Whether the Higher Angels Understand by More Universal Species Than
the Lower Angels?
Objection 1: It would seem that the higher angels do not understand
by more universal species than the lower angels. For the universal,
seemingly, is what is abstracted from particulars. But angels do not
understand by species abstracted from things. Therefore it cannot be
said that the species of the angelic intellect are more or less
universal.
Obj. 2: Further, whatever is known in detail is more perfectly known
than what is known generically; because to know anything generically
is, in a fashion, midway between potentiality and act. If, therefore,
the higher angels know by more universal species than the lower, it
follows that the higher have a more imperfect knowledge than the
lower; which is not befitting.
Obj. 3: Further, the same cannot be the proper type of many. But if
the higher angel knows various things by one universal form, which
the lower angel knows by several special forms, it follows that the
higher angel uses one universal form for knowing various things.
Therefore he will not be able to have a proper knowledge of each;
which seems unbecoming.
_On the contrary,_ Dionysius says (Coel. Hier. xii) that the higher
angels have a more universal knowledge than the lower. And in _De
Causis_ it is said that the higher angels have more universal forms.
_I answer that,_ For this reason are some things of a more exalted
nature, because they are nearer to and more like unto the first, which
is God. Now in God the whole plenitude of intellectual knowledge is
contained in one thing, that is to say, in the Divine essence, by
which God knows all things. This plenitude of knowledge is found in
created intellects in a lower manner, and less simply. Consequently it
is necessary for the lower intelligences to know by many forms what
God knows by one, and by so many forms the more according as the
intellect is lower.
Thus the higher the angel is, by so much the fewer species will he be
able to apprehend the whole mass of intelligible objects. Therefore
his forms must be more universal; each one of them, as it were,
extending to more things. An example of this can in some measure be
observed in ourselves. For some people there are who cannot grasp an
intelligible truth, unless it be explained to them in every part and
detail; this comes of their weakness of intellect: while there are
others of stronger intellect, who can grasp many things from few.
Reply Obj. 1: It is accidental to the universal to be abstracted from
particulars, in so far as the intellect knowing it derives its
knowledge from things. But if there be an intellect which does not
derive its knowledge from things, the universal which it knows will
not be abstracted from things, but in a measure will be pre-existing
to them; either according to the order of causality, as the universal
ideas of things are in the Word of God; or at least in the order of
nature, as the universal ideas of things are in the angelic mind.
Reply Obj. 2: To know anything universally can be taken in two
senses. In one way, on the part of the thing known, namely, that only
the universal nature of the thing is known. To know a thing thus is
something less perfect: for he would have but an imperfect knowledge
of a man who only knew him to be an animal. In another way, on the
part of the medium of such knowledge. In this way it is more perfect
to know a thing in the universal; for the intellect, which by one
universal medium can know each of the things which are properly
contained in it, is more perfect than one which cannot.
Reply Obj. 3: The same cannot be the proper and adequate type of
several things. But if it be eminent, then it can be taken as the
proper type and likeness of many. Just as in man, there is a
universal prudence with respect to all the acts of the virtues; which
can be taken as the proper type and likeness of that prudence which
in the lion leads to acts of magnanimity, and in the fox to acts of
wariness; and so on of the rest. The Divine essence, on account of
Its eminence, is in like fashion taken as the proper type of each
thing contained therein: hence each one is likened to It according to
its proper type. The same applies to the universal form which is in
the mind of the angel, so that, on account of its excellence, many
things can be known through it with a proper knowledge.
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