Abstract
By the early 1200s the Roman Catholic Church had ruled that angels are incorporeal. However, debate persisted as to what exactly that meant. Universal hylomorphism (UH) (i.e., the idea that all created beings are composites of form and matter) played a role in that debate, as it implies that even angels are, in a sense, partly material. Among the motivations for UH was the need to preserve angelic mutability, yet some of its advocates (notably St. Bonaventure) thought that the only kind of change angels could undergo is accidental change. What about angelic substantial change? I argue that once UH is on the table, it is difficult to rule it out as impossible. I conclude with the suggestion that affirming the possibility of angelic substantial change provides new support for strict universalists in the domain of soteriology (i.e., those who affirm that even the demons will one day be saved).
Introduction
The patristic and early medieval periods exhibited a diversity of views concerning the ontology of angels, 1 but by the high middle ages (and especially after the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215) the Roman Catholic Church had settled on the view that angels are incorporeal. 2 However, there was still room for debate as to what exactly “incorporeal” meant, and the doctrine of universal hylomorphism (UH) (i.e., the claim that all created beings are composites of form and matter) played a role in that debate. St. Bonaventure was among the most influential early advocates of UH, 3 which doctrine implies that even angels are partly material (though in a manner quite different from what we typically think of as “material” in our earthly realm). One of Bonaventure's motivations for positing UH was to preserve angelic mutability, since he viewed matter as a necessary condition for change. And yet he thought that the only kind of change angels were subject to is accidental change—he explicitly rejected the idea of substantial change in angels.
Should he have? I explore that question here, arguing that once UH is on the table, it is difficult to rule out angelic substantial change as metaphysically impossible. I conclude with the suggestion that the prospect of angelic substantial change opens up new avenues of speculation for Christian universalists. (i.e., maybe there is hope for a truly universal salvation, whereby even the fallen angels can be saved, and saved by virtue of Christ's atonement—but only after they have been transformed into humans.) Thus, the question of angelic substantial change is of interest not merely as a point of abstract metaphysics, but also as bearing upon an ongoing debate in soteriology and eschatology.
The remainder is divided as follows: in the next section, I supply a brief refresher concerning UH and its application to angelology. Then in “The Bonaventurean Alternative” section I examine in more detail Bonaventure's reasons for affirming the hylomorphic composition of angels, and also look at his claim that they are subject only to accidental change. In the “Angelic Substantial Change” section I argue that UH more plausibly allows for angelic substantial change. Finally in the “Why All this Matters for the Ongoing Debate over Christian Universalism” section I consider what implications all of this could have in the context of the revived controversies concerning universalist soteriology.
A cautionary note before proceeding further: the overall line of reasoning pursued here is not only quite speculative (and arguably heretical on multiple fronts), but also liable to be of interest primarily to that subset of thinkers who are: (a) realists about angels; (b) inclined towards the truth of some version of hylomorphism; and, (c) open to entertaining universalist soteriology. There is a risk that this subset of (a)–(c) thinkers is today small enough to fit in a phone booth, such that this will turn out to be an excessively niche project. I hope that is not the case—but even if it is, I trust that there remains sufficient material of wider interest to students of historical theology that the discussion to follow can still earn its keep.
UH and Angelology
Most readers will already be familiar with hylomorphism, but for those who might benefit from a refresher, let's take a moment to situate it within the present metaphysical landscape. So, within analytic metaphysics there are four main competing substance ontologies: substratum theory, 4 bundle theory, 5 primitive substance theory, 6 and hylomorphism. (And yes, that last is today a respectable contender in the analytic literature.) There are multiple versions of hylomorphism, though the most popular today is the Thomistic variety. 7
On Thomistic hylomorphism, every physical substance is a compound of two ontological principles, namely prime matter and substantial form. Prime matter is analogous in some ways to the bare substratum of substratum theory, insofar as it plays some of the same explanatory roles; notably, it functions as the locus of stability through radical change (i.e., change in a thing's basic natural kind) and helps to explain individuation (though not in quite the same way as the substratum). 8
However, prime matter is not fully equivalent to the substratum. Besides playing a somewhat different role in individuation, Thomistic prime matter differs in that it cannot directly receive accidents, 9 plays no role in unifying those accidents (that is the job of substantial form), and, unlike the substratum, is conceived of in unambiguously dispositionalist terms—that is, prime matter is a potency, a power to become different types of substance by taking on different substantial forms over time. Moreover, unlike some other historical versions of hylomorphism, Thomistic hylomorphism specifies that prime matter cannot exist on its own (unactualized by any substantial form), and that it can only be actualized by one substantial form at a time—a single substance cannot have multiple substantial forms simultaneously.
