Whether Natural Knowledge and Love Remain in the Beatified Angels?
Objection 1: It would seem that natural knowledge and love do not
remain in the beatified angels. For it is said (1 Cor. 13:10): "When
that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be
done away." But natural love and knowledge are imperfect in comparison
with beatified knowledge and love. Therefore, in beatitude, natural
knowledge and love cease.
Obj. 2: Further, where one suffices, another is superfluous. But the
knowledge and love of glory suffice for the beatified angels.
Therefore it would be superfluous for their natural knowledge and
love to remain.
Obj. 3: Further, the same faculty has not two simultaneous acts, as
the same line cannot, at the same end, be terminated in two points.
But the beatified angels are always exercising their beatified
knowledge and love; for, as is said _Ethic._ i, 8, happiness consists
not in habit, but in act. Therefore there can never be natural
knowledge and love in the angels.
_On the contrary,_ So long as a nature endures, its operation
remains. But beatitude does not destroy nature, since it is its
perfection. Therefore it does not take away natural knowledge and
love.
_I answer that,_ Natural knowledge and love remain in the angels. For
as principles of operations are mutually related, so are the operations
themselves. Now it is manifest that nature is to beatitude as first to
second; because beatitude is superadded to nature. But the first must
ever be preserved in the second. Consequently nature must be preserved
in beatitude: and in like manner the act of nature must be preserved
in the act of beatitude.
Reply Obj. 1: The advent of a perfection removes the opposite
imperfection. Now the imperfection of nature is not opposed to the
perfection of beatitude, but underlies it; as the imperfection of the
power underlies the perfection of the form, and the power is not taken
away by the form, but the privation which is opposed to the form. In
the same way, the imperfection of natural knowledge is not opposed to
the perfection of the knowledge in glory; for nothing hinders us from
knowing a thing through various mediums, as a thing may be known at
the one time through a probable medium and through a demonstrative
one. In like manner, an angel can know God by His essence, and this
appertains to his knowledge of glory; and at the same time he can know
God by his own essence, which belongs to his natural knowledge.
Reply Obj. 2: All things which make up beatitude are sufficient of
themselves. But in order for them to exist, they presuppose the
natural gifts; because no beatitude is self-subsisting, except the
uncreated beatitude.
Reply Obj. 3: There cannot be two operations of the one faculty at
the one time, except the one be ordained to the other. But natural
knowledge and love are ordained to the knowledge and love of glory.
Accordingly there is nothing to hinder natural knowledge and love
from existing in the angel conjointly with those of glory.
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