“9. Were the angels not originally created in heaven?
No, the angels had to cooperate with the grace of God to reach heaven.
10. Why then does Jesus say, “I saw Satan like lightening falling from heaven”(Luke 10:18)?
The word “heaven” in this context does not mean the possession of God in the Beatific Vision. Rather it means that the angels fell from sanctifying grace which gave them a title to heaven.
11. What then does it mean that some of the angels entered heaven ?
It means that those angels who cooperated with God’s grace merited to see God face to face. It further means that all the angels were originally on probation. They were, in theological terms, in via, that is “on the way” to heaven. It finally means that those who reached heaven by using their free will to cooperate with the will of God.”
Seems to be contradicted by Jude 1:6 -
“6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.”
Isaiah 14:12 -
“12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”
and especially Ezekiel 28:14-16 -
“14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.”
Your catechism says that Satan and the Angels were not created in Heaven, but had to “cooperate with the grace of God to reach heaven”. Yet, the Bible says that the angels fell from their first estate and habitation, not their second, and that Satan (and his angels by implication) fell from heaven, not a sanctifying grace. Most importantly, it says that Satan was set as a covering cherub, one of the highest angels in Heaven, by God himself. If Satan was in a “period of probation”, outside of Heaven, when he sinned, then he could not have been a covering cherub.
It is impossible for any creature which experiences the Beatific Vision, seeing God “face to face,” to reject God, because such a creature would possess perfect happiness.
So the angels must have been created in a state short of the Beatific Vision.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02364a.htm
I can’t offer an infallible interpretation of your Bible verses, but they have to be reconcilable with the theology, which is very sure.
Thank you. I had the same questions. We know that the angel that was named Lucifer, or son of the morning, became Satan when he, through pride, decided to rebel against God and take His place upon the throne of Almighty God. "I will be like the most high.", is what Scripture says was his sin. He was cast out of heaven along with a third of the angels that went along with his rebellion and they were cast out of heaven by the archangel Michael.
In Fr. Harding's thesis on angels, I wonder if he considers his teaching on this specifically as being dogma, doctrine or permissible?