Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Q54 A3: Whether an angel's power of intelligence is his essence?

No. The angel's essence is not his power of intelligence (nor is the essence of any creature its power of operation) because in every creature the essence differs from the existence, and is compared to it as potentiality is to act (Q44, A1).

An angel is called "intellect" and "mind," because all his knowledge is intellectual: whereas the knowledge of a soul is partly intellectual and partly sensitive.