Question Three of Chapter One of the Third Decade
Whether the fall of the demons was possible
It is asked whether the fall and lapse of the angels from the beginning of the world—as Christians say—was possible.
To this it is answered as follows.
Certain heretics and philosophers are accustomed to attack Christian doctrine upon this point concerning the fall of the angels, saying that the original fall, from the beginning of the world, of angels who were perfect in essentials and accidentals was not possible.
For they say first that from the beginning the angels themselves possessed a most clear cognition concerning God and the due relation of every creature to God, short of the ultimate beatific cognition. They knew indubitably that God was to be loved more than themselves, that he alone was to be obeyed and thanked, and that the worship of latria was to be exhibited to him. Therefore, the evil of fault could not have existed in them.
Likewise they argue secondly thus.
With no cause existing in the angels for turning away from the rectitude of their first state, no fall or sin could have occurred in them.
But in so great a felicity there could have occurred to them no doubt, obscurity, or difficulty concerning the things which they ought to do, omit, or possess; nor could there have been in them any error in the universal or in the particular, or any impediment or thing drawing them back which would lead the angels away from a right and due relation to their Creator.
Indeed, everything which was within and outside the angels inclined and impelled the rational appetite of the angels toward God. Therefore, they could not sin.
Likewise, thirdly, thus.
Since the will is a power moved of itself, it is necessary that every elected act of it be conformed to some judgment of reason.
Therefore, where reason or intellectual judgment is always incapable of being bent, as it was in the angels, there the volitional power could not be bent or sin. Therefore, and so forth.
Likewise, fourthly, thus.
If Lucifer sinned, the act by which he first sinned had to be an election of free will. Therefore, it was conformed to some judgment of reason.
If that judgment was right, he did not sin, because a good tree cannot produce evil fruits.
But if it was erroneous, then an error of the intellect preceded voluntary fault, which everyone shrinks from admitting.
Likewise, fifthly, thus.
Blessed Augustine says in Book XI, chapter 12 of The City of God: “From the beginning all the angels were of equal felicity, as many as stood, until those who are now evil fell.”
Therefore, they were equal in virtues. Therefore, if one possessed perseverance, all also possessed it, because otherwise they would not have been equally happy.
Likewise, sixthly.
The will can attain or execute nothing without the assistance and direction of reason. But reason does not consent to evil; rather, it always resists evil and murmurs against it, as the Philosopher says in Book I of the Ethics, that “reason always entreats for the best things.”
How, therefore, could the angels sin and become so evil? How could rational natures of angels so perfect and noble, and of so great virtue, wisdom, and knowledge, called happy and blessed from the beginning, have fallen and lapsed? Therefore, and so forth.
But to the contrary, Job, chapter 4, says: “In his angels he found depravity.”
In answering this doubt, four things must first be noted, and afterward a response will be made to the arguments.
The first notable point is that every angel and every rational creature, if considered in its nature alone, can sin; and if it belongs to any creature that it cannot sin, it possesses this from the gift of grace, not from the condition of nature.
The reason for this is that to sin is nothing other than to decline from the rectitude which an act ought to possess, or to fail in acting, whether sin be taken in natural, artificial, or moral matters.
But it happens that only that act cannot decline from rectitude whose rule is the very power of the agent.
For if the hand of an artisan were itself the rule of cutting, the artisan could never cut wood except rightly. But if the rectitude of the cutting comes from another rule, it happens that the cutting is right or not right.
The divine will alone, however, is the rule of its own act, because it is not ordered toward a superior end.
But the will of every creature possesses rectitude in its act only insofar as it is regulated by the divine will, to which the ultimate end belongs—just as every will of an inferior ought to be regulated according to the will of a superior, as the will of a soldier according to the will of the commander of the army.
Thus, therefore, sin cannot exist in the divine will alone; but in the will of every creature sin can exist according to the condition of its nature.
These things are from Thomas, First Part, question 63, article 1, in the body of the question.
The second notable point is that there neither is nor can be any intellectual creature capable of God which, while contradictorily free, is simply impeccable—that is, which can in no way sin.
