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The Angels and Us
Not yet published
Expected 1 Jan 88Mortimer Adler has always been ahead of his time. In 1982, before the current revival of interest in angels, Dr. Adler published "The Angels and Us", an engaging look at the various images and hierarchies of angels (including guardian angels). Dr. Adler, the bestselling author of "Ten Philosophical Mistakes", "Aristotle for Everybody", and "The Great Ideas", speculates on the existence of angels; why Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in angels, and the ways angels have been viewed as objects of religious belief and philosophical thought. This is a wonderfully enlightening work on the affinities between angels and human beings.
205 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1982
26 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
Mortimer J. Adler
595 books1,054 followersNumerous published works of American educator and philosopher Mortimer Jerome Adler include
How to Read a Book
(1940) and
The Conditions of Philosophy
(1965).
This popular author worked with thought of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He lived for the longest stretches in cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo. He worked for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and own institute for philosophical research.
Born to Jewish immigrants, he dropped out school at 14 years of age in 1917 to a copy boy for the New York Sun with the ultimate aspiration to a journalist. Adler quickly returned to school to take writing classes at night and discovered the works of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and other men, whom he came to call heroes. He went to study at Columbia University and contributed to the student literary magazine, The Morningside, (a poem "Choice" in 1922 when Charles A. Wagner was editor-in-chief and Whittaker Chambers an associate editor). Though he failed to pass the required swimming test for a bachelor's degree (a matter that was rectified when Columbia gave him an honorary degree in 1983), he stayed at the university and eventually received an instructorship and finally a doctorate in psychology. While at Columbia University, Adler wrote his first book: Dialectic, published in 1927.
In 1930 Robert Hutchins, the newly appointed president of the University of Chicago, whom Adler had befriended some years earlier, arranged for Chicago’s law school to hire him as a professor of the philosophy of law; the philosophers at Chicago (who included James H. Tufts, E.A. Burtt, and George H. Mead) had "entertained grave doubts as to Mr. Adler's competence in the field [of philosophy]" and resisted Adler's appointment to the University's Department of Philosophy. Adler was the first "non-lawyer" to join the law school faculty. Adler also taught philosophy to business executives at the Aspen Institute.
Adler and Hutchins went on to found the Great Books of the Western World program and the Great Books Foundation. Adler founded and served as director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in 1952. He also served on the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica since its inception in 1949, and succeeded Hutchins as its chairman from 1974. As the director of editorial planning for the fifteenth edition of Britannica from 1965, he was instrumental in the major reorganization of knowledge embodied in that edition. He introduced the Paideia Proposal which resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, a grade-school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works (as judged for each grade). With Max Weismann, he founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas.
Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and some of his works (such as How to Read a Book) became popular bestsellers. He was also an advocate of economic democracy and wrote an influential preface to Louis Kelso's The Capitalist Manifesto. Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia undergraduate days. In his own words:
Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write—and they do.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer...
This popular author worked with thought of Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas. He lived for the longest stretches in cities of New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and San Mateo. He worked for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and own institute for philosophical research.
Born to Jewish immigrants, he dropped out school at 14 years of age in 1917 to a copy boy for the New York Sun with the ultimate aspiration to a journalist. Adler quickly returned to school to take writing classes at night and discovered the works of Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and other men, whom he came to call heroes. He went to study at Columbia University and contributed to the student literary magazine, The Morningside, (a poem "Choice" in 1922 when Charles A. Wagner was editor-in-chief and Whittaker Chambers an associate editor). Though he failed to pass the required swimming test for a bachelor's degree (a matter that was rectified when Columbia gave him an honorary degree in 1983), he stayed at the university and eventually received an instructorship and finally a doctorate in psychology. While at Columbia University, Adler wrote his first book: Dialectic, published in 1927.
In 1930 Robert Hutchins, the newly appointed president of the University of Chicago, whom Adler had befriended some years earlier, arranged for Chicago’s law school to hire him as a professor of the philosophy of law; the philosophers at Chicago (who included James H. Tufts, E.A. Burtt, and George H. Mead) had "entertained grave doubts as to Mr. Adler's competence in the field [of philosophy]" and resisted Adler's appointment to the University's Department of Philosophy. Adler was the first "non-lawyer" to join the law school faculty. Adler also taught philosophy to business executives at the Aspen Institute.
