Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Q62 A9: Whether the beatified angels advance in beatitude?

No. The beatified angels can neither merit nor advance in beatitude because every rational creature is so led by God to the end of its beatitude, that from God's predestination it is brought even to a determinate degree of beatitude; consequently, when that degree is once secured, it cannot pass to a higher degree.

Merit and progress belong to this present condition of life. But angels are not wayfarers travelling towards beatitude, they are already in possession of beatitude.