So Thomistic hylomorphism shares some interesting commonalities with elements of contemporary substance ontology while remaining distinctive; and one of its most distinctive aspects is its pluralism. That is, advocates of one or another substance ontology today will typically argue that theirs is the only true substance ontology, and that the competing theories are metaphysically impossible. (e.g., substratum theorists typically claim that substratum theory is necessarily true and that the competing substance ontologies are all necessarily false.) The outlier here is Thomistic hylomorphism, which claims to provide the correct account of physical substances in our physical world (and all possible physical worlds), while also claiming that there exist things that do not conform to that picture of substance. When it comes to nonphysical substances like the purely immaterial angels, primitive substance theory holds true instead. (i.e., any given angel just is the instantiation of a substantial form, no prime matter involved. And because there is no matter present to do the work of individuation, it must be that no two angels share a substantial form; rather, every angel is the sole member of a unique species.) And when it comes to certain supernatural contexts (like the Eucharistic event), something like bundle theory applies (i.e., accidents exist on their own, without inhering in any substance). 10 This kind of pluralism in substance ontology is liable to strike some analytic readers as extravagant, but the Thomist will insist that the apparent breach of parsimony is justified on account of our living in a world structured by an ontological hierarchy consisting of radically different kinds of created beings and enlivened by dramatic supernatural occurrences. If our ontology is going to accommodate our universal (Catholic) data set, it must expand beyond the comparatively narrow bounds of contemporary analytic metaphysics.
Yet a worry may linger: has it expanded too far, too fast? When examining the realm of created beings (and leaving aside God and His miracles), do we really need multiple substance ontologies to account for the data? Advocates of other versions of hylomorphism have been known to answer “no"; in fact this was a major topic of debate in the thirteenth century. Opposing the pluralism of St. Thomas Aquinas and what became the Thomist school of thought were advocates of UH, with Aquinas’ contemporary St. Bonaventure acting as a prominent proponent of that alternative.
According to Bonaventure, hylomorphism applies to all created substances. Thus, even an angel must be compounded of matter and substantial form. As Cullen puts it, “matter is the intrinsic principle that permits a substance to be the subject of changes. All mutable substances are then necessarily material. This is why Bonaventure does not limit matter to the corporeal. Matter, according to Bonaventure, is not coextensive with the corporeal. Even the spiritual beings, commonly referred to as ‘angels,’ are composites of form and matter. That variation on the Aristotelian doctrine is usually referred to as ‘universal hylomorphism.’” 11 Does this imply that there are multiple irreducibly distinct kinds of matter, with one kind (“spiritual” matter perhaps) obtaining of angels, and another kind (“corporeal” matter) obtaining of ordinary physical objects? Some advocates of UH thought so, adopting the view that while there is only one true substance ontology for created things, there are multiple ontologies of matter. 12 By contrast, Bonaventure wants to keep just one kind of matter in the picture. For him, matter essentially entails potency for the reception of form, a pure openness to formal content. This fundamental potency is for the reception of any kind of substantial form, whether a spiritual substantial form (i.e., a nonspatial angelic form), or a corporeal substantial form (i.e., a substantial form entailing a further openness to spatial extension). The underlying difference between spiritual created things and bodily created things lies not in their matter (which is common to both and simply grounds their receptivity to form—and thus also their capacity for change), but in their radically different substantial forms. On this point Keck writes: “For Bonaventure, matter is a metaphysical construct that is equivalent to indeterminate potency…. Thus for him matter is capable of being either spiritual (if joined to a spiritual form) or corporeal (if joined to a corporeal form), whereas for Aquinas ‘matter’ is always corporeal.” 13 Or as Bonaventure himself puts it, “matter considered in itself is neither spiritual nor corporeal; and therefore the receptive capacity entailed by the essence of matter is neutral between spiritual form or corporeal form.” 14 Depending on which sort of form this matter receives, it will ground the possibility of different sorts of change, though the fundamental capacity for change in general is still rooted in this one basic matter shared by all.
