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Objection 1: It would seem that the angels know secret thoughts.
For Gregory (Moral. xviii), explaining Job 28:17: "Gold
or crystal cannot equal it," says that "then," namely in the bliss
of those rising from the dead, "one shall be as evident to another as
he is to himself, and when once the mind of each is seen, his
conscience will at the same time be penetrated." But those who rise
shall be like the angels, as is stated (Mt. 22:30).
Therefore an angel can see what is in another's conscience.
Objection 2: Further, intelligible species bear the same relation
to the intellect as shapes do to bodies. But when the body is seen its
shape is seen. Therefore, when an intellectual substance is seen,
the intelligible species within it is also seen. Consequently, when
one angel beholds another, or even a soul, it seems that he can see
the thoughts of both.
Objection 3: Further, the ideas of our intellect resemble the angel
more than do the images in our imagination; because the former are
actually understood, while the latter are understood only potentially.
But the images in our imagination can be known by an angel as corporeal
things are known: because the imagination is a corporeal faculty.
Therefore it seems that an angel can know the thoughts of the
intellect.
On the contrary, What is proper to God does not belong to the
angels. But it is proper to God to read the secrets of hearts,
according to Jer. 17:9: "The heart is perverse above all
things, and unsearchable; who can know it? I am the Lord, Who
search the heart." Therefore angels do not know the secrets of
hearts.
I answer that, A secret thought can be known in two ways: first, in
its effect. In this way it can be known not only by an angel, but
also by man; and with so much the greater subtlety according as the
effect is the more hidden. For thought is sometimes discovered not
merely by outward act, but also by change of countenance; and doctors
can tell some passions of the soul by the mere pulse. Much more then
can angels, or even demons, the more deeply they penetrate those
occult bodily modifications. Hence Augustine says (De divin.
daemon.) that demons "sometimes with the greatest faculty learn
man's dispositions, not only when expressed by speech, but even when
conceived in thought, when the soul expresses them by certain signs in
the body"; although (Retract. ii, 30) he says "it cannot be
asserted how this is done."
In another way thoughts can be known as they are in the mind, and
affections as they are in the will: and thus God alone can know the
thoughts of hearts and affections of wills. The reason of this is,
because the rational creature is subject to God only, and He alone
can work in it Who is its principal object and last end: this will be
developed later (Question 63, Article 1; Question 105,
Article 5). Consequently all that is in the will, and all things
that depend only on the will, are known to God alone. Now it is
evident that it depends entirely on the will for anyone actually to
consider anything; because a man who has a habit of knowledge, or any
intelligible species, uses them at will. Hence the Apostle says (1
Cor. 2:11): "For what man knoweth the things of a man, but
the spirit of a man that is in him?"
Reply to Objection 1: In the present life one man's thought is not
known by another owing to a twofold hindrance; namely, on account of
the grossness of the body, and because the will shuts up its secrets.
The first obstacle will be removed at the Resurrection, and does not
exist at all in the angels; while the second will remain, and is in
the angels now. Nevertheless the brightness of the body will show
forth the quality of the soul; as to its amount of grace and of glory.
In this way one will be able to see the mind of another.
Reply to Objection 2: Although one angel sees the intelligible
species of another, by the fact that the species are proportioned to
the rank of these substances according to greater or lesser
universality, yet it does not follow that one knows how far another
makes use of them by actual consideration.
Reply to Objection 3: The appetite of the brute does not control
its act, but follows the impression of some other corporeal or
spiritual cause. Since, therefore, the angels know corporeal things
and their dispositions, they can thereby know what is passing in the
appetite or in the imaginative apprehension of the brute beasts, and
even of man, in so far as the sensitive appetite sometimes, through
following some bodily impression, influences his conduct, as always
happens in brutes. Yet the angels do not necessarily know the movement
of the sensitive appetite and the imaginative apprehension of man in so
far as these are moved by the will and reason; because, even the lower
part of the soul has some share of reason, as obeying its ruler, as is
said in Ethics iii, 12. But it does not follow that, if the angel
knows what is passing through man's sensitive appetite or imagination,
he knows what is in the thought or will: because the intellect or will
is not subject to the sensitive appetite or the imagination, but can
make various uses of them.
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