Adler and Hutchins went on to found the Great Books of the Western World program and the Great Books Foundation. Adler founded and served as director of the Institute for Philosophical Research in 1952. He also served on the Board of Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica since its inception in 1949, and succeeded Hutchins as its chairman from 1974. As the director of editorial planning for the fifteenth edition of Britannica from 1965, he was instrumental in the major reorganization of knowledge embodied in that edition. He introduced the Paideia Proposal which resulted in his founding the Paideia Program, a grade-school curriculum centered around guided reading and discussion of difficult works (as judged for each grade). With Max Weismann, he founded The Center for the Study of The Great Ideas.
Adler long strove to bring philosophy to the masses, and some of his works (such as How to Read a Book) became popular bestsellers. He was also an advocate of economic democracy and wrote an influential preface to Louis Kelso's The Capitalist Manifesto. Adler was often aided in his thinking and writing by Arthur Rubin, an old friend from his Columbia undergraduate days. In his own words:
Unlike many of my contemporaries, I never write books for my fellow professors to read. I have no interest in the academic audience at all. I'm interested in Joe Doakes. A general audience can read any book I write—and they do.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortimer...
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 11, 2022
Adler, Mortimer J. The Angels and Us. New York: MacMillan, 1982.
This is not a theological-exegetical treatment of angels. That is neither a criticism or a compliment. Adler’s purpose is to give a philosophical explanation, not a theological proof for angels. One might ask, “Why can’t we just go by what the Bible says on angels and leave it at that?” There are several problems with that idea. I learned the hard way that people really do not want to deal with what the ancient Near East, including the Bible, says about malakim and dark spirits. Moreover, logical deductions from sound premises are just as binding. Philosophy is inescapable.
Mortimer Adler limits his analysis to that which philosophy allows one to say about angels. This means at best he can give only an explanation of x, not a proof. This is frustrating at times, but I understand why he does it. The philosophical benefit to such an approach is that it allows him to focus on the mind-body problem, since an angel is a mind without a body. One more preparatory note: I am not necessarily convinced of the Chain of Being model. I grant Adler’s rebuttal to Lovejoy, but I am not so sure he adequately dealt with Samuel Johnson’s criticisms.
Ptolemaic societies had an easier time with philosophical approaches to “planetary intelligences.” For Aristotle, these moved bodies which in turn move others seem a lot like what we would call angels. Quite obviously, “an incorporeal agent could be nothing other than a mind or intelligence.” Even though angels are minds without bodies, they can assume corporeality in their missions to earth. The biblical text itself is quite clear, as Abraham’s visitors ate with him and later grabbed Lot and his family. (We will leave aside, of course, Genesis 6:1-4.)
Not surprisingly, Adler’s main guide is Thomas Aquinas, and his main guide to Thomas is Etienne Gilson. This is as it should be. Beginning with Pseudo-Dionysius, Christian reflection saw the angels as a hierarchy. I do not think Pseudo-Dionysius is correct in his taxonomy, but the underlying principle bears reflection. Adler notes: “The descending order of hierarchies…consists in grades of creaturely perfect…The perfection referred to is not moral, but metaphysical—a perfection in the mode of being.” This is the Great Chain of Being, or one series of links in it, anyway.
This chain marks a intellectual mode of perfection. The fewer the ideas, the higher up. This is simplicity in its classical sense. A Seraph, for example, has fewer ideas than a malak, but he comprehends more in those fewer ideas. Is this Chain of Being really necessary? Aquinas thinks so. There would be a gap in reality without them. But can the Great Chain of Being survive modernity’s attacks on it, particularly in the fine book by Arthur Lovejoy? Lovejoy’s actual, if not intended, target is Leibniz, not Aquinas.
When the Great Tradition speaks of a chain of being, it does not have something like arithmetical sequences in mind. Each links differs in kind, not in degree. Moreover, each angel differs with the next by species, assuming, of course, that one accepts Thomas’s account of the angels.
Hell’s Angels
This is where Scripture is largely silent. We know Satan fell. We just do not know when. We know it was before man’s fall but after the “Everything is good” pronouncement. Angels, like Adam, were created mutable. If angels were created perfect, then some could not have fallen for obvious reasons. As best as we can tell, the angels that fell, in choosing evil instead of good, did so in the second moment of their existence. Their wills were then locked in place. The angels who obeyed were confirmed in grace.
The Substance of Angels
If a substance is a conjunction of form and matter, and angels are immaterial, then either all their forms are the same, and hence all angels are the same angel, or they must differ in some other way. They do so by species. Each angel is its own species. Each angelic species is a conjunction of form and its individual act of existence.