Thus, one prima facie advantage of Bonaventurean substance ontology over and against the Thomistic is its greater parsimony: there is just one substance ontology applying across all created things, and one ontology of matter. (An important point of clarification then: UH does not entail that angels have bodies, but rather that they have matter, where “matter” has the technical sense of generic potency to form. Angels do not naturally have anything like ordinary physical bodies, though they are capable of temporarily taking on such bodies for the sake of divinely ordained missions, with the precise manner of that “taking on” being a topic of further debate. 15 )
Of course, parsimony by itself may not seem much of a selling point; moreover the Thomist model (with its accompanying substance pluralism) has long been dominant within Catholic angelology, and may thus appear to have the weight of tradition behind it. This dominance is lamented by proponents of UH, so let's turn to examine some arguments they have put forward on its behalf.
The Bonaventurean Alternative
Thomists and Bonaventureans all admit that angels are capable of accidental change (for instance shifts of attention or new acts of will), so the question becomes whether UH is needed in order to accommodate that capacity.
Aquinas thought not; for him, while an angel's overall being does involve some potency (and thus in principle an openness to change), that potency is grounded solely in its essence/existence composition. Its essence (what the angel is) is really distinct from its existence (that by which the angel is, its act-of-being or esse). Essence is in potency to existence, and in that respect, essence/existence composition is analogous to matter/form composition (though only analogous), and sufficient to account for the further possibility of alteration once real.
However, Bonaventureans question whether that kind of potency (potency to existence) is, in fact, adequate to ground the ongoing mutability of a created thing. Case helpfully summarizes a core argument on this front: “Grant, for the moment, that Aquinas's esse/essentia distinction suffices for marking the Creator/creature divide. But the bare creaturehood of spiritual beings isn’t the only problem at issue here—angelic intellects also need to be open to accidental change of various sorts, and it is not obvious how the sole potency of the angel's essence to being or nonbeing—a potency which is exhaustively actualized in the act of their creation—could account for those properties….” 16
Bonaventure further argues that because action and passion (i.e., reception, alterability-by-a-new-form) are irreducibly distinct, they must be grounded in irreducibly distinct aspects of a thing: namely, form and matter. “This same thing is shown from the nature of action and passion: because nothing acts and suffers in respect of the same thing; but the Angel is agent and patient alike; therefore it has two principles, one from which it acts, and the other from which it undergoes actions. But the principle from which it acts is form, while the principle from which it undergoes actions cannot be other than matter: therefore etc.” 17 At bottom, passive reception is the function of matter; even when certain forms open up prospects for new modes of reception, receptivity itself is still ultimately a function of a thing's material rather than formal component.
Bonaventure also thinks that matter is needed in order to account for the individuation of angels. God could (and likely would) create multiple members of one and the same angelic species, and matter is the ontological ingredient by which that can be done: “Every numerical distinction arises from an intrinsic and substantial principle, because, all accidents aside, things are diverse in number by way of some difference; but [in angels] this difference does not come from form: therefore it comes from a material principle: therefore, etc.” 18 We have already alluded to Aquinas’ strategy for maneuvering around that need (namely, denying that any two angels belong to one and the same kind or instantiate the same substantial form), but Bonaventure and other advocates of UH find that suggestion implausible, 19 in part because to them it conflicts with the very notion of an essence or common nature as something that is in principle multiply realizable: “The very nature of an essence is, or is at least capable of being, common to many individuals.” 20
That is is just a sampling of pro-UH arguments as they appear in a relatively early stage of what would become a longstanding and complex debate; still, hopefully the preceding brief survey of Bonaventure (with nods to some of his allies) provides an indication that UH, whatever its faults, boasted some interesting argumentative support and was (and is) worthy of discussion among proponents of hylomorphism.