This is easily evident, because God can obligatorily command any such creature to do something which it would be in the creature’s power to fulfill or not to fulfill, while the obligation to the contrary remains.
For there can be no rational creature to whose essential nature it belongs to be blessed. Therefore, every such creature can be placed in the state of the way and left to its free choice under the common influence. Therefore, every such creature can sin.
The third notable point is that there cannot be any rational creature which is essentially or naturally evil or perverse.
This is proved thus.
Let A be such a rational creature which is essentially evil. Then I ask whether A is naturally apt to act or conduct itself conformably to the condition of its nature, or not.
If the first is granted, then it can conduct itself well and rightly, and consequently its being is not essentially perverse.
But if it is said that it always acts and desires in a manner disconformed to reason and to the condition of its nature, it follows that it conducts itself violently.
And thus it can then conduct itself naturally—that is, conformably to the condition of its nature—and so it can again conduct itself well and rightly, and also badly and perversely.
From these two notable points, namely the second and third, it follows that every rational nature which was made evil was made evil contingently and accidentally—that is, by its own power and free choice. For, as was said, none is naturally evil.
These things are from Henry of Assia upon Genesis.
The fourth notable point is that the evil of fault, or mortal sin, can exist in an act of free choice in two ways.
In one way, from the fact that something evil is elected, as a human being sins by electing adultery, which in itself is evil.
And such a sin always proceeds from some ignorance or error; otherwise that which is evil would not be elected as good.
The adulterer, indeed, errs in the particular by electing the pleasure of this disordered act as some good to be done now, on account of the inclination of passion or habit, even if he does not err in the universal but holds a true judgment concerning it.
Sin could not exist in an angel in this way, because in angels there is no ignorance and there are in them no passions by which reason or intellect is bound.
In another way, one can sin through free choice by electing something which in itself is good, but not with the order of the due measure or rule.
Thus the defect inducing sin exists only on the part of the election, which does not possess the due order, and not on the part of the thing elected—as if someone elected to pray without attending to the order instituted by the Church.
And a sin of this kind does not presuppose ignorance, but only the absence of consideration of those things which ought to be considered.
In this way an angel sinned by turning himself through free choice toward his proper good without order toward the rule of the divine will.
These things are from Thomas in the place cited above, in the reply to the fourth argument.
But as for the arguments to the contrary, the response to the first two is evident from the notable points.
To the third it is said that the will can be actuated electively, or electively desire something, without the intellect having previously judged that such a thing was to be desired, or was to be desired in such a manner, and assented to it.
For otherwise every act by which the will sins would have to be preceded by an error of the intellect, which is false and held to be erroneous.
For all the theological doctors maintain that in the angels and in the first human beings the evil of the intellect followed the evil of the will, and not conversely.
To the fourth it is said that the elective act by which an angel first sinned proceeded from a will which was previously good—not because the preceding rectitude or justice of the will moved it toward those things, but because the freedom of choice, by abusing the power conferred upon it from the beginning, went beyond the due course.
And to the argument alleged for this, that a good tree cannot, and so forth, it is answered that this is understood in the composite sense: that it does not stand simultaneously that the will is good and produces evil acts, although it stands well that a good and just will can elect badly and perversely.
To the fifth argument, the consequence must be denied, because when Augustine says that all the angels were of equal felicity, it is understood with respect to their present justice, or with respect to the perfections which they then possessed in the habits of knowledge and virtue.
To the sixth it is said as to the third.
It is therefore clear from all these things that those who seek the first root or cognition of the occasion of the sin of the angels will find neither their ignorance, as if they had sinned against the Son, nor an impotence of virtues, as if they had sinned against the Father.
Rather, they will find a power of free choice capable of either, namely good and evil, through which, solely by the absence of the consideration of those things which they ought instead to have considered, they sinned irreversibly unto evil against the Holy Spirit.
These things are from Henry of Assia upon Genesis.
Take notice concerning this chapter that the author very frequently calls the angels rational, for he uses reason for intellect; they are in fact intellectual beings.