That angels interact with physical matter is clear. How they do so is not as clear. Since they are not physical, they cannot do so physically (except when they assume bodies). It does so by means of spiritual power. An angel “occupies its place intensively by surrounding it with its power.” This might make more sense if we contrast it with humans. When a man fills a place, he does so extensively, by physically occupying that place. Not so with angels.
An angelic mind is purely intellectual. It does not know discursively. When a man knows something, he does so by forming concepts and judgments. Angels know with one act of intuition, but not all angels have the same knowledge. They know by virtue of infused knowledge.
Conclusion
Theologians and biblical scholars will wince at some of Adler’s conclusions. His philosophical reticence to affirm theological truths is annoying at times. On the other hand, his analysis is on point and he avoids getting off topic. For those who read the Great Books, this is required reading.
This is not a theological-exegetical treatment of angels. That is neither a criticism or a compliment. Adler’s purpose is to give a philosophical explanation, not a theological proof for angels. One might ask, “Why can’t we just go by what the Bible says on angels and leave it at that?” There are several problems with that idea. I learned the hard way that people really do not want to deal with what the ancient Near East, including the Bible, says about malakim and dark spirits. Moreover, logical deductions from sound premises are just as binding. Philosophy is inescapable.
Mortimer Adler limits his analysis to that which philosophy allows one to say about angels. This means at best he can give only an explanation of x, not a proof. This is frustrating at times, but I understand why he does it. The philosophical benefit to such an approach is that it allows him to focus on the mind-body problem, since an angel is a mind without a body. One more preparatory note: I am not necessarily convinced of the Chain of Being model. I grant Adler’s rebuttal to Lovejoy, but I am not so sure he adequately dealt with Samuel Johnson’s criticisms.
Ptolemaic societies had an easier time with philosophical approaches to “planetary intelligences.” For Aristotle, these moved bodies which in turn move others seem a lot like what we would call angels. Quite obviously, “an incorporeal agent could be nothing other than a mind or intelligence.” Even though angels are minds without bodies, they can assume corporeality in their missions to earth. The biblical text itself is quite clear, as Abraham’s visitors ate with him and later grabbed Lot and his family. (We will leave aside, of course, Genesis 6:1-4.)
Not surprisingly, Adler’s main guide is Thomas Aquinas, and his main guide to Thomas is Etienne Gilson. This is as it should be. Beginning with Pseudo-Dionysius, Christian reflection saw the angels as a hierarchy. I do not think Pseudo-Dionysius is correct in his taxonomy, but the underlying principle bears reflection. Adler notes: “The descending order of hierarchies…consists in grades of creaturely perfect…The perfection referred to is not moral, but metaphysical—a perfection in the mode of being.” This is the Great Chain of Being, or one series of links in it, anyway.
This chain marks a intellectual mode of perfection. The fewer the ideas, the higher up. This is simplicity in its classical sense. A Seraph, for example, has fewer ideas than a malak, but he comprehends more in those fewer ideas. Is this Chain of Being really necessary? Aquinas thinks so. There would be a gap in reality without them. But can the Great Chain of Being survive modernity’s attacks on it, particularly in the fine book by Arthur Lovejoy? Lovejoy’s actual, if not intended, target is Leibniz, not Aquinas.
When the Great Tradition speaks of a chain of being, it does not have something like arithmetical sequences in mind. Each links differs in kind, not in degree. Moreover, each angel differs with the next by species, assuming, of course, that one accepts Thomas’s account of the angels.
Hell’s Angels
This is where Scripture is largely silent. We know Satan fell. We just do not know when. We know it was before man’s fall but after the “Everything is good” pronouncement. Angels, like Adam, were created mutable. If angels were created perfect, then some could not have fallen for obvious reasons. As best as we can tell, the angels that fell, in choosing evil instead of good, did so in the second moment of their existence. Their wills were then locked in place. The angels who obeyed were confirmed in grace.
The Substance of Angels
If a substance is a conjunction of form and matter, and angels are immaterial, then either all their forms are the same, and hence all angels are the same angel, or they must differ in some other way. They do so by species. Each angel is its own species. Each angelic species is a conjunction of form and its individual act of existence.
That angels interact with physical matter is clear. How they do so is not as clear. Since they are not physical, they cannot do so physically (except when they assume bodies). It does so by means of spiritual power. An angel “occupies its place intensively by surrounding it with its power.” This might make more sense if we contrast it with humans. When a man fills a place, he does so extensively, by physically occupying that place. Not so with angels.