As to those faults: in the course of defending the matter/form composition of angels, Bonaventure also considers and responds to several objections. One of these is especially relevant to the issue that will be our focus in the next section, namely the possibility of angelic substantial change given UH. The prompt for the objection is a passage from the sixth chapter of Boethius’ Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius. Bonaventure himself quotes only a brief portion of this text, but it is worth citing here at somewhat greater length, by way of providing context and making clearer Boethius’ full line of reasoning: Things cannot be promiscuously changed and interchanged. For since some substances are corporeal and others incorporeal, neither can a corporeal substance be changed into an incorporeal, nor can an incorporeal be changed into that which is body, nor yet incorporeals interchange their proper forms; for only those things can be interchanged and transformed which possess the common substrate of the same matter, nor can all of these so behave, but only those which can act upon and be acted upon by each other…. But corporeals cannot in any way be changed into incorporeals because they do not share in any common underlying matter which can be changed into this or that thing by taking on its qualities. For the nature of no incorporeal substance rests upon a material basis; but there is no body that has not matter as a substrate. Since this is so, and since not even those things which naturally have a common matter can pass over into each other unless they have the power of acting on each other and being acted upon by each other, far more will those things not suffer interchange which not only have no common matter but are different in substance, since one of them, being body, rests on a basis of matter, while the other, being incorporeal, cannot possibly stand in need of a material substrate. It is therefore impossible for a body to be changed into an incorporeal species, nor will it ever be possible for incorporeals to be changed into each other by any process of mingling. For things which have no common matter cannot be changed and converted one into another. But incorporeal things have no matter; they can never, therefore, be changed about among themselves.
21
It is worth highlighting the fact that UH applies genuinely universally, to all created substances. Thus, the human soul, even when separated from its earthly body at death, remains a hylomorphic compound. The incorporeal soul has matter as an ontological ingredient, just as the incorporeal angel does (though, again, not corporeal matter). As Sullivan observes, “Bonaventure affirms that the rational human soul is subject to hylomorphic composition just as the angels are, and for the same reasons….” 23 Thus, the human soul is as much a compound entity as an angel, though of course their respective matters are actualized by very different substantial forms. This underscores the relationship between UH and the plurality-of-substantial-forms thesis, another item of debate in the thirteenth century. The former entails some version of the latter, which provided Thomists another motivation for rejecting UH (since, as noted briefly above, they maintain that a substance can have only one substantial form at a time). In the case of an embodied human soul, the resultant composite entity (the human being considered as a whole) incorporates the matter and spiritual substantial form of the (disembodied) soul plus the matter and corporeal form of the body contingently (though naturally) joined to that soul during its biological life.
With this background in place, we can now press the question: is Bonaventure correct in thinking that on UH angelic substantial change is impossible?
Angelic Substantial Change
The basic idea of angelic substantial change—including the notion of transformation from angel to human or vice versa—was a familiar one in second temple Judaism, 24 and there may even be echoes of it present in the New Testament (see Acts 12:5–15). However, by the high middle ages the concept had become associated with heretical groups in the west, which helped to render the idea the object of considerable suspicion. In fact, the mere risk that UH might open the door to angelic substantial change seems to have been the main reason why one of Bonaventure's predecessors rejected UH out of hand: “At the turn of the thirteenth century, Alexander Nequam had condemned the idea that angels were composed of both matter and form. But he offered no arguments, and indeed, his rejection of the doctrine was due largely to his opposition to the Cathars (who held that humans were fallen angels who had received a material body for their sins).” 25 In other words, there was a fear that UH might open the door to the idea that angels could be transformed into humans or vice versa, on account of some underlying commonality (like shared generic matter).
