Lucifer and free will

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rosebudfantasy

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what is the difference between angels and humans (that being humans have free will and angels do not) extends to all angels, including the archangels? i’m confused by the fact that Lucifer “chose” to disobey God and revolt against him. do only archangels have free will? and if that be the case, how do archangels differ from humans?
 
Angels also have free will. That’s how Lucifer and the rest of the fallen angels were able to ‘choose’ {and the non-fallen angels to choose God}. The difference between humans and archangels is the same - they are pure spirit while we are not. But we both have freewill.
 
Because of their greater intellect, angels see the whole picture. So, when the angels rebelled, they rebelled totally. The intellect of a human is constantly (hopefully) being formed and greater enlightenment is occurring. Therefore, it is possible for us to repent as we learn and grow. The angels though do not grow in their intellect. So, when they made their choice for God or not, they did in with full knowledge. That was their pivotal choice. It is impossible for them to be further enlightened. Their free will was exercised at that point.

Anyway that is how I understand it.
 
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
311 Angels and men, as intelligent and free creatures, have to journey toward their ultimate destinies by their free choice and preferential love. They can therefore go astray. Indeed, they have sinned. Thus has moral evil, incommensurably more harmful than physical evil, entered the world. God is in no way, directly or indirectly, the cause of moral evil.He permits it, however, because he respects the freedom of his creatures and, mysteriously, knows how to derive good from it:
For almighty God. . ., because he is supremely good, would never allow any evil whatsoever to exist in his works if he were not so all-powerful and good as to cause good to emerge from evil itself.
**330 ** As purely spiritual creatures angels have intelligence and will: they are personal and immortal creatures, surpassing in perfection all visible creatures, as the splendor of their glory bears witness.
**THE FALL OF THE ANGELS **
391 Behind the disobedient choice of our first parents lurks a seductive voice, opposed to God, which makes them fall into death out of envy. Scripture and the Church’s Tradition see in this being a fallen angel, called “Satan” or the “devil”. The Church teaches that Satan was at first a good angel, made by God: “The devil and the other demons were indeed created naturally good by God, but they became evil by their own doing.”
392 Scripture speaks of a sin of these angels. This “fall” consists in the free choice of these created spirits, who radically and irrevocably rejected God and his reign. We find a reflection of that rebellion in the tempter’s words to our first parents: “You will be like God.” The devil “has sinned from the beginning”; he is “a liar and the father of lies”.
393 **It is the irrevocable character of their choice, and not a defect in the infinite divine mercy, that makes the angels’ sin unforgivable. “There is no repentance for the angels after their fall, just as there is no repentance for men after death.” **
**394 ** Scripture witnesses to the disastrous influence of the one Jesus calls “a murderer from the beginning”, who would even try to divert Jesus from the mission received from his Father. “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.” In its consequences the gravest of these works was the mendacious seduction that led man to disobey God.
395 The power of Satan is, nonetheless, not infinite. He is only a creature, powerful from the fact that he is pure spirit, but still a creature. He cannot prevent the building up of God’s reign. Although Satan may act in the world out of hatred for God and his kingdom in Christ Jesus, and although his action may cause grave injuries - of a spiritual nature and, indirectly, even of a physical nature- to each man and to society, the action is permitted by divine providence which with strength and gentleness guides human and cosmic history. It is a great mystery that providence should permit diabolical activity, but “we know that in everything God works for good with those who love him.”
If you look in the actual Catechism, it gives a ton of Scripture references for these sections.
 
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