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Objection 1: It would seem that natural knowledge and love do not
remain in the beatified angels. For it is said (1 Cor.
13:10): "When that which is perfect is come, then that which
is in part shall be done away." But natural love and knowledge are
imperfect in comparison with beatified knowledge and love. Therefore,
in beatitude, natural knowledge and love cease.
Objection 2: Further, where one suffices, another is superfluous.
But the knowledge and love of glory suffice for the beatified angels.
Therefore it would be superfluous for their natural knowledge and love
to remain.
Objection 3: Further, the same faculty has not two simultaneous
acts, as the same line cannot, at the same end, be terminated in two
points. But the beatified angels are always exercising their beatified
knowledge and love; for, as is said Ethic. i, 8, happiness
consists not in habit, but in act. Therefore there can never be
natural knowledge and love in the angels.
On the contrary, So long as a nature endures, its operation
remains. But beatitude does not destroy nature, since it is its
perfection. Therefore it does not take away natural knowledge and
love.
I answer that, Natural knowledge and love remain in the angels. For
as principles of operations are mutually related, so are the operations
themselves. Now it is manifest that nature is to beatitude as first to
second; because beatitude is superadded to nature. But the first must
ever be preserved in the second. Consequently nature must be preserved
in beatitude: and in like manner the act of nature must be preserved in
the act of beatitude.
Reply to Objection 1: The advent of a perfection removes the
opposite imperfection. Now the imperfection of nature is not opposed
to the perfection of beatitude, but underlies it; as the imperfection
of the power underlies the perfection of the form, and the power is not
taken away by the form, but the privation which is opposed to the
form. In the same way, the imperfection of natural knowledge is not
opposed to the perfection of the knowledge in glory; for nothing
hinders us from knowing a thing through various mediums, as a thing may
be known at the one time through a probable medium and through a
demonstrative one. In like manner, an angel can know God by His
essence, and this appertains to his knowledge of glory; and at the
same time he can know God by his own essence, which belongs to his
natural knowledge.
Reply to Objection 2: All things which make up beatitude are
sufficient of themselves. But in order for them to exist, they
presuppose the natural gifts; because no beatitude is
self-subsisting, except the uncreated beatitude.
Reply to Objection 3: There cannot be two operations of the one
faculty at the one time, except the one be ordained to the other. But
natural knowledge and love are ordained to the knowledge and love of
glory. Accordingly there is nothing to hinder natural knowledge and
love from existing in the angel conjointly with those of glory.
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