Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
- Mortimer Adler's
- Syntopicon
Essays
Angel:
Editor's
1-minute essay
The Great Idea of "Angel" is a subset of a larger field of philosophical
inquiry, that of purely intelligible entities.
These intelligibles or knowables are
"purely" discerned in that they are completely immaterial. They have no material
mode of expression in our 3-D world. This means that, if they are to be known by us, such
knowledge will not be aided by the viewing of a material body; rather, their existence
must be affirmed apart from sensorial means and apprehended by our minds
"purely."
Stated another way, some of the ancients believed that
- purely intelligible entities -- for example, eternal ideas,
as Plato would have it -- exist independently from our minds, in their own right, even
when we are not thinking about them.
Within this order of purely intelligible entities, there is
the realm of purely intelligent beings: intelligences as knowers.
Aristotle thought of these purely intelligent beings as the
initiating prime-movers of the celestial bodies of the universe.
Polytheistic religions of the ancient world conceived of demi-gods or inferior
deities as beings superior in nature and power to man. "The polytheist and the
philosopher, the Greek and the barbarian," writes Gibbon, "were alike accustomed
to conceive a long succession, an infinite chain of angels, or daemons, or deities, or
aeons, or emanations, issuing from the throne of light."
- All of these are examples of purely intelligent beings, and
in this company we must include the "angels" of Jewish and Christian
theologians.
In the Bible the word angel refers to a "messenger" of God, one
communicating the will of the Divine to humankind.
Aquinas devotes a substantial section of his Summa Theologica to the
subject of angels -- their various kinds, nature, functions and hierarchy. Aquinas, unlike
Plato and his eternal ideas, does not view angels as merely intelligible entities but as
pure intelligences.
- Why has the subject of angels been an interest of both
theologians and philosophers?
(1) There is the obvious aspect of angels as integral element of the divine
economy; anyone, both theologian or philosopher, wanting to know more about God and the
nature of his realm will, of necessity, and natural course, seek to explore the world of
angels.
(2) But the study of angels, however, lends itself very ably not only to the study
of God -- but to the study of humankind. Angels, as immaterial spirits, find consonance
with the immaterial aspects of humanity, the soul and the mind; and the study of angels in
this regard has also been the focus of both theologian and philosopher.
- The concept of angel as pictorial metaphor, as
thought-experiment, of how an entity might function without moorings in matter; of how an
intellect, unopposed by irrational passion, might express itself; of how evil might arise
even among such beings -- all this has appealed to thinkers for a long time.
As such, much of the debate and discussion concerning angels has taken place among
those who do not necessarily subscribe to their existence; this is quite logical as it is
reasonable to employ
- angel as hypothesis, angel as working thought-model or mental
construct of the larger problem of how the purely intelligible might impinge upon the
world of matter.
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