This week's readings helped me to understand angels more, but I still have A LOT of questions, which I underlined below. Please feel free to discuss with me, answer my questions, correct me and teach me!
Creation of Angels
It is interesting that the Bible didn’t mention the creation of angels except for the subtle allusion in the finished work of “all the host of them” (Genesis 2.1). Huge of St. Victor claims that angels and men were created at the same time--both in the beginning. However, he later confirmed that man was created to replace the number of the fallen angels. If we assume Hugh is not self-contradictory, then I guess that angels and men were created at the same time but located in different places. After some angels fell, men were taken to the same society where the good angels were to fill the number of the fallen. But, when did the angels fall then? The place good angels were in should have been where God was, and thus is it Eden?
They were begotten by the God, who Himself have the presence as an angel. I like the metaphor Barker used to describe the “begetting”. Angels are the expansion of God, as they are like the fire passed on by matches. Angels are part of God, and one with God. All come from one and all is one.
Nature of Angels
Angels were made as good, with the likeness of God, with wisdom. Their four features are immateriality, personal distinction, rationality, and free will. Because they are made from wisdom, which is the rational creation, they have spiritual attributes. And that’s why they are invisible and immaterial, because they don’t have the corporal body made of matter. They were made as individuals, and all together form a beautiful hierarchy/order of angels. They were created, like humans, each different, with different levels of power, wisdom, and freedom. Some are superior, some inferior, like some matches with bigger light than the other, they are content with their place in the order and don’t feel pride over the inferior, because they have the knowledge of their Creator and respect the oneness with Him. They have free will--they can move and desire as they will. Hugh uses aversion (progressing over that) and conversion (falling below that) to describe this movement. It seems that the “that” is the way they were created by God, which I think is rationality. If they move and desire according to how God made them to be--be rational, they naturally go towards Grace and become better angels. If not, they don’t, their guilt abandons them from Grace, and they fall.
Difference between Angels and Men
I think the biggest difference lies in that men are made of body and soul, while angels are made of the latter, the spiritual. Our free will include that of the mind, body and sensuality. When our mind follows the will of God, our body and sensuality naturally are in the right track(mind leads the latter two), whereas if our sensuality becomes the leader, sin follows. Because angels don’t have bodies, their free will move only with the mind or spirit. A great confusion came up when I compare the angels and Saints. Both of them reflect light from God, as they are oneness with Him. When Saints are alive, obviously because of their corporal body, they are different from angels. They become the men as when Adam and Eve were first created, living with the angels. But, after they die, do they become angels? Or are they souls of men, living with the big angel families?
What do angels do? What are they created for?
Barker states that angels sing to praise God. They worship God and praise his beautiful creation. And the singing has another function, that is, to maintain the order of the world. Through their singing, with one voice, in harmony, they bring “the discordant” back to the order. As they are light from God, they bring the light to the world, illuminate people and bring them back to the oneness with God. Angels have the power of virtue, domination and administration. They are leaders in the angel order, and they also are the leader of humans. I like this idea a lot. Humans also have power. It makes me feel that, if without sin, we all shall find our place in the world and feel content about it, like the angels are in the order. We have the power to govern ourselves, to lead our companions, and to take care of the animals.
Interaction between angels and men
Yes. Angels lead us, illuminate us, bring us back. This is of the good Angels.
What about the fallen ones, the evil spirits? I often hear about spiritual wars. It seems, at least according to my Christian friends, the warriors of God and those of Satan are constantly fighting each other through men. Human beings’ Fall was led by the serpent. And we are constantly facing temptations in our life. Is it what the fallen angels are doing? When our sense of sensuality overcomes that of the mind and body, is it totally our own choice or is it part of the fallen angel’s contribution? Does our free will mean choosing sides between God and Satan?
--YLT
The angels fell before men, as Satan could not have tempted our first parents if he were not already fallen.
ReplyDeleteBiblical descriptions of Eden and Heaven differ in important ways, so I do not know if we can say that they are the same. Yet, we know that the good angels are always in the presence of God and reflecting God. This quality may be shared with Eden, as Adam looked upon God there.
Humans never become angels, as they are different beings; rather, they remain human. This distinction will have the clearest difference at the end of time as the humans will rise with their glorified bodies, whereas angels do not have bodies. Angels can appear, but only under appearances; those appearances are not their 'bodies'. Yet, the angels will be together with humans in heaven.
We always choosing for or against God. Yet, there are three sources of evil: the fallen world, sinful flesh, and the devils. Thus, our temptations could come from any or all of these.
