The angels, with their superior intellects and blessed with the Beatific Vision, chose anyway to give up heaven. They must have known they were giving it up forever. What’s baffling is how they could have had superior intellects and give up heaven forever. But that’s what any number of brilliant humans will do as well … throw away their inheritance forever with the assumption that there is no inheritance to throw away!
Charles:
After a brief discussion concerning the excellences of the spirit and how humans err and commit sin,
The Teaching of the Catholic Church (Vol. I, Ch. VIII, p. 277) goes on to say:
"We might, as a first attempt at explanation, give this reason for a possible lapse in the spirit world: that spirits, since they are created beings, are finite beings, and that no finite being can claim absolute immunity from every possible error of mind or will. In this universality the principle may be considered as the remote cause of sin in all but God himself; yet this does not work in Catholic theology as a cause of the fall of angels, except as a most vague explanation. A spirit has no ignorances, has no weakness of mind; his nature is so perfect that there is nothing for which he can wish or to which he can aspire; though he is finite, he is complete in his sphere.
“With great wisdom St. Thomas has discarded every sort of motive for the angelic lapse that is not entirely spiritual, that savours more of imagination than of intelligence. He teaches with steady persistence that no spirit in his natural sphere can transgress or err in any way. But if the spirit be taken, so to speak, out of his natural order and placed in another, a higher order – the supernatural order – then there is the possibility of a refusal; the spirit may refuse to accept or to hold something that is above his order; he may, in fact, rebel against the order of God. This is the only tenable theological explanation of the fall of angels . . .”
(I’m sure that I have quoted this before, but, it was worth quoting again.) I think we must always remember that prior to Lucifer’s fall, there was no evil and no sin. There was only God, i.e., “Good.” After Lucifer’s fall, other angels who likewise fell, followed him into his darkness. Since then, Lucifer and those who followed after him are actively attempting to lure human souls to join them - and this is where and when “evil” enters the world. They know that the same lapse can and does occur in us. And, this is very important to keep in mind when relating with an agnostic, or an agnostic-atheist. Reveling-atheists have already joined, it would appear, the Lucifer’s ranks.
It must also be remembered that, by this, St. Thomas was not speaking of the colloquial meaning of “rebellion.” Usually we see rebellion as a violent throwing off of the shackles of a baron or king. Instead, St. Thomas explains that it is more like an “inability.” More precisely, an “inability to be individually able to come up to par with an excellenceo far beyond itself.” I liken it to the feeling a young person may get when entering a room where there is a girl, or a boy, that is so exceptional that he, or she, seems to lose motor control. If she speaks to him, he may answer her with “in tongues.” (Followed by sheepish embarrassment!)
God bless,
jd