Now, we have already seen that Bonaventure rejects angelic substantial change; indeed he does so almost by definition: one of the traits that distinguishes a spiritual substantial form from a corporeal substantial form is that the latter entails an openness to substantial change while the former does not. (The forms of the celestial spheres are intermediates in a way, entailing the potential for local motion but not substantial change.) Still, this comes across more as a taxonomic stipulation than as an argument. So far as I am aware, Bonaventure never provides a distinct argument dedicated to demonstrating the impossibility of angelic substantial change. However, other authors do; for instance Peter John Olivi (1248-1298) maintains that angelic substantial change is ruled out (at least naturally) by the fact that spiritual forms have no contraries. This is another way in which they are unlike corporeal forms, which generally have contraries .For example, in Aristotelian physics fire functions as a contrary to water; or, to be more precise, some of the defining qualities of fire (hotness and dryness) are contraries of some of the defining qualities of water (coolness and wetness), such that when these substances interact one is liable to prompt substantial change in the other, with the water dousing the fire or the fire turning the water into air/steam. There is nothing like this present when it comes to spiritual forms, and “if a form has no contraries, one contrary cannot drive out another and cause substantial change; whereas all bodies, being composed of contraries, can be transformed into other bodies, this is not so with spirits. Nor, for the same reason, can a natural agent by natural motion move matter to generate or corrupt a spiritual form.” 26 I suppose one could argue in reply that spiritual forms conceivably may have contrary qualities that are just radically different from the sorts of contrary qualities we are familiar with in the ordinary physical realm (though even then, how would those contraries come into causal contact?); however, a better response would be to suggest that maybe not all substantial change must be prompted or mediated by contrary qualities. In particular, perhaps substantial change in spiritual forms is not thus mediated. The difficulty would then lie in identifying some other plausible natural mechanism among created things by which the change could be made, and no good candidates come to mind.
An anonymous referee helpfully draws attention to a related argument that can be brought into play here: in the corporeal realm, substantial change may be precipitated not only by an object encountering contrary qualities (as noted by Olivi), but also by simple quantitative alteration. (e.g., a spatially extended substance can be destroyed by breaking it up, by removing enough of its distinct parts that it forfeits its structural integrity.) Now, if a substance lacks spatial extension, it will ipso facto be invulnerable to this mode of substantial change. And since angels lack spatial extension, they cannot be subjected to this mode of substantial change. In other words, as Plato observed in the Phaedo and as Leibniz noted in his Monadology, whatever lacks parts is thereby naturally indestructible.
Do such arguments rule out angelic substantial change as absolutely impossible? Olivi thought not; on his view, such an operation, while naturally impossible (i.e., not within the power of any created being) is still metaphysically possible (i.e., as falling within the absolute power of God): The fact that angels and rational souls cannot be generated or corrupted, constructed or destroyed, by a created agent should not be taken as proof that they are simple or indissoluble simpliciter. Intellectual substances are indeed dissoluble through a pure annihilation of their principles, i.e., of either their matter or their form, and God could certainly do this, or instantly and without motion convert them into something else, just as he changes bread into the body of Christ in the Eucharist; it is even within the divine power to inform the matter of one angel with the form of another, and so forth. (Such a change would be supernatural rather than natural, and so it remains the case that there is no natural potency to substantial change in the angels.)
27
These sorts of possibilities prove that spiritual creatures do not have the kind of simplicity and immutability which God has, although they are not repugnant to the (natural) incorruptibility which Christian tradition posits in the angels.