Nicholas Duffee
ReplyDeleteThis post addresses your following questions: When our sense of sensuality overcomes that of the mind and body, is it totally our own choice or is it part of the fallen angel’s contribution? Does our free will mean choosing sides between God and Satan?
Evil, as Hugh of St Victor reminds us, does not exist in the same way that God exists. Good exists and it is eternal, it is God. While all things derive their being from God, being itself, evil does not owe its being to God, it does not even have being. In Christian theology evil does not have being, but is more properly defined as a privation of the good.
Evil comes in when we mistake what is “good” for what is Good. This can happen both purposefully and accidentally. (For example, eating a pound of chocolate may taste “good,” but it is not Good. Praying a rosary may not be my idea of a “good” time, but it is Good.) Our free will has the power to make choices. Theses choices either lead toward the “good” or the Good.
Evil confuses something that is “good” with something that actually leads the soul or angel away from the Good. The soul is therefore continually being put to the test due to our free will: will we choose to be Christ-like or Anti-Christ?
Since fallen angels are fallen away from good, which is otherwise known as the Beatific Vision, they are known as evil. Fallen angels therefore will only that others be misguided away from the Good. However, since humans have free-will, we have the power to either allow or refuse to be guided away from the Good.
Everything is totally our choice. We may be tempted, however this is not sin. Insofar as we do not fall into temptation, we do not sin. Jesus was tempted but remained fortified in his virtue.
Let us call virtue our means of fortifications against the evil temptations that fallen angels might wish to drag us down with. Virtue builds us a wall against their (and our own) sensuous attacks. Virtue allows us to choose the Good and will ourselves to be Christ-like. So long as we build a wall of virtue around ourselves, we will be protected against failing to mirror Christ. A wall will not protect us against temptations, however so long as we do not give our consent to temptation and allow it to become sin, we will remain fortified against sensuality.
-MJ
A useful clarification re: evil and good!
DeleteI think that your questions about, "what do angels do? what are they created for" are very important and are very clearly questions that people have been asking since at least the canonization of the Bible (though some type of angel-like beings show up in the Torah, Egyptian myth, and Greek philosophy, at the very least). I enjoyed reading about the different functions of the angels as described by Pseudo-Dionysius, but I'm also left with more questions to be satiated. Satan had to be around to tempt Eve, so the fall happened before then. But, what were all of the angels doing whose primary purpose is to interact with humans (i.e. all of the 3rd Sphere of angels)? Was the entire 3rd Sphere just twiddling their thumbs until Adam and Eve came along? Or, because they live in Eternal Heaven, is time meaningless to them--everything is pre-fall and post-fall, pre-humans and post-humans? Also, how was the Virgin Mary et al. able to see Michael before the incarnation was a thing? In general, how were we humans able to see an image of the divine (since angels are of the same stuff as God) on earth before the incarnation, which gave us the ability to lift the veil? Is it because archangels naturally look like humans with wings and weapons? If it's because of that, then, archangels are also made in the image of God, right? Clearly your post has left me with a lot to think about. I'd be interested to hear from anyone with more scriptural background than I about these questions. I went to 1 Thessalonians and Jude to try and find descriptions of an archangel, but they just make brief mention of it [1 The. 4:16; Jude 1:9]. Where does one go to find the Biblical description (as in, straight from the Bible) of an archangel's image?
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your blog post and think it's important that you still have questions, even after doing the readings on angels. I also focused on the lack of information surrounding exactly when the angels were created, and still think it is super strange that the Bible does not provide a specific timeframe for humans to understand when exactly the angels came to exist. I think the question of when the angels were created is tied in with your question surrounding what it is that angels do. As Barker tells us, angels were created to worship and praise God, but since humans were created after the angels, it seems like God needed more than the angels.
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There are two ways to answer some of your questions: one, historically, in the development of the tradition; and two, rationally, given the kind of creatures that angels would seem to be. Historically, there were traditions of angels throughout the Old Testament period, but the texts that give fuller descriptions of the angels were not considered canonical by the early Church—and yet, the idea of angels became central to Christian tradition. Barker has worked on many of these non-scriptural texts, most importantly, the book of Enoch, which describes the angels in more detail. Theologically, however, there are many questions left unanswered even by these non-scriptural texts, most particularly, why some angels are good and others are fallen. There are descriptions in the scriptures of some of the angels—the cherubim in the Holy of Holies, the seraphim that Isaiah saw—but the other orders of angels are simply listed as names, which leaves open the question of how they are ordered and what their differences are. RLFB
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