, that St. Aug. c. 22. of the same book called that knowledge of things in the Word beatific; for it can be proved from his words that this knowledge, which is very commonly called morning knowledge, is natural, and not precisely beatific: because according to St. Augustine, this order existed in the angelic knowledge of creature after creature, that the angelic knowledge of creatures in the Word naturally preceded their knowledge in the proper genus: but when the creatures were made in the proper genus, the angel could at once have knowledge of them in the proper genus: therefore all these knowledges in the Word naturally preceded the knowledge of the creatures in the proper genus: therefore all of them, according to him, were produced simultaneously: therefore that knowledge in the Word naturally preceded their production in the proper genus. But then the angels were in the state of innocence, and not blest, because some little interval occurred between their creation and their fall: therefore there was some morning knowledge of the angels, namely of creatures existing in the Word in natural things, or at least not beatific: and thus it seems that one must posit a distinct knowledge of the standing angel in natural knowledge, or in grace, because otherwise, with only the cause precisely known, he could not know creatures and their ordered effects before knowing them in the proper genus. For the reason of knowing a thing confusedly is not the reason of knowing it distinctly, and its ordered effects.

This is the Doctor's teaching. — To the testimonies of the same St. Augustine adduced in the second place, I answer that he is not speaking of that most perfect and consummated beatitude which the angels now enjoy, but only of the general and inchoate beatitude which consists in the knowledge and love of charity of God, especially when joined with innocence, and the power and facility of being without every evil if one wills: after which manner St. Augustine explains himself lib. De Correptione et gratia c. 10. where, after saying that the saints are secure concerning their state, he speaks thus:

But the devil and his angels, although they were blest before they fell, although they knew not that they would fall into misery; there was nevertheless still something to be added to their beatitude, if they had stood in the truth by free will, until they received that fullness of supreme beatitude as the reward of that permanence: that is, that by the great abundance of the charity of God through the Holy Spirit they could in no wise fall any further, and would know this of themselves most certainly.

— To the third head of authority, however, I say that St. Augustine must be understood, not of the pilgrimage of the way simply, which takes place through faith, but of the pilgrimage of sin, of which St. Peter speaks Epistola 1. c. 4. Be not pilgrims in fervor, which is unto temptation for you. Or I say that he wishes the angels not to have been pilgrims, either because in a most brief time after their creation they obtained their beatitude: and thus for a brief time they walked by faith, but a little is reckoned as nothing: or because they were always in the empyrean heaven, from which we are removed afar: or because through sin they never departed from God: or finally because they had no misery as men have. — To St. Bernard, however, I answer that he spoke not assertively but doubtingly, for he says if it be not thought incredible, which words denote that in this matter he remained in doubt.

You will say 2. Sacred Scripture clearly signifies that at least the supreme angel was endowed with heavenly beatitude; for Ezechiel 28. addresses the first angel, the transgressor, in the person of the King of Tyre thus: Thou the seal of likeness, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty, thou wast in the delights of paradise: but the delights of paradise are beatific love, and joy in the divine vision: therefore the first angel while yet a wayfarer possessed heavenly beatitude. — I deny the major. for by the delights of paradise, which Lucifer is said at one time to have enjoyed, is not understood the clear and intuitive vision of the divine essence itself, but love of God through charity, and knowledge through faith, as well as all the charismatic graces with which Lucifer had been illumined together with the other angels at the beginning of his creation, and which he lost through sin: or certain lower delights are understood, namely the dwelling in the empyrean heaven, which is a most pleasant place, and a paradise full of delights, in which Lucifer was placed with the other angels, and from which he was cast down through sin.

You will say 3. If all the angels were not endowed with heavenly beatitude from the beginning of their creation, chiefly because they ought first to have been free in order to be able to merit it: but this reason does not stand in the way, seeing that Christ the Lord, although blest in the first instant of His conception according to His soul, was none the less able to merit, therefore the state of beatitude does not impede merit. — I distinguish the minor. merit can coexist with the state of beatitude when it has no danger of sinning annexed to it, I concede: when it has, I deny: but Christ did not merit with the danger of sinning and the liberty unto sin, which supremely repugns the beatific vision, and which was not in Him from the beginning of the creation of His soul: but Christ merited only, either with the liberty unto the multiplication of acts, none of which determinately was necessary for fulfilling the command prescribed to Him, which nevertheless He fulfilled by each single act: or with the liberty of obtaining from the Father a dispensation from the command if He had willed; or finally with the liberty as to various circumstances and diverse motives, which were not commanded together with the acts prescribed to Him. Add that the angels are not to be compared in this respect with Christ the Lord, but rather with men: so that just as men were first wayfarers before comprehensors, and ordained adults first, so that through their own free cooperation they might be able to merit beatitude, namely the clear vision of God through acts of faith, comprehension through acts of hope, and through the charity of the way tend toward the charity of the homeland: so also were the angels ordered; and therefore beatitude does not seem to have been granted them from the beginning: for the fitting order required that they should at least for some instant previously be under grace, and in capacity of meriting, before having merited and received the reward.

Third conclusion. — The angels could have been created in the state of beatitude, if God had so ordered. This is the doctrine of the Doctor, dist. 5. q. n. 5., where he says:

I say, that the Good could have been blest in the first instant. The reason of this is that beatitude cannot be present in any creature capable of beatitude except from God: therefore for whatever instant beatitude is possible to be given by God, and to be present in a creature capable of it, for that instant it is simply possible: but for whatever instant God could give it, as well in the first as in the second or third instant: and the good angel was capable for whatever instant, because by nature he is the image of God, by which he is capable of God, and he had that nature full and perfect in natural things; wherefore, etc.

By which words the Doctor openly affirms that the angels could truly have been blest in the first instant of their formation; and that, either without their cooperation, as was the most holy soul of Christ the Lord, which independently of its cooperation and of any act of free will, but from the sole good pleasure of God, as soon as it was formed obtained beatitude and the clear and intuitive vision of God; or so that they received that beatitude offered to them by God with the free acceptance of their will, only the order of nature being observed between that act and beatitude; after the manner observed between contrition and grace, infused by virtue of the latter as of a last disposition: whether, however, they could also merit it in the first instant, will be said below. Nor, as regards what has been said, does any difficulty seem to require discussion. — The Doctor subjoins that the angels could also have been miserable in the first instant of their creation with the misery of punishment, which does not presuppose guilt; Because, he says, no contradiction appears in that in the first instant some punishment had been infused into the angelic nature; and forthwith it could also have been given immediately by God for that first instant just as beatitude: no contradiction, I say, or repugnance, can be assigned in this respect; for if there were any, it would be chiefly either physical or moral. But not physical, because every physical opposition which would exist in the first instant between the angel and punishment ought equally to exist in the subsequent instants: but no such opposition existed in the subsequent instants, inasmuch as many angels were condemned to eternal punishments. Not moral either, because if there were any, it would be chiefly because it would displease God to punish so gravely without guilt, namely with the punishment which the damned in fact suffer, since this seems supremely to repugn the divine goodness; but from this head it would not repugn, because since God is the Lord of the life and death of the creature, He can at His pleasure change its state. This the Doctor confirms by the authority of St. Augustine 3. De lib. arb. who says: If God had from the beginning made man in punishment, God would not on this account be to be blamed nor unjust: therefore neither would it displease Him to ordain the same of an angel. Wherefore no repugnance appears why God could not condemn some creature to punishments without guilt, as we shall more fully demonstrate when treating of the state of pure nature, in which God could create man and condemn him to punishments, where likewise will be solved whatever may be objected against this truth.