A reader writes:
[O]ne thing has been made clear for me over the past few years: the existence of demons. Its something that myself and others have become more and more awakened to, thanks in no small part to the works of you and others mentioned. One thing that isn’t clear is the existence of angels. If you’ve the time, could you, perhaps in a blog post, talk about that? For me, it’s much easier to buy the existence of demons because we see the evils that they are responsible for on a daily basis but what kinds of good do angels bring about? How do they affect our world?
I answer:
Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, argues in the Summa Theologiae that, while we can’t deduce exactly what angels are from reason alone, we can conclude that they exist.
His argument proceeds from the observation that nature abhors a vacuum. Specifically, in the order of being. Everywhere we find being, we note that it exists in a hierarchical spectrum with no place left empty. Look at the periodic table of elements, for example. We can and do discern the existence of elements before they’re discovered due to gaps in the table.
In the order of living beings, we see that there are purely physical, non-spiritual creatures (plants and animals), creatures with both a physical and a limited spiritual dimension (humans), and a purely spiritual, unlimited Being (God).
Logic dictates that a type of being must exist in the gap between limited enfleshed spirits and the unlimited pure Spirit. These would be limited pure spirits, which we call angels.
Now, Aquinas further explains that “angel” is more of a job description than the proper name of this type of being. Similarly, “demon” describes the corrupted state of those members of this class of pure spirits who chose evil and are now outside of God’s grace.
Thanks for your response! That makes sense. I was also thinking about if angelic possession was possible. To my uneducated mind, perhaps not. Free will is something that God gifted us with, above all other animals. So something undermining that could go against God’s will for us to choose right or wrong. I guess I’ve just been contemplating their purpose but you’ve provided a lot to think about as far as the matter of their existence.
Because a pure spirit is located where it is currently focusing its thoughts, it doesn’t so much occupy space as suffuse the object of its attention.
That should give you an idea of how possession works.
Now, the will is a spiritual faculty. Humans are in fact the only beings with a physical dimension who have it. (Animals only have appetite, not will).
Spirits are made of no adjacent parts, so they’re non-negotiable, non-miscible, and non-transferable. (This is why transgenderism is nonsense).
A demon who thinks about a pin suffuses the matter of–i.e. “possesses”–the pin. The human body is made of matter, so demons can perform the same operation on it. You’re right that they can’t directly violate the will or the intellect, though. Possession acts purely on the body.
Possessing a human’s body is a grave affront to that person’s dignity. Therefore angels, who are confirmed in goodness since immediately after the moment of their creation, cannot possess humans since to do so would be sinful, and angels cannot sin.
Even demons cannot indiscriminately possess humans. They are still subject to God and cannot afflict anyone unless He allows it.