28
Consider a few sorts of substantial change that might be contemplated on UH:
God's miraculously substituting one angelic substantial form for another (e.g., instantaneously switching Gabriel's substantial form into what had been Michael's underlying matter and vice versa); God's miraculously placing the substantial form of a disembodied human soul into the matter of an angel, while removing or annihilating the original angelic substantial form, the result of which would presumably be outwardly and functionally indistinguishable from a standard disembodied human soul (since the substantial form is the locus of all of a thing's distinctive traits); God's miraculously placing an angelic substantial form into the matter of a disembodied human soul, while removing or annihilating the original human soul, the result of which would presumably be outwardly and functionally indistinguishable from a standard angel (since the substantial form is the locus of all of a thing's distinctive traits); God's miraculously placing an angelic substantial form into the matter of a newly created human soul (whether embodied or disembodied), yet without that human soul being completed by a human person. Instead, the person of the angel completes it, with the angelic substantial form being hived off from its own matter and instantaneously transferred into the matter of this (personhood-bereft) human soul at the very instant of the latter's creation. The result is a substance boasting the presence of two substantial forms (human and angelic), which is allowable in principle on the plurality-of-substantial-forms thesis (a thesis whose truth is entailed by UH, as we’ve seen). The resultant ontological structure of this composite entity is analogous to that of the incarnate Christ on the Chalcedonian model (i.e., one person existing in two distinct natures), which doctrine informs us that though the human soul naturally demands completion by personhood, in principle that personhood can be externally sourced (and indeed pre-existent) rather than created along with the soul and intrinsic to it.
30
Here the pre-existent person being joined to the human soul and completing it is an angelic person rather than a divine Person, but the relevant ontology is not wholly dissimilar.
It is this fourth model of angelic substantial change that I would like to entertain in what follows. I suggest that its metaphysical possibility is plausible, especially given UH and its attendant plurality-of-substantial-forms thesis. 31 Moreover, the fact that the ontological structure it is working with is analogous to that seen in Chalcedonian Christology places the theologian opposed to its possibility in the awkward spot, dialectically, of having to show that this proposed bit of angelology falls outside the scope of divine omnipotence while the Incarnation does not. Presumably, that exercise could be undertaken, but I don’t think it would be easy. (For instance, one might argue that a single angelic person could not exist in two natures, angelic and human, insofar as those natures possess incompatible properties, like being naturally incorporeal versus being naturally embodied. But the same sort of objection can of course be leveled against Chalcedonian Christology, insofar as the divine nature seems to have a variety of properties incompatible with those characterizing human nature. Or one might object that this union of an angelic person with human nature would result in an entity not truly human, but rather some third sort of hybrid being of a wholly different kind. But the same objection can be leveled against Chalcedonian Christology, insofar as one might claim that the union of a divine Person with human nature would result in an entity not truly human, etc.) As such, I believe the metaphysical possibility of model (d) of angelic substantial change should be seen as innocent until proven guilty.
So let's assume that in principle, at least by a miraculous act of God, an angel could become human—that is, an angelic person could assume human nature, whether as a disembodied soul or as an embodied living man. Well, who cares? Is this just an interesting bit of Scholastic philosophical theology boasting some pop culture tie-ins 32 —a rare feat for Scholastic philosophical theology, granted—or does the prospect of this type of angelic substantial change carry further implications that we might care about? 33 I believe it does, and I would like to explore briefly one such implication in the final section.
Why All This Matters for the Ongoing Debate Over Christian Universalism
Is it possible that all human beings will be saved, such that none of us ends up eternally damned? More ambitiously, is it necessary that all of us be thus saved? More ambitiously still, one could ask these questions of all created intellects—that is, is it possible/necessary that even the fallen angels be saved?
