Whether the Angels Have a Cause of Their Existence?
Objection 1: It would seem that the angels have no cause of their
existence. For the first chapter of Genesis treats of things created
by God. But there is no mention of angels. Therefore the angels were
not created by God.
Obj. 2: Further, the Philosopher says (Metaph. viii, text. 16) that
if any substance be a form without matter, "straightway it has being
and unity of itself, and has no cause of its being and unity." But
the angels are immaterial forms, as was shown above (Q. 50, A. 2).
Therefore they have no cause of their being.
Obj. 3: Further, whatever is produced by any agent, from the very
fact of its being produced, receives form from it. But since the
angels are forms, they do not derive their form from any agent.
Therefore the angels have no active cause.
_On the contrary,_ It is said (Ps. 148:2): "Praise ye Him, all His
angels"; and further on, verse 5: "For He spoke and they were made."
_I answer that,_ It must be affirmed that angels and everything
existing, except God, were made by God. God alone is His own
existence; while in everything else the essence differs from the
existence, as was shown above (Q. 3, A. 4). From this it is clear
that God alone exists of His own essence: while all other things have
their existence by participation. Now whatever exists by participation
is caused by what exists essentially; as everything ignited is caused
by fire. Consequently the angels, of necessity, were made by God.
Reply Obj. 1: Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xi, 50) that the angels
were not passed over in that account of the first creation of things,
but are designated by the name "heavens" or of "light." And they were
either passed over, or else designated by the names of corporeal
things, because Moses was addressing an uncultured people, as yet
incapable of understanding an incorporeal nature; and if it had been
divulged that there were creatures existing beyond corporeal nature,
it would have proved to them an occasion of idolatry, to which they
were inclined, and from which Moses especially meant to safeguard
them.
Reply Obj. 2: Substances that are subsisting forms have no 'formal'
cause of their existence and unity, nor such active cause as produces
its effect by changing the matter from a state of potentiality to
actuality; but they have a cause productive of their entire substance.
From this the solution of the third difficulty is manifest.
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