De Moor IX:8: The Angelic Faculty of Intellect

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The Wisdom of Angels, with respect to its Principium, is said to be Threefold:  α.  Natural, imparted to them by Creation and common to all Angels; β.  Experimental, acquired by use, and arising from the things that are done in the world and especially in the Church, Ephesians 3:10; 1 Timothy 3:16; and, γ.  Revealed, through which by Revelation of God many things are learned in addition that they were not knowing previously, so that they might in turn announce the same to men, Revelation 1:1:  others add with ZANCHIUS,[1] opera, tome 3, part I, book III, chapter V, columns 109, 110, δ.  Supernatural Wisdom, which only belongs to good Angels, who were presented with the same in confirmation, and who by this Wisdom have such a robust sight of God that they adhere constantly to Him, and are never willing to decline from Him, Matthew 18:10.

The Knowledge of Angels greatly exceeds ours.  In Scripture the Excellence of angelic Understanding and Wisdom is considered to be Great, 2 Samuel 14:17; 19:27; Matthew 24:36.

α.  In the Mode of knowing, which, 1.  is not Sensitive, but purely Intellective, in accordance with the purely spiritual nature of Angels, which needs neither a corporeal organ, nor external senses, that it might open like windows to objects.  2.  At the same time, the Mode of their learning is Incredibly Swift, while they do indeed make use of discursive reasoning in a manner analogous to our discursive arguments, but far more perfect, not sluggish, but altogether quick and acute.  Which we readily confess ourselves not to grasp in every respect.

β.  And in its Objects:  both, 1.  God, whom nevertheless they do not know adequately, since they are finite, while God is infinite, Matthew 18:10; and, 2.  themselves and men, whose care they could not otherwise undertake; and, 3.  other matters, spiritual and corporal, also and especially secret, which things furnish matter for them with which to glorify God, Job 38:4-7; Luke 2:14.

But, since we do not at all follow the Mode of angelic Cognition in every respect, it is not strange, if we are not able distinctly to determine, whence is such Excellence of angelic Cognition with respect to Object.  At the same time, in addition to divine Revelation here, with our AUTHOR advising, Angels’ innate Perspicacity, incredibly long Duration, most swift Motion, Penetration of all bodies, the great Number of those communicating among themselves, etc., deserve to be considered as making greatly for this.

Nevertheless, it does not come near to Divine knowledge, α.  whether in Mode, since Angels do not learn what they know without Discursive Reasoning and through immediate intuition:  for this is belongs to the independent God alone, to know all things of Himself, independently of objects outside of Himself; and not to be occupied in any Discursive Reasoning, that He might gather one thing from another.

β.  Or in the Object, since they do not know All things:  they are ignorant of the day of judgment, Mark 13:32:  they learn many things daily, and desire to learn both from Revelation, and from Experience, what they did not previously know, Ephesians 3:10; 1 Peter 1:12.  Omniscience is proper to infinite Being, while the knowledge of Angels, as finite creatures, is also finite and circumscribed within its bounds.  They do indeed behold God, Matthew 18:10, but that beholding extends itself to His Essence and Perfections, not to the divine Counsels; but, just as God in His Counsels and their execution acts with perfect freedom, so also with perfect freedom He reveals as much as He wishes concerning them.  The Looking-glass of the Trinity, in which Angels and the Blessed see all things, is fictitious; and the argument, which the Papists take from it, out of the imagination of Gregory I, that they must see all things, who continually behold the one seeing all things, is truly (if I might speak with MARESIUS, Systemate Theologico, common place IV, § 4, note c) glassy, which is shattered with the slightest touch.  Certainly one that see the sun illuminating all things does not thereby see all things.  One that from the market see a man standing on the summit of a tower does not thereby see whatever things are open to the watchman’s eyes.  One that knows a learned man does not immediately know all that the learned knows.

In particular, they do not know, 1.  the Cogitations of our heart, more specifically, immediately and certainly; well enough indeed à posteriori, from certain external Signs:  as we ourselves form a judgment or make a conjecture concerning the Cogitations of the heart from the eyes and color of the face; so also is probable knowledge of the human heart and of its cogitations competent to Angels, unless God sometimes indicates the same by certain Revelation; which one may gather both from opportune Temptation of men prepared by Satan, and from the timely instructions of the same by Angels.  While in other respects God claims for Himself the special ability to know the Thoughts of the human heart, which also the saints everywhere acknowledge unto His honor, Jeremiah 17:9, 10; 1 Kings 8:39; Psalm 139:2, 4; Acts 1:24:  and, on the other hand, this knowledge of the heart of another and its cogitations is denied to all creatures, 1 Corinthians 2:11.

2.  Nor things Future, Contingent and Free, which have a determinate truth-value only in the Counsel of God, and so they are able to be known with certainty only by Revelation; hence also God claims the knowledge of these things for Himself as proper to Himself alone, Isaiah 41:22, 23, 26.