These eschatological and soteriological questions have received a great deal of attention in recent theology and philosophy of religion. A robust universalism is defended by thinkers like Coates, 34 Hart, 35 Kimel, 36 Kronen & Reitan, 37 Macdonald, 38 and Talbott 39 (though as one would expect their main focus is on human salvation). On the other hand, the more widespread, traditional conception of hell as eternal (and occupied) likewise has many defenders. McClymond's two-volume work is probably the most thorough critique of universalism within the recent scholarly literature. 40 Other worthwhile critiques may be found among Protestant, 41 Orthodox, 42 and Catholic thinkers. 43 Though on the whole, Catholic scholars have not been as active in the recent universalism debates as have scholars from other church bodies. This is likely because the Catholic Church has definitively ruled out universalism as an option through a variety of conciliar and papal decrees over the centuries. Or at least, it has ruled out the kind of robust universalism just described, according to which all created intellects must be saved; however, some Catholic thinkers continue to speculate that it might be orthodox to retain a hope of universal salvation (even if not an assurance), 44 while others entertain more speculative schemas designed to mitigate the horror of an eternally occupied hell. 45
Let us assume for the sake of argument that at least the hope of universal salvation is orthodox (though I realize that is contestable). Can demons be included in that hope? There are many reasons for thinking they can’t. Aquinas, for example, bases much of his case for fallen angels’ hopelessness on their postlapsarian fixity of will, a fixity he believes is entailed by essential traits of angelic nature.
46
Or consider Alexander of Hales’ reasons for thinking demons beyond any salvation, as summarized by Dumsday: He [Alexander] then presents five arguments in favor of their sins’ irremissibility: (a) The sin of humans was lesser because we are compounds of soul and body, but the angels’ sinned as pure spirits and so sinned irremissibly. (b) As John of Damascus teaches us, the fall is to an angel as death is to a man, and for man there is no more remission for sins after death. By extension there is no remission of sins for a fallen angel. (c) Anselm tells us that when faced with their initial moral choice, the now-fallen angels chose injustice. They didn’t accept God's justice when they had the chance, and in consequence now they don’t deserve to accept it and so don’t deserve to be given another chance to accept it. So their sin is irremissible. (d) The lesser demons’ sin is not only irremissible but also irremediable. Anselm tells us that redemption by another requires a biological relationship between redeemer and redeemed (hence Christ's taking on our biological human nature through the Theotokos). Angels, being pure spirit, necessarily have no such route to redemption available to them and so their sin is irremediable. (e) This point is mostly taken up with a quote from Augustine's Enchiridion, in which Augustine notes that some but not all angels fell, and lays out the basic idea of the angelic replacement theory of salvation history: the notion that human beings are saved in part so that we can fill up the slots in the kingdom of heaven left open by fallen angels, correcting for a problematic gap. Alexander then comments on the passage, to the effect that man gets redeemed by God in part because the whole of human nature fell via Adam's fall, necessitating divine intervention to ensure that no created nature wholly perish. By contrast, since only a portion of angelic nature was lost (and since those who were lost fell entirely by their own fault, unlike Adam who was led into sin by another), there was no obligation for God to intervene to save that segment of the angelic populace that fell. In other words, because only a portion of the angels fell, those that did fall fell irremediably.
47
What I wish to point out is that those arguments often rest on facts about the specifics of angelic versus human nature; this is especially obvious in the case of Alexander's point (d) above—that is, only humans can be redeemed because only we share a (biological) nature with our redeemer. The idea is that God the Son became a human and payed the debt for human beings, but He did not become an angel nor pay the debt of angels. As it says in Hebrews 2:14–16, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham's descendants.” (NIV translation) And yet, might it be the case that He will help the angels in future? Indeed, other translations of this passage might appear to leave greater room for such assistance. 48 Assume that such special assistance would in fact be necessary—that is, let us take on board the admittedly controversial claim that demonic repentance is either impossible absent such special intervention by Christ or inefficacious absent such special intervention. 49 There are different ways in which that assistance could be carried out, different forms that a rescue attempt on behalf of the fallen angels might begin. Conceivably Christ could take on angelic nature in a new sort of bodiless “incarnation,” though if angels are thought of as naturally immortal (i.e., as immune to bodily death because lacking bodies) then it is unclear whether anything analogous to the cross (and atonement) could occur in an angelic context. But another option would be to render Christ's sacrifice on behalf of humanity applicable to the fallen angels, to make it available for their appropriation. And that in turn might be done by way of the miraculous substantial change outlined in the previous section. In other words, God could transform the fallen angels into men, thus rendering them redeemable and overcoming whatever natural angelic tendencies might have previously inhibited their seeking redemption (such as intractably obstinate wills, as per Aquinas). The prospects for a truly universal salvation, then, would be raised provided that angelic substantial change (in particular, angel-to-human substantial change) is possible.
