"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.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Q63 A5: Whether the devil was wicked by the fault of his own will in the first instant of his creation?
No. It was impossible for the angel to sin in the first instant by an inordinate act of free-will because the agent which brought the angels into existence, namely, God, cannot be the cause of sin.