www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Are Angels Persons?

Dear Adam;

Sorry, I missed your question earlier.

I am not sure I understand your question. At the very least, perhaps it is because I disagree with it.

At least in my conception of body, soul, and spirit, the body is the physical substance and the spirit is the animating force. So, all living things, even plants, have a spirit, a force, which animates them, which makes them alive, and without which, they would cease to exist as living things. The soul however, is that which separates us from the lower creatures. It is not a summation or a product of the body and spirit (since obviously all living things have these two components) but that part that we share only with the angels and with God himself.

I hope this helps.

John

On another thread, we have been discussing Genesis 18 and its relationship to the Trinity icon. To understand my point of reference, I refer you to this discussion:

https://www.byzcath.org/cgibin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=5&t=000094#000006

However, is it possible that angels are nothing other than the "utterances" of God which is a different way of considering them as "messengers"?
For example, in Genesis 18-22, the angelic is that which is spoken by the Lord?

John

Dear Petrus,

Shouldn't the question be more narrowly defined to question the nature of the heavenly host? There are seven(?) ranks. (I've been wrong once in my lifetime so far.) Angels, archangels, dominions, powers, thrones, cherubim and serafim. Are principalities the same as dominions?

Then we can say scripturally that they are intellect/nous and have a will which they seem to have exercised once and for all when some decided to glorify God (their created purpose) while some, led by Lucifer, rebelled and were cast out and remain condemned (II Peter 2). There is no chance/time for them to repent, leading some to the conclusion that they are created, but created outside of time and space.

If they are defined and have a will, then I'd call them incorporeal heavenly persons. Person, in a non-theological sense, is a word that can be used even for a corporation or to describe any entity that can be well defined, can act, and has rights and responsibilities.

Angels/messengers can be either incorporeal or corporeal. Wasn't John the Forerunner and Baptist referred to as an angel of the Lord. And should we not forget the angels/men of Genesis 18 and 19 who ate and drank with Abraham and Sarah and with Lot and his family.

Axios, regarding body, soul and spirit, try this equation in scripture and you will find that it always works: body (sarxhos) + spirit/breath (pnevma) = soul/life (psixhi). Try Ezekiel (valley of the bones), Pslams, Proverbs. You don't have a soul, you are a soul!

In Christ.

Andrew,
Christ is Born! Glorify Him!
You are very close. The Hymn of Light for Monday Orthos is very clear on the nine choirs of angels:
"Angels, Archangels, and Principalities, Virtues, Powers and Dominions, Thrones and many-eyed Cherubim, along with the six-winged Seraphim, intercede for us, that we may be delivered from all danger and that we may escape the unending flames."
May you have a most blessed Christmas.
Deacon El

Dear All,

Not to throw more confusion into an already esoteric discussion, but "where angels fear to tread".....

In graduate theology school it was drumed into our heads that the "persons" of the Trinity are NOT persons in the conventional sense! In fact many of the professors felt "person" was an unfortunate Latin term [persona] for the more accurate Greek hypostases. The definition for person was an individual subsistent entity with consciousness & free will. So since the Son or Spirit do not / can not exit apart from the Father, they are not persons in the psychological or modern sense. How is this regarded in Eastern Christian theology?

I don't know what the above has to do with angels. IIRC angels were kinda considered passe in modern theological studies (granted I went to a pretty progressive school).

PAX

Br. Elias

Dear Deacon El,

Thanks for the correction. Now I've been wrong twice.

In Christ.

Dear Brother Elias:

I am glad someone brought up this point. Yes, the Persons of the Trinity is a different concept. But it seems to me, that the Personal Hypostases and the way they interact with each other says something about our personhood. To me, the most amazing part of our salvation is its personal nature. We believe that we maintain this personal identity and are not subsumed into the Trinitarian life. We are part of it and separate from it at the same time.

There are things we recognize as constitutive of our personhood: liberty, freedom, identity to name a few. We can relate these things to the Trinitarian persons, but these things do not correspond to the angelic powers.

For example, salvation in Christ's crucifixion and resurrection does not apply for the angels. Andrew has discussed this above. Later, when I have time, I will review this point in greater detail.

John

Dearest Brothers and Sisters of the Forum;

I apologize greatly for reviving this thread. However, this is something I still am struggling with. For those of you who may have read my recent threads on the Nativity Icon and "dressing geese" you may note that I have been researching angels again.

I still am struck by the possibility that angels may be the emanations of God's glory. Michael, for example, is the emanation of God's power, justice, and mercy. Gabriel is the emanation of God's love and immanance.