For clarity's sake it might be worth summing up our main argument in premise/conclusion form:
The argument as stated is a bit vague, as I can’t quantify how much the probability of universalism is raised. (I suspect the boost is pretty marginal.) But the proposition that it is rational to hope for the salvation of all created intellects is indeed rendered more supportable provided it can be shown that a class of such intellects traditionally deemed in principle irremediable is actually capable of being redeemed. And that's what the argument purports to do.
As we have seen, every step of the argument is controversial. UH isn’t especially popular today, so P2 won’t have many proponents. Moreover, some of UH's most prominent mediaeval advocates (notably Bonaventure) thought that it wasn’t compatible with angelic substantial change, and so would reject P1. And P4 will be pooh-poohed by the many universalists who don’t believe in angels. (Though of course those universalists will likely never read this article….)
Nevertheless, I do think the argument defensible, and I hope that the preceding discussion has succeeded in showing that its core premises are reasonable (or at least not risible).
A brief remark on a lingering concern: there is plenty of scriptural evidence for the reality of hell, and indeed of an eternal and occupied hell. Advocates of universalism have interesting exegetical arguments to the effect that the most widespread, traditional interpretations of those passages are off-base. 50 I am not a Biblical scholar and have no intention of delving into that material here. But I would like to suggest that UH may provide a way of accommodating some of the tougher passages in a way compatible with universalism. Recall that in footnote #33 above, the question was raised as to what happens to the matter of an angel whose substantial form is transferred into the matter of a human soul. It was noted that some Scholastics (though not Bonaventure) affirmed the possibility of unformed matter—that is, matter existing on its own, independently of any substantial form. Well, let's run with that option for a moment, and pair it with my speculation about fallen angels’ transformation into men (redeemable men). Now imagine that God has just taken all the demons of hell and transferred their substantial forms (and accompanying persons) to their new anthropic homes. What happens to their leftover matter—to the material parts of those demons’ being—now that it is bereft of form? Well, maybe it can remain in hell, burning forever yet never burnt up? Perhaps the fuel of hell's fire is the formless stuff of former demons, such that hell really is eternal and really is occupied, in a sense—just not occupied by persons.
That probably sounds like a fanciful suggestion, and indeed it is. But it also provides a way of putting some metaphysical meat-on-the-bones, as it were, of a speculation about hell that C.S. Lewis briefly entertains: Our Lord speaks of Hell under three symbols: first, that of punishment (“everlasting punishment”, Matthew 25:46); second, that of destruction (“fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in Hell”, Matthew 10:28); and thirdly, that of privation, exclusion, or banishment into “the darkness outside”….Destruction, we should naturally assume, means the unmaking, or cessation, of the destroyed. And people often talk as if the “annihilation” of a soul were intrinsically possible. In all our experience, however, the destruction of one thing means the emergence of something else. Burn a log, and you have gases, heat, and ash. To have been a log means now being those three things. If souls can be destroyed, must there not be a state of having been a human soul? And is not that, perhaps, the state which is equally well described as torment, destruction, and privation? You will remember that in the parable, the saved go to a place prepared for them, while the damned go to a place never made for men at all. To enter heaven is to become more human than you ever succeeded in being on earth; to enter hell, is to be banished from humanity. What is cast (or casts itself) into hell is not a man: it is “remains.” To be a complete man means to have the passions obedient to the will and the will offered to God: to have been a man—to be an ex-man or “damned ghost”—would presumably mean to consist of a will utterly centred in its self and passions utterly uncontrolled by the will. It is, of course, impossible to imagine what the consciousness of such a creature—already a loose congeries of mutually antagonistic sins rather than a sinner—would be like.
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