The Path from Angel to Demon in Catholic Doctrines and the Sacraments

Since the 4th century, nine highest orders or types of angels are identified in the Bible and have been elaborated by various theologians: The first three choirs of angel see and adore God directly. The seraphim (higher angels), which means “the burning ones,” have the most intense “flaming” love for God and understand him with the greatest clarity. The cherubim angels recognized in Judaism and Christianity which means contemplates God’s divine providence and plan for his creatures. Lastly, the thrones, symbolizes divine justice and judicial power, think about God’s power and justice. It is believed that the God created the angels before the rest of creation. At some point after the creation of Angel, some angels, led by Lucifer, rebelled against God. These angels decided to make a free choice, radically and irrevocably rejecting God and his rule. Therefore, they were cast into hell as punishment for their action. This event is mentioned briefly, in several passages of the New Testament. They didn’t require a language as they communicate directly by one intellect engaging another, thought to thought. They observe all the effects directly and immediately in their causes, all the conclusions in the premises. Therefore, they have no need to reason as humans do. Philosophers called their intellectual activity “intuition.” They recognize rather than think. there are huge numbers of them that the angels cannot be counted by our numerical systems or standards, but they and God know how many of them there are. And yet, as Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches, each angel is unique, and no other angel is the similar. They see the candor of things directly, so it is not possible for an angel to make an incorrect judgment. They do not know everything, so they can be ignorant sometime.

But they can never be wrong or mistaken about what they have knowledge about. Angels also have a will. It is their own intellect and will, and sanctifying grace, that makes them the imitation and likeness of God. Due to the free will angels have, they could choose in their trial state to obey or disobey God. Some believe that even after our death, the angels continue to guide us in our journey to our final place, whether it is Heaven or Hell, those who have to go through the final stage of purification on the way to Heaven known as “Purgatory” might also have their guardian angels with them during their time of cleansing of sin. Our Guardian Angels love us and do everything within God’s Will to protect us from evil and demons. Sometimes we even reject God’s grace of protection and by consequence theirs when we reject God and we will have to face the consequences of our sins when we do not express the sincere regret. Angels also pray for human. Angels are pure spirits who are intelligent and have free will. They were created sinless and given the gift of grace. They were put to a test and those who passed the test were saved and brought into heavenly beatitude. In the heaven, they were added the gifts that come from heavenly glory, especially the direct vision of God, which was not natural to them. Those that failed the test were sent to hell, as a punishment for them. Those fallen angels were tortured in various ways suitable to their angelic nature. Though they did not have the gift of heavenly beatitude that the good angels were enjoying, their natural capacities were not diminished in the fall. They would always remain naturally superior than human.

Demons are the dark – fallen angels who worship Satan rather than God. They can be called as agent of evil. Satan and these agents decided to go against the God, as they see Satan as their ruler. They can do any kind evil activities to interfere gods plan and hinder his people. Demons rejected god completely, desperately wanting us to be separated from god. While the description of demons/fallen angels and their efforts might sound scary, keep in mind they have defeated enemies of God. Colossians 2:15 says that Christ has “disarmed the powers and authorities” and that he has “made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” The love and grace of God conquered sin and death, taking victory over Satan and his fake promises. While we are guarded by a specific angel and engaged in battles and victories, God used his angels to complete his objective of guarding his followers and human from the enemy and his evil ways. We are secured from the bad one, and the evil forces around us in this world. We are accountable for recognizing them, and when we find the existence of evil, we should respond accordingly. Angels ultimately want to bring us closer to God, while fallen Angels badly want us to be separated from God. The Angels will guide us closer to God, whereas demons will split us from God through distraction. They do this by showing up in the form of false gods so that we lose vision of the one true God. False gods are described in the Bible as any different being or things other than God. These fake gods can come up in the form of money, work, relationships and power among other things. Another major difference is how angels and demons show up in the human form. While angels and demons aren’t always in human form, they can show up this way as well. However, their objectives are very different. Angels appear in human form to show their love and affection for people. Demons will enter the people’s body to take on the form of those they are striking.

Jesus encountered many demons during his life on earth. Matthew 8:16 - “When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick.” Jesus was able to drive out the spirits with one word. The Bible also mentions that demons were scared from Jesus. The demons who knew Jesus was well - aware that end would be of agonize. They recognized his power and shivered in his presence. Satan and his minions are limited in what they can do. Should God allow them to use the full power of their angelic natures against us, they would have an unfair benefit. Yet, as we see in so many passages of the Bible, the stories of Job and Tobias in the Old Testament, and the various demoniacs that Our Lord and the Apostles exercised. The demons do have God’s leave to assault us in violent ways. Not interested in extraordinary diabolical activity, such as possession, oppression, obsession, and the like. I am rather interested in the ordinary diabolic activity, to which all of us are subject. Regarding the demons’ “proper office” of tempting us, remember that temptation is not evil, it is actually an occasion for merit. In this way do the saints amaze the devils and bring glory and honor to God from the very activity of the demons themselves. Between temptation and sin, there is a chasm, and that chasm can only be bridged by our free will accepting to the evil proposed to it. A million temptations do not make a sin, just as a million venial sins do not make a mortal sin. These three things; temptations, mortal sin, and venial sin differ not in degree but in type. The demons collect strategic observation as they tempt. They learn from their past experiences and are good students of fallen human nature.

