Thomas Aquinas, Disputed Questions on Truth (De Veritate)

1. Whenever arrival and departure are involved, there is necessarily a determinate distance. But, as Maximus says, angels see each other's thoughts as they approach and depart from one another. Therefore.

2. According to Damascene, an angel is where he operates. Consequently, if he speaks to another angel, he must be where his listener is; hence, some determinate distance is involved.

3. We read in Isaias (6:3): "They cried one to another." Now, the only reason for making cries is that a distance separates us from the one to whom we are speaking. Therefore, it seems that distance impedes the speech of angels.

4. Speech must be carried from the one speaking to the one listening. Now, this is not possible unless local distance separates the angel speaking from the one listening, because spiritual speech cannot be carried by a material medium. Therefore, local distance impedes the speech of angels.

5. If Peter's soul were on earth, it would know the events taking place here; but, since it is in heaven, it does not. Hence, the gloss of Augustine on Isaias (63:16), "Abraham hath not known us," says: "The dead"--even the saints--"do not know what the living are doing" -even their own sons. Consequently, local distance impedes the cognition of a separated soul, and, by the same reasoning, that of angels, and also their speech.

To the Contrary:

The greatest possible distance separates paradise from hell; but the blessed and the damned can see each other, especially before the day of final judgment. This is clear from Luke's account of Lazarus and the rich man (Luke 16:19-31). Consequently, no local distance impedes the cognition of a separated soul or that of an angel. By the same reasoning, it does not impede angels' speech.

REPLY:

An agent acts according to its manner of existing. Hence, things that are material and circumscribed by place have actions that are material and circumscribed by place; and things that are spiritual act in a spiritual manner only. Consequently, because an angel as a knower is in no way circumscribed by place, the action of his intellect has no relation to place. Hence, since his speech is an operation of his intellect, local distance or proximity does not affect it. Therefore, one angel can understand the speech of another, whether that other be in a near or distant place--in the sense in which we say that angels are in place.

Answers to Difficulties:

1. That arrival and departure should be understood, not according to place, but according to the angels' turning to one another.

2. The statement that an angel is where he operates is to be understood as referring to an operation which he carries out on some body; and this operation gets its place from that in which it terminates. Angelic speech, however, is not an operation of this kind. Hence, the argument does not follow.

3. The cries which the Seraphim are said to have made signify rather the magnitude of the things they spoke about, namely, the unity of God's essence and the trinity of the persons; for they said: "Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God of hosts . . ." (Isaias 6:3).

4. As already stated, the angel addressed does not receive anything from the one speaking; but, through species within himself, he knows the other angel as well as what he is saying. Consequently, there is no need of positing a medium by which something could be carried from one angel to another.

5. Augustine is speaking about the natural knowledge souls have. Through this, not even the saints can know what takes place here on earth. They can know these events, however, by means of the glory they have received. Gregory states this explicitly when commenting on that verse in Job (14:21): "Whether his children come to honor or dishonor, he shall not understand." But angels have a natural knowledge that is more perfect than that of the separated soul. Hence, no parallel can be drawn between a soul and an angel.