Where did the angels live when God created them?

[ctpear]

My son, who goes to Franciscan University at Steubenville, said that he is taught that the angels did not live in heaven when they were created. He said that if they had lived in heaven, then the bad angels would not have chosen to defy God because they would have been too in love with him to do so. My son said that by not living in heaven is the only way they could have had free will to have chosen to accept or reject God. Please comment, as this is not what I have been taught and what I am teaching my daughter.

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Strictly speaking, angels have never lived anywhere, if by “living somewhere” we mean that they physically occupied a particular space in a particular time. Angels are pure spirit and a spirit does not have a material shape that occupies a physical location. I understand that you weren’t really asking this question to begin with, but your choice of anthropomorphic language in referring to angels and heaven could lead to confusion.

To be in heaven means to directly behold God in the beatific vision. Christian theologians speculate – and please note that word, “speculate” – that the angels must have been subject to some sort of test (the nature of which we don’t know) before being granted the beatific vision because some of them rejected God and fell. To have fallen, the rebel angels could not have had the beatific vision because those experiencing the beatific vision cannot fall. Those who passed the test were then granted the beatific vision and cannot now fall.

Those who experience the beatific vision are not deprived of free will. They have the free will to do all that is within their ability to do. They cannot fall because they no longer have the ability to do so. As an analogy, man cannot fly under his own power not because he doesn’t have free will but because he doesn’t have wings. He is incapable of auto-flight because of how he is made. In a similar fashion, those who enter heaven cannot fall because they no longer have the capability to do so.

Recommended reading:

What Spirits Are and Aren’t by Frank Sheed