An angelic mind is purely intellectual. It does not know discursively. When a man knows something, he does so by forming concepts and judgments. Angels know with one act of intuition, but not all angels have the same knowledge. They know by virtue of infused knowledge.
Conclusion
Theologians and biblical scholars will wince at some of Adler’s conclusions. His philosophical reticence to affirm theological truths is annoying at times. On the other hand, his analysis is on point and he avoids getting off topic. For those who read the Great Books, this is required reading.
May 1, 2013
This short philosophical text examines the idea of angels from different points of view, and shows why angels matter--whether we believe in them or not.
In the preface to this book, published when the author was 79, Mortimer J. Adler describes the reception he got from the publisher and the editor-in-chief of the Great Books of the Western World when, in 1945, he submitted his final list of the 102 Great Ideas of Western civilization. At the top of the alphabetical list was Angel, and the publisher, Senator William Benton, then president of the University of Chicago, was "flabbergasted". Robert Hutchins and other members of the editorial advisory board also protested. They did not agree that Angel belonged in the list of Great Ideas.
Adler must have talked them into it, for if you open up your set of the Great Books right now, you'll find that Angel still heads the list of the Great Ideas. From their reaction, it seems safe to say that neither Benton nor Hutchins believed in angels, but, as Adler points out repeatedly in The Angels and Us, the idea of angels is important in itself, not only because they form part of a fully developed cosmology that takes account of a spiritual realm, but also, and even more importantly, because in understanding the nature of angels we come to understand the nature of man.
The book is developed in five parts:
1. a prologue in which Adler discusses the importance and possibility of angels
2. an examination of angels as objects of religious belief
3. an examination of angels as objects of philosophical thought
4. a look at what Adler calls "angelistic fallacies" in modern thought, or philosophical errors based on the false attribution of angelic qualities to man
5. an epilogue in which Adler makes some final suggestions about the implications of angelology for the spiritual life of man
The material is handled briefly and with great authority. When Adler refers to the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and others, he is discussing works that he has studied in depth and in their entirety over the whole course of his long adult life. He knows what he's talking about. Few indeed are the people whose depth of knowledge rivals Adler's on any subject, and still less on so many subjects (Adler was also the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica). The result is that he is able to pick the key relevant thoughts and words of these authors and use them to make his points.
And what are his points? One is that angels can be viewed from two main aspects: the theological aspect, in which angels are part of the belief system of the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the philosophical aspect, in which angels are a possibility rather than as an article of faith, and the implications are worked out logically from the assumption of their existence. The theological aspect is grounded in the evidence of sacred texts, such as the Bible; the philosophical aspect is grounded only on the definition of angel as a purely spiritual being. If one's thinking about them is to be clear, it's important to keep those two aspects distinct--something, it turns out, that few thinkers have actually achieved, not even the great Aquinas.
Adler does a good job of examining each of these aspects. On the theological side, angels show up often in both the Old and New Testaments, and thus provide lots of material on which theologians have drawn to flesh out the theory of angels. Adler notes, though, that the celestial org-chart of nine orders of angels, laid out by someone writing under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, is not actually canonical, although many writers, including Aquinas, regarded this writer as authoritative. So those orders have no true scriptural basis. Also, the notion of guardian angels, and in particular the idea that each of us has a unique guardian angel devoted to us alone, is based on slender evidence from scripture, and many authorities don't regard it as scripturally based.
On the philosophical side Adler, a professional philosopher, is in his element, but he acknowledges that not very much can be stated with certainty based only on the assumption of the existence of angels. He spends time showing that the best thinker about angels was indeed Aquinas, and that Aquinas made persuasive arguments that angels, as purely spiritual beings, must also be purely intellectual in nature; that is, they must lack those mental faculties that arise from having a physical body, such as sensations and imagination, as well as faculties that depend on these, such as discursive reasoning. What angels know they know immediately by infallible intuition, based on the ideas with which they were endowed upon their creation by God.
Angels experience love, but only of the highest kind--the charity that wills good for another. And they communicate, but only telepathically, not via any bodily means.
Adler doesn't say whether he himself believes in angels, but I get the feeling that he does. He admits that the philosophical idea of angels is hard or impossible to visualize; all of the representations of angels in art and literature have been poetic analogies to express the qualities of angels. At the same time, though, the Bible does assert that angels can appear in human form; Adler discusses how this can be so without the angels' having to assume actual physical bodies.
