Summa Theologica

Exploring God’s rule in more depth, the following questions deal with various things that God does to, or in, created things.

God, in addition to creating all things, maintains them in being. Otherwise, they would lapse into nothingness. While it is possible for God to annihilate created beings, he does not and will not do this. 

Aquinas considers how God effects change in created things.

The main point of this question is to show that God acts in creatures without taking away freedom of will in human beings. He is able to move matter and the form in which it inheres, bodies, the intellect (e.g., by giving us the power of understanding), and the will (e.g., by influencing our actions). God can act outside the established order of nature, and this is called a miracle. There are grades or hierarchies of miracles, organized according to how far the miracle departs from the order of nature. 

Aquinas devotes a series of questions to movement in spiritual and corporeal beings. This leads him to speculate further on the movement, activity, and hierarchical ordering of the angels.

Question 106 examines how the angels interact with each other with regard to knowledge. Angels are able to teach and enlighten each other, after receiving revelation from God. There are degrees of intelligence in angels, just as in human beings. However, an angel cannot move the will of another angel, but only God. Yet angels may persuade each other and thus incline the will in a certain direction—e.g., to love God. 

Angels speak to each other after a fashion, but not in the way that human beings do. In angels, speech in an intellectual operation. Angels can convey thought to each other at once, without the effort and difficulty of human speech. In addition to speaking to each other, angels speak to God. 

Aquinas explores the various orders of angels as mentioned in scripture. Each has a specific function in carrying out the divine rule.

The three highest orders pertain specifically to government:

The Dominations appoint things to be done

The Virtues give power to carry things out

The Powers order how the commands are to be carried out

The three lower orders pertain to execution of the divine mission:

The Principalities are like generals in the military; they are the leaders in carrying out the mission.

The Archangels are the next rank

The Angels are the lowest rank, like privates in the military

After the Final Judgment, the blessed human beings will be taken up into the angelic orders, through grace. 

The demons—the fallen angels—have a hierarchy paralleling that of the good angels, since they originally started out in that hierarchy and by nature can never entirely lose their membership in it. The demons dwell in ignorance because they have separated themselves from the divine light. The good angels have precedence over and excel in power the bad angels. 

Aquinas seeks to define the extent of the angels’ influence over the physical world. How much of what happens is controlled by the influence of angels? Aquinas concludes that the angels rule over corporeal things and have the power to move them locally; however, corporeal things do not obey the will of the angel alone, but are ultimately controlled by God. Further, angels are not able to work miracles, only God. However, God may use angels as instruments in carrying out miracles. 

Next Aquinas explores the influence that the angels have over the inner life of human beings. Angels are able to:

- enlighten human beings (influencing what they are believe and do)

- affect our imagination (such as through dreams)

- change our senses, e.g., by assuming a certain bodily form

Angels are not able to decisively change our will (only God can do this), but they can influence us by persuasion. The angels enlighten by proposing truths to human beings under the likenesses of sensible things. In this way, “the human intellect…is strengthened by the action of the angelic intellect” (569). 

Some (not all) angels are sent by God in ministry on earth—chiefly, the lower ranks of angels. Angels are either sent on a mission or stand in attendance upon God. God can work things in the world directly, to manifest his grace in a more immediate manner, or through angels. 

A guardian angel is assigned to every human being at birth to protect and guide him or her. This office belongs to the lower rank of angels. The guardian angel is loyal and never forsakes the person under its care. They feel no grief over the sins or sufferings of the persons they guard, because they have God’s larger plan in view and their will is conformed to his. 

Inasmuch as the devil instigated Adam to commit the first sin, we can say that the devil indirectly causes all sin, but he does not cause every individual sin that we commit. The purpose of the devil’s temptations is to lead man into evil. God is also said to “tempt” man, but this for his good, to test his virtue and strengthen it.

The devil makes use of material things as instruments of temptation and can even change the appearances of things for this purpose. The devil tempts man for as long as God allows; after being defeated, he sometimes returns for another assault. 

Aquinas discusses the actions and movements of physical things, and what causes them. Bodies have both potency and act, and thus they can both act and be acted upon. The heavenly bodies can influence the motions of earthly bodies (for example, the sun causes things to grow). However, the human will and reason are more powerful and are not absolutely subject to the heavenly bodies.

Christian thinkers going back to Boethius have questioned whether fate exists, and whether such an idea can be reconciled with God’s providence. Aquinas allows for the existence of fate, if we understand it as the order of secondary causes, which are controlled ultimately by the First Cause, who is God. Fate is not to be understood as an impersonal power connected with the position of the stars. 

Aquinas examines various powers of the human soul. He argues the following points:

1.  One human being can lead another to knowledge. The teacher reduces the learner from potency to act. Through deduction, the learner advances from things previously known to him to things unknown.

2.  Human beings cannot teach anything to the angels, who are subject to God alone.

3.  The human soul cannot act upon corporeal matter, because matter can only be acted upon by an agent composed of matter and form.

4.  The soul separated from the body after death cannot act upon either its own body or other bodies. 

Here Aquinas considers how the human soul is transmitted in procreation. The soul is defined as the “act of the body.” The following points are made:

1.  The sensitive part of the soul is transmitted biologically, through the semen, rather than being created directly by God.

2.  The intellective part of the soul is created directly by God, not transmitted biologically.

3.  Each human soul is created individually by God and united to (infused into) its body. 

Aquinas considers how the human body is generated and maintained. He asserts that:

1.  Food is transformed into the reality and substance of human nature.

2.  Semen is not simply a part of the human organism, but contains the entire human organism in seed form.