Although they might sometimes know certain of these by conjecture or from God’s Revelation.  That to good Angels many Future Contingencies are known by Revelation of God, to be communicated also with men, no one is able to doubt, Daniel 9:21, 22; Revelation 1:1, etc.  But, that Devils also are not altogether destitute of divine Revelation concerning Future Contingencies, is able to be clearly seen from 1 Kings 22:20-22.  Whence also some Oracular Responses of this sort are ascribed to divine Revelation granted to Dæmons, which Revelation tends by the just judgment of God to the greater hardening of the Gentiles in blind idolatry, Deuteronomy 13:1-3.  Moreover, their own experimental Wisdom and mode, whereby they understand and learn things, Angels also know many Future and Contingent things, which lie hidden from men; whether conjecturally, by perceptive inferences which from the present state of affairs they form concerning the future; or even from the knowledge of certain causes lying hidden from men, so that, for example, on account of the penetration of a body they might often be able to judge concerning the deadly danger of a disease better than men, to whom it is not given to look into themselves or others:  and in addition on account of their incredibly swift Motion from place to place they are also able to report those things that are conducted in places far removed at a time when this appears altogether impossible to men and by human means.  To this sagacity of Angels, superior to that of men, in predicting future events and revealing hidden things, learned Men attribute many responses of the Oracles of the Gentiles, from which they also gather this sagacity of Angels, since they believe that the same Oracles in great part are to be assigned to Dæmons, as surpassing the keenness of the human mind:  for, although those Oracles were often ambiguous, this also pertains to the cunning of the Devil, who, not being omniscient, often has need of this sort of ambiguity of speech in order to cover his ignorance, so that, in whatever way a matter might actually fall out, he might ever keep men addicted to his worship:  neither in other responses, which were more clearly expressed, was an Oracle always found to be false.  VOSSIUS, after book I de Idololatria, chapter VI, had shown, that natural causes were not sufficient for the production of the responses of the Oracles, which natural causes some mention; and had narrated that according to others the Oracles consisted only in human frauds; he subjoins his own judgment:  We gather, that there is not to be a halting in inferior nature; but there has to be a rising to causes of a superior nature, of which sort are dæmons:  that they are, therefore, causes of the Oracles, Porphyry[2] relates in his book de Dæmonibus, and Iamblichus[3] in his book de Mysteriis, chapters 21, 26….  If the Oracles were not the impostures of men lying hidden, neither do they consist of the fraud of mocking dæmons.  And we attribute to the former and the latter their own parts.  If they were not ambiguous, they were not demonic; because Dæmons themselves, being ignorant of future contingencies, quite frequently depend upon conjecture, subtle indeed, but misleading.  For which reason also the Dæmons needed words obscure and cryptic, whereby the Oracles, being poorly understood, might be believed, if the event should fail to correspond.  It is not enough for it to subsist in the cunning of the priests, because many things are predicted, to which, as I said, the human mind does not reach.  Which will be evident to one contemplating a rich sampling of those oracles that are related by the ancients:  consult our AUTHOR’S Exercitationes Juveniles, Disputation VII, § 6-10; BUDDEUS’ de Atheismo et Superstitione, chapter III, § 4, page 169; STEPHANUS MORINUS’ Dissertationes octo, last difficulty, pages 389-410.

As far as the distinction of Angelic Cognition into Morning and Evening, which the Scholastics fetched out of AUGUSTINE, book IV de Genesi ad litteram, chapters XXII-XXIV, XXVIII, opera, tome 3, part 1, columns 131-133, and book XI de Civitate Dei, chapter XXIX, the former of which is from the Word of God, that is, the Personal or ἐνυποστάτῳ/ substantial Word, the Son of God, rather than from the Word προφορικῷ/uttered; the latter sought from Ideas impressed and from Creatures:  this twofold Cognition one may see expounded by ZANCHI, opera, tome 3, part 1, book III, chapter V, columns 108, 109; and by GERHARD,[4] Locis theologicis, tome 2, de Angelis, section V, § 46, 47, page 7:  but at the same time it will be sufficiently apparent, that this distinction is worthless; depending perhaps uniquely on an allegory or παρερμηνείᾳ/misinterpretation of Moses, concerning the Word and Command of God in Creation, repeated again and again in Genesis 1, as if by the Morning, preceding the Work itself, the perfect execution of which was thereafter visible in the Evening; and also the understanding of Angels by the Light created on the first Day, contrary to what was seen in Chapter VIII, § 24, where, and in § 22, it was seen, that in the beginning Evening preceded, Morning followed, not the other way around.

[1] Girolamo Zanchi (1516-1590) was an Italian Reformed theologian.  At the age of fifteen, he entered the monastery of the Augustinian Order of Regular Canons.  He came under the personal influence of Peter Martyr Vermigli; and the writings of the Reformers, especially Calvin, had a profound impact upon his thinking.  Zanchi served as Professor of Old Testament at Strasbourg (1553-1563), and Professor of Theology at Heidelberg (1568-1577).

[2] Porphyry (c. 232-c. 304) studied in Rome under Plotinus.  He endeavored to make the obscure Neoplatonism of Plotinus intelligible to the popular reader.

[3] Iamblichus of Chalcis (in Syriac) (c. 245-c. 325) was instrumental in both shaping and spreading Neoplatonic philosophy in the ancient world.

[4] John Gerhard (1582-1637) was an eminent Lutheran divine.  He held the position of Professor of Divinity at Jena (1616), and he was four times the Rector of the same.  He wrote copiously in exegetical, polemical, and dogmatic theology.  His Loci communes theologici (1610-1622) was the largest Lutheran dogmatic text that had been produced to date.