Dear Father Bellon, 

I am a scholar of modern philosophy (in particular Descartes, Leibniz and Kant). I am writing to you because an issue arose between me and my colleagues on which we were unable to reach an agreement: the knowledge that the Angels of God have, according to Catholic theology.

Is angelic knowledge of the Supreme Being obtained through intellectual intuition or in a mediated way? Furthermore, are there differences between the knowledge that the Angels have of God, compared to that enjoyed by the blessed in Heaven?

And finally I wanted to ask you about the type of knowledge enjoyed by the Blessed Virgin Mary of God (if you can also tell me the differences and analogies with the angelic one and that of the Blessed).

I greet you warmly and thank you in advance for your splendid work of evangelization.

Luca

Priest’s response

Dear Luca,

1. in angels it is necessary to distinguish three ways of knowing God.

They can know by the strength of their natural intelligence, by the strength of grace and by the strength of the beatific vision.

In any case, they always know according to their own way of knowing which is intuitive, that is, without reasoning.

Knowing intuitively means being able to know all things simultaneously without reasoning, while we humans know one thing after another through reasoning.

Here’s what St. Thomas says: “Reasoning recalls the idea of ​​motion. Now, every motion goes from a preceding term to a following one. We therefore have rational cognition when we move from something already known to knowledge of something still unknown” (Summa theologica, I, 58, 3, ad 3). Behold, this is the way of knowing of men, but not of angels

2. When, however, “in perceiving one thing the other is simultaneously perceived, as someone who, when looking at the mirror, simultaneously sees the mirror and the image of a given thing, then cognition cannot be called discursive. Now, the angels know things in the Word precisely in this way” (Summa theologica, I, 58, 3, ad 3) and that is, in an intuitive manner.

For this reason the angels were called “divine minds” by Dionysius the mystic because their knowledge is “deiform”. In fact, they do not acquire knowledge from things, nor from the senses, nor from reasoning, as happens with us men.

They see everything in God and God’s way.

3. As necessary as the distinction between the natural order and the supernatural order is, it must be said that from the beginning the angels were created in grace, although not yet in glory, that is, in the beatific vision.

St. Thomas writes: “Although opinions differ since some say “that the angels were created in pure nature” and others say “that they were created in grace”; However, it seems that it should be considered more probable and more in conformity with the doctrine of the Saints that the angels were created in possession of habitual grace” (Summa theologica I, 62,3).

From the beginning, therefore, they had a supernatural and intuitive knowledge of God, stronger than that which we have of God through faith.

We could say that their knowledge of God was comparable to the experience of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which make us know the realities of God in an intuitive and supernatural way, in God’s way.

4. Precisely by virtue of this knowledge and the grace that accompanied them they were able to deserve to achieve supernatural bliss through the beatific vision.

Here’s what St. Thomas says again: “Perfect bliss is natural only for God, for whom being and being blessed are the same thing.

For all creatures, however, being blessed is not part of their nature, but is their ultimate goal. (…).

Now, ultimate bliss surpasses angelic and human nature.

It therefore remains that both man and angel had to deserve their beatitude.

Now, if the angels were created in grace, without which there can be no merit, it can be affirmed without difficulty that they deserved their beatitude” (Summa theologica, I, 62, 4).

If the elevation to the state of grace occurred in the instant of creation, the act with which they deserved the beatific vision and beatitude came immediately afterwards (Ib., I, 62, 5).

5. To come to your second question, it must be said that in heaven our way of seeing God and everything that is in him will be similar to that of the angels.

Jesus says about the resurrection and the future life that the righteous “can no longer die, because they are equal to the angels” (Lk 20:36).

There in the homeland, says Saint Augustine, “our thoughts will not be fickle, passing and returning from one thing to another, but we will embrace all our knowledge with a single glance” (De Trinitate, m 15,16), just like the Angels do.

6. Regarding the knowledge that Mary has in heaven, it must be remembered that she too, like the angels, enjoys a deiform way of knowing.

Yet her knowledge surpasses that of all the angels and saints combined.

In this regard, I translate what the Dominican Father Reginaldo Garrigou Lagrange writes in a sublime page on the knowledge of Mary in Paradise:

“Just as the initial fullness of grace in Mary certainly surpassed the final grace of all the greatest saints and all the highest angels, so it is equally very probable if not certain – and we have seen it – that it surpassed the final grace of all the saints and angels put together. This initial fullness was given to her so that she could be the worthy Mother of God and divine motherhood – it would never be too much to repeat – is for her term of the hypostatic order. It therefore follows that Mary’s essential beatitude surpasses that of all the saints put together.

In other words, just as the sight of the eagle surpasses that of all men placed at the same point of observation, as the intellectual value of Saint Thomas exceeds that of all his commentators put together, and as the authority of a king surpasses that of all his ministers put together, so Mary’s beatific vision penetrates more deeply the essence of God seen face to face than the vision of all the other blessed, with the exception of the holy soul of Jesus.

Although all angelic intelligences are naturally stronger than the human intelligence of Mary, and even that of Christ, the human intelligence of the Holy Virgin penetrates more deeply the divine essence intuitively known because it is more elevated and fortified by a light of glory much more intense. (…)

Furthermore, just as the blessed see many more things in God in proportion to the extension of their mission, … so Mary, in her capacity as Mother of God, universal mediatrix, co-redemptrix, queen of the Angels, of all the saints and of all the universe sees many more things in God, in the Word, than all the other blessed ones.

There is no one above her in glory other than our Lord, who through his human intelligence, illumined by a higher light of glory, penetrates the essence of God into an even greater depth and thus knows certain secrets that escape to Mary, because they belong only to Him as Savior, High Priest and universal King.

Maria comes immediately after him.

This is why the liturgy states, on the feast of August 15, that Mary has been elevated above the choirs of angels and that she is at the right hand of her Son (Ps 44.10).

It constitutes a separate order in the hierarchy of the blessed, higher and above the seraphim, says Saint Albert the Great (Mariale 151)…

This doctrine is found explicitly in Saint Germanus of Constantinople, Saint Modestus, Saint John Damascene, Saint Anselm, Saint Bernard, Saint Albert the Great, Saint Bonaventure, Saint Thomas and all the other doctors ” (La Mère di Sauver et notre vie interierure , pp. 168-170).

7. This page by Father Garrigou makes us understand in what way Mary’s knowledge is similar to that of the Angels in Heaven and at the same time in what way, unspeakable for us, it surpasses it immensely, because it is superior to that of all the Angels and the Saints put together.

It is of an order apart, as Saint Albert the Great says, below only that of the human soul of Jesus Christ.

I thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the Blessed Virgin and the knowledge with which she follows us from Paradise.

This is why our veneration and our reliance on Her is never too much.

I also thank you for the respect with which you follow us.

I assure you of a particular memory in my prayer and I bless you.

Father Angelo

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