Therefore, they tempt us now in one way, or another, observing all until they get some result or not. It is believed that Satan himself tempted Jesus three times with three distinct sins: gluttony, avarice, and pride. Besides tempting us to sin, they also prompt us to make mistakes in judgment that are not sinful in themselves but could lead others into occasions of sin. For example, if someone in a position of authority makes a fallacy in judgment, this can affect those dependent on him and cause their conquest. This is one reason we should pray for those in authority, especially the Holy Father and the Bishops. Ever thought how demons persuade? They have no access to our intellect or our free will. They simply cannot know our actual thoughts or move our volition. But our bodies, our passions/emotions, and our internal senses, especially the sense of memory and imagination are all subject to the satanic power. Just because the demons cannot access our intellects does not mean that they cannot impact them. By digging up the various images stored in our subconscious mind, they can indirectly affect our brain and will. According to Saint Thomas, they cannot put images in our memory that were not already there. They can only access previously-stored sense data, presenting them to us in various combinations in a provocative way. As Satan is called not only “the tempter” but also “a liar and the father thereof we know that his malefic includes lying deception. This goes for his fellow demons, too. Given what has been said of their power over the sense memory and imagination, they are capable of presenting images in our brains that we later make into ideas in our minds. From these ideas, we can form judgments that are false and reasonings that are inaccurate. Thus, does he turn against each other those who should be allies. Then does he stir up negativities of all sorts. Thus, does he bring marriages to ruin. (Bailey)

Saint Thomas says that the natural knowledge the demons had before their fall is not declined. There remain two more types of knowledge that the angels have, both from grace, speculative knowledge from revelation and “effective” knowledge which produces the love of God, and which belongs to the gift of Wisdom. The first of these is reduced in the demons since they do not know all that God has revealed to the good angels. The Angelic Doctor says, “But of the third knowledge, as likewise of charity, they are completely deprived.”

These considerations lead us to a conclusion: When we are in the grips of anger, hatred etc. we are on familiar territory to the demons, for these are their characteristics. However, when, under the influence of the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, we practice such things as “charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, fidelity, modesty, continency, and chastity” we are in region completely alien to the Enemy. It surprises him.

Catechism of the catholic church; summary of the beliefs of the Catholic faithful. The choice to publish a catechism was taken at the second extraordinary general assembly of the synod of bishops that was convened by Pope John Paul II on January 25th, 1985. The Catechism states, “From infancy to death human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession” asserted, “Beside each believer stands an angel protector and shepherd leading him to life.” Most of us at an early age learned the little prayer to our guardian angel: “Angel of God, my guardian dear, to whom God’s love commits me here. Ever this day be at my side, to light, to guard, to rule, to guide.”

This topic Angel/Demons truly applies in my own life and even in the surroundings around me. It applies in a sense that Angel refers to those who wants or wishes good for us while Demons refers to ones who is trying to do bad things with us. In our daily life, we encounter both Angels/Demons. As mentioned above Angels were created at the beginning and Demons later; Similarly, we were also born with the Living Angels i.e. our parents. Our parents are not less than Angels. They are the ones who gave birth to us by the grace of god. Our Mother and Father are our creator. They are the ones who teaches us all the good morals, social norms and values, behavior rules, laws and regulations etc. In my opinion they are our mortal Angels who possess living body and they should be worshipped, respected and treated properly. Sometimes we see them yelling and even beating us for something wrong we did but, they are doing those activities for our own good. No parents in the world would hope or do anything bad for their own blood. God didn’t make any one so cruel. Parents are like second God. We are in this World because of them. They know what is good and bad for us. If we were to listen to our parents and follow them in our life, we would live a happy and prosperous life.

On the other hand, As Demon/Fallen Angel were not made initially at the time of creation. Angels became Demon because of their free will by not following/obeying the god. Instead they followed the Lucifer and revolted against god that’s why they were sent to hell as a punishment. In our daily life as well, we have the free will and ability to think and reason for our moral actions. As God gave the Ten Commandments in the Old Testament after rescuing the Israelites from Egypt to maintain discipline and order among them, our world has certain rules, laws and regulations made by Government Officials and Higher Authorities to maintain peace and order. After coming to this world, we are also required to follow them. Similarly, Human Beings also possess the free will either to follow them or go against them. That decision or choice will decide our lives here, we live as Angels in Heaven or Demons in Hell. Talking about the Moral Ten Commandments; they are nonetheless than man made rules. If you don’t follow them and God. You are most likely to be victim of Demons. Demons roam around this world in various - different abstract forms such as lies, temptation, Adultery, Anger, Provocation, stealing, violence and envy etc. Our Mortal Angels (Parents) will warn us about these things in our early childhood so that we don’t fall for them. After that it is all on us how we decide to live our life. In this Modern world we can observe in our daily life how much everyone is demonic in nature. It looks like everybody is possessed by Demons. Everyday in the news we got hear about people killing each other, robbing, seducing, betrayal and wars. Everybody is hungry about money. People are willing to do anything for certain amount money whether be killing, stealing or robbing etc. People have lost all their moral values and capacity to reason what they are doing. People have lost their faiths in God and they are not scared of their moral actions and their afterlife.

The reason I chose this topic was that growing up I would hear stories about angels and how God created them to protect us. We all can imagine angels to be very beautiful, winged beings, dressed in all white and maybe even glowing. I grew to think that angels should not be prayed or worshiped. while doing this research paper, being forced to be in certain religions and being able to read and talk about the bible. I was able to learn a lot more about the purpose of Angels. The presence of Mortal Angels in our life who is playing vital role in guiding and protecting us from the demons. I also got to understand more about why demons are considered evil, what made them evil and how they wanted to keep us away from God. The unseen demonic forms that can destroy our life and take us to hell because of our sins. It can tie into the way you live, you go about your day and decide what things are good and bad. Basically, can change your sense of good and bad. In our daily prayers, we should be mindful of those servants of God who by his love keep us completely safe from harm and guide us through the correct path of salvation.