"It is because the contemporary alternatives seem so one-sided and are not more evidently solutions to the problems which Thomas faced, and partly solved, that we return to him and to the tradition of theology and philosophy in which his Summa Theologiae appears: theology as the science of the first principle and this as the total knowledge of reality in its unity." -- Wayne J. Hankey, God in Himself (Oxford University Press, 1987), p.159.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Q62 A6: Whether the angels receive grace and glory according to the degree of their natural gifts?
Yes. It is reasonable to suppose that gifts of graces and perfection of beatitude were bestowed on the angels according to the degree of their natural gifts because it seems that God destined those angels for greater gifts of grace and fuller beatitude, whom He made of a higher nature, and because the angel is not a compound of different natures, so that the inclination of the one thwarts or retards the tendency of the other; as happens in man, in whom the movement of his intellective part is either retarded or thwarted by the inclination of his sensitive part.