The Great Angel Debate

My husband has been having a discussion on another Catholic blog and on his own site about the existence of angels. You can read Zach's post about his side of the debate on Civics Geeks. The friend with whom Zach was originally having this debate comments by saying:

Indeed one cannot be a Catholic and not believe in angels.

Now, the fact that you can't be Catholic and pro-choice I get. And agree with. But this? Ridiculous.

Rejecting angels is in a real way rejecting Christ.

Quite a charge, Zach.

The Bible tells us that there is a very real war being waged, and it worries me that professed Catholics could be so lukewarm about the existence and the nature of the enemy. It is terribly dangerous to see the opposition as simply "deep evil" rather than spiritual beings seeking nothing short of our utter despair and the resignation of our souls.

I don't see it as an either/or. I believe in deep evil that seeks our utter despair and the resignation of our souls; in short, death. I think I take evil much more seriously than people who simply believe in "angels" and "demons" and "possession" and all that. Such people rarely actually identify evil in the world. War? Just part of life. Poverty? We will always have the poor with us. And so on. Evil is not named as evil by the very people who profess to believe in the "demonic."

"For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12).

I love this passage and believe every word of it. It's an important verse for Christian radicals. Dig a little deeper and you will find that this is NOT about "angels" or "demons."

And, lest someone be swayed by these comments, here is my response:

Firstly, according to the Fourth Lateran Council, belief in the existence of angels is a dogma of the faith. God "by His almighty power created together in the beginning of time both creatures, the Spiritual and the Corporeal, namely, the Angelic and the earthly, and afterwards, the human as it were a common creature, composed of spirit and body." As Peter Kreeft says in Catholic Christianity, his companion to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Angels are not mythical but real. They are not an optional addition to the Catholic faith...The life of Christ especially is surrounded by their work (see Catechism 333)" (51). He continues: If the devil is [and by extension, angels are] not real, the Bible lies (see I Pet 5:8), and Christ was a fool, for he certainly believed in demons and in Satan (see, for instance, Luke 10:18)" (52). So, to reject angels is in a very real way to reject Christ, or to at least claim intellectual authority over Him. If, for some reason, you are a Catholic who isn't compelled by dogmas of the faith, the revelation of God, or the testimony of Jesus Christ, ask yourself this: if you believe in God who is an invisible and purely spiritual Being, why would you refuse to believe in angels? if one purely spiritual being can exist, why not another?

Additionally, I'm confused about your statement that you "believe in deep evil that seeks our utter despair and the resignation of our souls." Evil isn't a "thing," because it wasn't created by God. In the way that darkness is a lack of light, evil is a lack of good. It is a turning away from the goodness of God. This turning away is a choice, thus there must be a chooser. As with human free will, angels have the capacity to choose evil (turn away from God), and to tempt and oppress humans (as demons). This is not so much an
argument for spiritual beings as it is an argument against your idea of evil itself seeking our souls.

Finally, I sincerely hope that you don't actually mean that you "take evil much more seriously than people who simply believe in "angels" and "demons" and "possession" and all that." This would be assuming the moral highground over the Church, Tradition, and Jesus Christ.