These emanations serve God but do not participate in God's interior life in the way the Persons of the Trinity participate. But, they cannot exist apart from God, except at God's pleasure. I am drawn to the story of the Gadarene Demoniac. Christ shows pity(?) on them and does not extinguish them but allows them to enter the pigs.

Do they participate as separate beings, apart from God, the way we do?

In other words, are angels merely contemplatable attributes of God for our benefit? Are they those attributes of God that we may directly experience? Do demons exist only to serve God's greater purpose? (in my mind, we exist as separate beings that will be allowed to share in the life of God while retaining our separate identities.)

John

But surely demons cannot be emanations of God; they must possess freedom if there was a primordial fall of angelic beings. Therefore, as beings possessing intellect and will they must be persons. Possessing a body is only essential to the human person, it does not preclude other types of personhood.

Well, I've always understood that angels and demons do not have will of their own.

I thought the storyline went thusly:

At the beginning of creation, God unveiled His plan to enter the world through a human body as Jesus of Nazareth. He gave all the angels the free will to choose if they agreed to this or not. Those who did not (Lucifer and his followers) were cast into Hell (by Michael the Archangel), whereas those who saw God's plan fit stayed as angels of Heaven. So, the angels were given free will in this prerogative only. Their choices are now "sealed" and cannot be undone, because they do not possess free will anymore. So, if being a "person" is partially based on possessing free will, then the angels and demons would not be persons.

Logos Teen

By your definition my cats are persons, they know what time dinner is and they will come up and surround me at 5:30pm and stare at me, and when I say "what do you want"? they say nothing (because they know that I know what they want), when I say "do you want to eat" they all start meowing and then run to the door where I keep the cat food. So they know that at 5:30pm I feed them and they know where the food is and meow in the affirmative when questioned and they want me to know that they know it!!

Angelic wills work very different from ours; an angelic moral choice would see every consequence of its actions and is thus an irreversible and eternal choice. That is why Origen was mistaken about the salvation of the fallen angels. That an angelic free choice, made once and for all, differs radically from fickle human choice, blinded as we are by the world of the senses and our limited intelligence, does not mean that it is not free.

Teen -

In one sense you are correct. Demons have made their "choice" in their rebellion against God. This choice, revealed in Rev 12 and elsewhere, results in their hellish state which, as I understand it, is eternal. (All of you Origenists can feel free to correct me here... )

With that said, does their state preclude them from exercising any freedom whatsoever in their activity? One could argue that this freedom is mitigated by the very nature of their status as damned. (A weak analogy might be that of a bug being flushed down the toilet. It may scramble and splah about freely, clinging to whatever it finds, but the current will inevitably drag it to the sewer. In the South where I grew up, we had stronger bugs of course - that is one place where the analogy falters!) The good, the true and the beautiful may be out of the demons' volitional reach but they certainly can and do take action against these things.

Maybe looking at the opposite side of eternity will help. Are we to say that those who are in heaven lose their freedom to act because of their eternal state in communion with God?

One other point: I have always understood that the angels are in fact persons; created in the image of God as spirit/fire possessing the powers of intelligence and freedom and the capacity for interpersonal communion with God, one another and with human beings. Each member of the vast array of Heavenly Hosts reflects in his own way the attributes, glory and power of God.

As human beings, we exist as persons, but our nature is both spiritual and corporeal. (The curse of the fall of Adam resulted in the eventual separation of these two realities at death; a curse lifted in the Resurrection of the New Adam.) Our personhood is made manifest in the communion of these two realities: spiritual and corporeal. Therefore my body is as much my person as my soul is.

Anyway, that is my understanding of things. For now, I place my hand over my mouth (or keyboard!)



Gordo, sfo
Cantor and Catechist

Dear Gordo,

Much of your reply sounds similar to the arguments made by St. Thomas Aquinas:

http://newadvent.org/summa/105903.htm

St. Augustine on the other hand seems to imply that there is not much we can know about them. He says that they are spirit by nature; angel is their office. However, their office reveals nothing of their nature.

I guess what I want to know is unknowable, that is, what is the angelic nature.

John

Really? Then I am merely an Accidental Thomist! (Although I certainly respect the Angelic Doctor...)

Sed contra: - oops! I wonder - is that completely true? I would think the many visitations of angels throughout salvation history would reveal something of their nature.

The Talmud says that the essence of angelic being is fire. Of course, that may only serve as an analogy. I suppose it is as difficult as defining the nature of the human soul.

Gordo, sfo