Bible Angels: Part 1

This entry is part 1 of 4 in the series Bible Angels

Bible Angels - 1Angel Drawings

The Nature, Existence, and Origin of the Angels

Terminology

I.            The name “ Angel”—that is, messenger or envoy—designates an office rather than a nature, and this office is not peculiar to the beings usually called Angels. Holy Scripture, however, and the Church have appropriated this name to them, because it represents them as standing between God and the rest of the universe, above man and nearer to God on account of their spiritual nature, and taking a share in the government of this world, although absolutely dependent on God. In this way the term “Angel” is even more expressive of their nature than the terms “spirit,” or “pure spirit,” because these latter, if not further determined, are applicable also to God. In order to prevent the belief that all superhuman beings are gods, the documents of Revelation, when speaking of these higher beings, always style them Angels, or Zebaoth—that is, the army of God. Evil spirits, being sufficiently distinguished from God by their wickedness, are often called “spirits,” “bad and wicked spirits,” and sometimes also “angels.” The Greek name daemon (“the knowing or knowledge-giving”) is applied, in Holy Writ, exclusively to the spirits of wickedness, because they resemble God only in knowledge, and only offer knowledge to men in order to seduce them.

The Nature of Angels

II.             We conceive the Angels as spiritual beings of a higher kind than man, and more like to God; not belonging to this visible world, but composing an invisible world, ethereal and heavenly, from which they exercise, with and under God, a certain influence on our world.

The Existence of Angels

III.             The existence of Angels is an article of Faith, set forth alike in innumerable passages of Holy Scripture and in the Symbols of the Church. Scripture does not expressly mention the Angels in its narrative of Creation, but St. Paul (Col. i. 16) enumerates them among the things created through the Logos, and divides these “invisible beings” into Thrones, Dominations, Principalities and Powers. From Genesis to the Apocalypse the sacred pages everywhere bear witness to the existence and activity of the Angels. It is most probable that their existence was part of the primitive revelation, the distorted remains of which are found in polytheism. Unaided reason can neither prove nor disprove the existence of pure spirits, but it can show the fittingness of their existence.

Angels are Creatures

IV.             It is likewise an article of Faith that the Angels were created by God. They are not emanations from His Substance, or the result of any act of generation or formation, but were made out of nothing. All other modes of origin are inconsistent with the spiritual nature of God and of the Angels themselves. Nor can they be eternal or without origin, because this is the privilege of the Infinite.  However, inasmuch as the real reason why Angels are not procreated by generation is their immateriality, and inasmuch as this immateriality is an article of Faith, it follows that we are bound to believe that no Angel has been generated.

Angels had a Beginning

V.            The Fourth Lateran and the Vatican Councils have defined that Angels were not created from all eternity, but that they had a beginning. “God . . . at the very beginning of time made out of nothing both kinds of creatures, spiritual and corporal, angelic and mundane” (sess. iii., c. 1).  That the creation of the Angels was contemporaneous with the creation of the world, is not defined so clearly, and, therefore, is not a matter of Faith. The words “simul ab initio temporis,” according to St. Thomas (Opusc. xxiii.), admit of another interpretation, and the definition of the Lateran Council was directed against errors not bearing directly on the time of the creation of the Angels. The probabilities, however, point in the direction of a simultaneous creation: the universe being the realization of one vast plan for the glory of God, it might be expected that all its parts were created together.

Where were the Angels Created?

VI.             It is not easy to decide where the Angels were created. Although their spiritual substance requires no bodily (corporeal) room, still, considering that they are part and parcel of the universe, it is probable that they were created within the limits of the space in which the material world is contained. As they are not bound or tied to any place, it is vain to imagine where they dwell. When Scripture makes heaven their abode, this only implies that they are not tied to the earth, like man, but that the whole of the universe is open to them.


Source: Wilhelm, Joseph and Thomas B. Scannell. A Manual of Catholic Theology: Based on Scheeben’s “Dogmatik”, Volume 1. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Lt., 1906.

Visit Christian Image Source for Free Angel Pictures.

Series NavigationBible Angels: Part 2

Comments are closed.