Reflecting on his guiding computer, SM Stirling's and David Drake's Raj Whitehall wonders:
"...how an angel came to be condemned to the cislunary sphere of Fallen corruption."
-The Hammer, CHAPTER NINE, p. 455.
CS Lewis' Ransom rose above that sphere:
"When I attempted to give Oyarsa some idea of our own Christian angelology, he certainly seemed to regard our 'angels' as different in some way from himself. But whether he meant that they were a different species, or only that they were some special military caste...I don't know."
-CS Lewis, Out Of The Silent Planet IN Lewis, The Cosmic Trilogy (London, 1990), pp. 1-144 AT Postscript, p. 142.
And neither do we!
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But angels are still pretty "big" among Catholics! A common belief is that we all have guardian angels, good spirits allowed by God to do as much as they are allowed to do to help us. And September 29 has been aside by the Catholic Church for honoring the archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael. And Isaiah 6 gives us a glimpse of the seraphim attending God in the Temple of Jerusalem (some believe the Person Isaiah saw was the pre-Incarnate Logos, Christ).
Sean
Sean,
But I knew a Jesuit who argued that Biblical angels were personifications of the presence of God and met a Catholic layman who argued, like van Rijn, that God was modeled on Earthly rulers, adding that He was therefore imagined in a court full of courtiers.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
But that Jesuit was absolutely wrong! The Catholic Church does not believe or teach that the angels were mere manifestations of the presence of God. Rather, the Church has insisted since at least the Fourth Lateran Council that the angels are real, non-corporeal beings created by God. And I think you forgot Nicholas van Rijn simply said that we pray to, and address God in terms similar to what was done for earthly rulers.
I see nothing odd or wrong in believing God has a COURT!
Sean
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