The Catholic Book Blogger
Demons often predict the future, says St. Augustine, because they’re intelligent, and they can see things we can’t. But they often get it wrong. Angels always know the truth even about worldly things, because they love God and make his will their own.
The good angels, therefore, put little value on the knowledge of mate- rial and transitory things that the demons are so proud of possessing. It’s not that they’re ignorant of these things. But the love of God, by which they are sanctified, is very dear to them. Compared to that not merely immaterial but also unchangeable and ineffable beauty that they love with such a fire, they disdain everything beneath it, and everything that isn’t it, so that they may enjoy that good, the source of their goodness, with all the good that is in them.
And therefore they have a more certain knowledge even of those worldly and changeable things, because they contemplate their principles and causes in the Word of God, by which the world was made—those causes by which one thing is approved, another rejected, and everything arranged.
But the demons do not see the wisdom of God, so they don’t see these eter- nal and (so to speak) fundamental causes of worldly things, but only foresee a larg- er part of the future than we do, because they know more about the signs that are hidden from us. Sometimes, they’re predicting what they themselves intend to do.
And, finally, the demons are often wrong, but the angels never are. For it is one thing, by the aid of worldly and changeable things, to guess what changes may happen in time, and to change such things by one’s own will and power—and this is to a certain extent permitted to the demons. But it is another thing to foresee the changes of times in the eternal and immutable laws of God, which live in his wisdom, and to know the will of God, the most infallible and powerful of all causes, by participating in his spirit. This is granted to the holy angels by God’s just choice. –St. Augustine, City of God, 9.22
IN GOD’S PRESENCE, CONSIDER . . .
Do I desire to know the truth? Do I take the steps necessary to grow in my under- standing of doctrine? Do I ask the help of my guardian angel as I undertake the prayerful study of Christian doctrine?
CLOSING PRAYER
Guardian Angel, who gaze upon the loveliness of God even as you guide my every step: help me to see what you see and behold the loveliness of God as much as I can even today.
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