(4) Whether he understands by composing and dividing?
(5) Whether there can be error in the angel's intellect?
(6) Whether his knowledge can be styled as morning and evening?
(7) Whether the morning and evening knowledge are the same, or do they differ? _______________________
FIRST ARTICLE [I, Q. 58, Art. 1]
Whether the Angel's Intellect Is Sometimes in Potentiality, Sometimes in Act?
Objection 1: It would seem that the angel's intellect is sometimes in potentiality and sometimes in act. For movement is the act of what is in potentiality, as stated in Phys. iii, 6. But the angels' minds are moved by understanding, as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. iv). Therefore the angelic minds are sometimes in potentiality.
Obj. 2: Further, since desire is of a thing not possessed but possible to have, whoever desires to know anything is in potentiality thereto. But it is said (1 Pet. 1:12): "On Whom the angels desire to look." Therefore the angel's intellect is sometimes in potentiality.
Obj. 3: Further, in the book De Causis it is stated that "an
intelligence understands according to the mode of its substance."
But the angel's intelligence has some admixture of potentiality.
Therefore it sometimes understands potentially.
On the contrary, Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. ii): "Since the angels were created, in the eternity of the Word, they enjoy holy and devout contemplation." Now a contemplating intellect is not in potentiality, but in act. Therefore the intellect of an angel is not in potentiality.