Publication date 1967 Topics angeology, demonology Collection opensource Language English

It is well to bear in mind that all angels, whatever their state of grace -indeed, no matter

how christologically corrupt and defiant- are under God, even when, to all intents and purposes,

they are performing under the direct orders of the Devil. Evil itself is an instrumentality of the

Creator, who uses evil for His own divine, if unsearchable, ends. At least, such may be gathered

from Isaiah 45 :7; it is also Church doctrine, as is the doctrine that angels, like human beings, were

created with free will, but that they surrendered their free will the-moment they were formed.

At that moment, we are told, they were given (and had to make) the choice between turning

toward or away from God, and that it was an irrevocable choice. Those angels that turned

toward God gained the beatific vision, and so because fixed eternally in good; those that turned

away from God became fixed eternally in evil. These latter are the demons, they are not the

fallen angels (an entirely different breed of recusants which hatched out subsequently, on Satan's

defection). Man, however, continues to enjoy free will. He can still choose between good and

evil. This may or may not work out to his advantage; more often than not it has proved his

undoing. The best that man can hope for, apparently, is that when he is weighed in the balance

(by the "angels of final reckoning"), he is not found wanting.

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