Dropping the sole remark, that scholasticism has no sense of humour, we pass on to Thomas’s careful consideration of the angelic relations to space or locality (Qu. lii. and liii.). “Equivocally only may it be said that an angel is in a place (in loco): through application of the angelic virtue to some corporeal spot, the angel may be said in some sense to be there.” But, as angels are finite, when one is said, in this sense, to be in a place, he is not elsewhere too (like God). Yet the place where the angel is need not be an indivisible point, but may be larger or smaller, as the angel wills to apply his virtue to a larger or smaller body. Two angels may not be in the same place at the same time, “because it is impossible that there should be two complete immediate causes of one and the same thing.” Angels are said, likewise equivocally, to move, in a sense analogous to that in which they are said to be in a place. Such equivocal motion may be continuous or not. If not continuous, evidently the angel may pass from one place to another without traversing the intervening spaces. The angelic movement must take place in time; there must be a before and after to it, and yet not necessarily with any period intervening.
Now as to angelic knowledge: De cognitione Angelorum. Knowing is no easy thing for man; and we shall see that it is not a simple matter to know, without the senses to provide the data and help build up knowledge in the mind. The function of sense, or its absence, conditions much besides the mere acquisition of the elements from which men form their thoughts. Thomas’s exposition of angelic knowledge and modes of knowing is a logical and consistent presentation of a supersensual psychology and theory of knowledge.
Entering upon his subject, Thomas shows (Qu. liv.) that knowing (intelligere) is not the substantia or the esse of an angel. Knowing is actio, which is the actuality of faculty, as being (esse) is the actuality of substance. God alone is actus purus (absolute realized actuality), free from potentiality. His substantia is His being and His action (suum esse and suum agere). “But neither in an angel, nor in any creature, is virtus or the potentia operativa the same as the creature’s essentia,” or its esse or substantia. The difficult scholastic-Aristotelian categories of intellectus agens and possibilis do not apply to angelic cognition (for which the reader and the angels may be thankful). The angels, being immaterial intelligences, have no share in those faculties of the human soul, like sight or hearing, which are exercised through bodily organs. They possess only intelligence and will. “It accords with the order of the universe that the supreme intellectual creature should be intelligent altogether, and not intelligent in part, like our souls.”
Quaestio lv., concerning the medium cognitionis angelicae, is a scholastic discussion scarcely to be rendered in modern language. The angelic intelligence is capable of knowing all things; and therefore an angel does not know through the medium of his essentia or substantia, which are limited. God alone knows all things through His essentia. The angelic intellect is made perfect for knowing by means of certain forms or ideas (species). These are not received from things, but are part of the angelic nature (connaturales). The angelic intelligence (potentia intellectiva) is completed through general concepts, of the same nature with itself (species intelligibiles connaturales). These come to angels from God at the same time with their being. Such concepts or ideas cover everything that they can know by nature (naturaliter). And Thomas proves that the higher angels know through fewer and more universal concepts than the lower.
“In God an entire plenitude of intellectual cognition is held in one, to wit, in the divine essence through which God knows all things. Intelligent creatures possess such cognition in inferior mode and less simply. What God knows through one, inferior intelligences know through many; and this many becomes more as the inferiority increases. Hence the higher angel may know the sum total of the intelligible (universitatem intelligibilium) through fewer ideas or concepts (species); which, however, are more universal since each concept extends to more [things]. We find illustration of this among our fellows. Some are incapable of grasping intelligible truth, unless it be set forth through particular examples. This comes from the weakness of their intelligence. But others, of stronger mind, can seize many things from a few statements” (Qu. lv. Art. 3).
Through this argument, and throughout the rest of his exposition of the knowledge of God, angel, and man, we perceive that, with Thomas, knowledge is superior and more delightful, as it is abstract in character, and universal in applicability. By knowing the abstract and the universal we become like to God and the angels; knowledge of and through the particular is but a necessity of our half-material nature.
Thomas turns now to consider the knowledge had by angels of immaterial beings, i.e. themselves and God (Qu. lvi.): “An angel, being immaterial, is a subsisting form, and therefore intelligible actually (actu, i.e. not potentially). Wherefore, through its form, which is its substance, it knows itself.” Then as to knowledge of each other: God from the beginning impressed upon the angelic mind the likenesses of things which He created. For in Him, from the beginning, were the rationes of all things, both spiritual and corporeal. Through the impression of these rationes upon the angelic mind, an angel knows other angels as well as corporeal creatures. Their natures also yield them some knowledge of God. The angelic nature is a mirror holding the divine similitude. Yet without the illumination of grace the angelic nature knows not God in His essence, because no created likeness may represent that.
As for material things (Qu. lvii.), angels have knowledge of them through the intelligible species or concepts impressed by God on the angelic mind. But do they know particulars—singularia? To deny it, says Thomas, would detract from the faith which accords to angels the ministration of affairs. This matter may be thought thus:
“Things flow forth from God both as they subsist in their own natures and as they are in the angelic cognition. Evidently what flowed from God in things pertained not only to their universal nature, but to their principles of individuation.... And as He causes, so He also knows.... Likewise the angel, through the concepts (species) planted in him by God, knows things not only according to their universal nature, but also according to their singularity, in so far as they are manifold representations of the one and simple essence.”
One observes that the whole scholastic discussion of universals lies back of arguments like these.