The Fall Of Angels, Time, And Free Will

[icelandic_iceskater]

Do angels have free will? I'm pretty sure I've always been taught that they do, but...

How could a being which exists outside of time have fallen? How could a creature turn from God when everything exists in an eternal now? Wouldn't their choice to either follow God or not follow God also be infinitely now? And if so, how can something which is eternally present change?

[Thy Geekdom Come]

You're catching an apparent paradox in the logic I and others have used to explain how angels can't change their minds after the fall. However God worked it out, we know that they were made good and had a choice to act badly. Personally, I would explain it this way: there is no paradox because there are two different sets of moral beings and actions. In one and the same "moment," God acts by creating the angels good and the angels act by choosing evil. There was no change because their having been created good didn't change with the fall (demons are intrinsically good, as part of creation) and their having been created by God doesn't mean that they willed good at their creation, only to change their will (God never sets our will one way or the other, not even at our creation). So I would answer that there wasn't a change of their inherent nature, nor a true change of their will (the first exercise of their will was for evil). They were created good and remain good as creatures, but they chose evil in their "first moment" and still live eternally that evil choice.

That's just speculative, but I hope it helps. :-)

God bless,

Micah

[Theologian in Training]

There is what is believed to be something called aeviternity. Eternity is where God dwells, time is where we are, always subject to a linear change and then there is what is known as aeviternity. Essentially, what this is a change in "accidents"not in being or essence. Frank Sheed, the author of a great book entitled [i]Theology and Sanity[/i] explains it in this way: "the word [i]aevum[/i] or [i]aeviternity[/i], the duration of that which in its essence or substance knows no change: though by its accidents it can know change, and to that extent is in time too, but a sort of discontinuous time, not the ever-flowing time of matter." In other words, as created being the angels do experience a sense of time, not the same way we do currently and not the way God does, but a "spiritual time," as it were, in which there is an element of change, which is what time, by its very nature is, the duration of some type of change.

With their being created, just like any other being, they, too, were given free will and the ability to choose right from wrong, good from evil. How long it took after their creation is anyone's guess, however, it stands to reason, that God tested them, their fidelity, giving them the choice. They were given a test, no one knows exactly what that test was, but some failed that test, the chief among them Lucifer (Light-Bearer) believed to be one of the greatest angels who fell as a result of this test. Some believe that he was jealous when God made us, seeing that we were not just pure spirit but both spirit and matter, having the "best of both worlds," as it were. Regardless, his choice and the choice of countless other angels led to corruption of their will, so much so, that they were unable to be redeemed. Many believe their first choice was for themselves and in this self-love they came to hate God and therefore reject Him. In fact, many are wont to say that the deepest recesses of Hell are cold, because the love of God is absent.

Therefore, what this also means is that free will is still observed even in the spiritual world, how that is, truly is a mystery, but in the words of Frank Sheed: "It may be, perhaps, that just as our being does not limit God's infinite Being, so our freedom does not limit God's infinite Power."

God bless

Fr. Brian