Adler has strong opinions which he is not shy about expressing. The assertions of many of the greatest thinkers, such as Descartes, Locke, Kant, and others, he deems to be erroneous. So much for them. And I think you would have to agree--if you accepted all his premises. For my part, I'm not sure I do. For example, the idea that angels have free choice, but only in the first instant after their creation (it was after this instant that certain angels were thought to have "fallen" and become demons), seems like an unreasonable limitation that exists only because of philosophers' faith in their starting premises. Can angels really be less free than humans in this respect?
Still, this book is richly illuminating and extremely well informed on its subject. Plus there's a really nice discursive bibliography at the end for the interested reader.
Do I believe in angels? I think I do. And as against the philosophers I'll stand with Hamlet:
Amen.
In the preface to this book, published when the author was 79, Mortimer J. Adler describes the reception he got from the publisher and the editor-in-chief of the Great Books of the Western World when, in 1945, he submitted his final list of the 102 Great Ideas of Western civilization. At the top of the alphabetical list was Angel, and the publisher, Senator William Benton, then president of the University of Chicago, was "flabbergasted". Robert Hutchins and other members of the editorial advisory board also protested. They did not agree that Angel belonged in the list of Great Ideas.
Adler must have talked them into it, for if you open up your set of the Great Books right now, you'll find that Angel still heads the list of the Great Ideas. From their reaction, it seems safe to say that neither Benton nor Hutchins believed in angels, but, as Adler points out repeatedly in The Angels and Us, the idea of angels is important in itself, not only because they form part of a fully developed cosmology that takes account of a spiritual realm, but also, and even more importantly, because in understanding the nature of angels we come to understand the nature of man.
The book is developed in five parts:
1. a prologue in which Adler discusses the importance and possibility of angels
2. an examination of angels as objects of religious belief
3. an examination of angels as objects of philosophical thought
4. a look at what Adler calls "angelistic fallacies" in modern thought, or philosophical errors based on the false attribution of angelic qualities to man
5. an epilogue in which Adler makes some final suggestions about the implications of angelology for the spiritual life of man
The material is handled briefly and with great authority. When Adler refers to the writings of Thomas Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and others, he is discussing works that he has studied in depth and in their entirety over the whole course of his long adult life. He knows what he's talking about. Few indeed are the people whose depth of knowledge rivals Adler's on any subject, and still less on so many subjects (Adler was also the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica). The result is that he is able to pick the key relevant thoughts and words of these authors and use them to make his points.
And what are his points? One is that angels can be viewed from two main aspects: the theological aspect, in which angels are part of the belief system of the religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; and the philosophical aspect, in which angels are a possibility rather than as an article of faith, and the implications are worked out logically from the assumption of their existence. The theological aspect is grounded in the evidence of sacred texts, such as the Bible; the philosophical aspect is grounded only on the definition of angel as a purely spiritual being. If one's thinking about them is to be clear, it's important to keep those two aspects distinct--something, it turns out, that few thinkers have actually achieved, not even the great Aquinas.
Adler does a good job of examining each of these aspects. On the theological side, angels show up often in both the Old and New Testaments, and thus provide lots of material on which theologians have drawn to flesh out the theory of angels. Adler notes, though, that the celestial org-chart of nine orders of angels, laid out by someone writing under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, is not actually canonical, although many writers, including Aquinas, regarded this writer as authoritative. So those orders have no true scriptural basis. Also, the notion of guardian angels, and in particular the idea that each of us has a unique guardian angel devoted to us alone, is based on slender evidence from scripture, and many authorities don't regard it as scripturally based.
On the philosophical side Adler, a professional philosopher, is in his element, but he acknowledges that not very much can be stated with certainty based only on the assumption of the existence of angels. He spends time showing that the best thinker about angels was indeed Aquinas, and that Aquinas made persuasive arguments that angels, as purely spiritual beings, must also be purely intellectual in nature; that is, they must lack those mental faculties that arise from having a physical body, such as sensations and imagination, as well as faculties that depend on these, such as discursive reasoning. What angels know they know immediately by infallible intuition, based on the ideas with which they were endowed upon their creation by God.
Angels experience love, but only of the highest kind--the charity that wills good for another. And they communicate, but only telepathically, not via any bodily means.
Adler doesn't say whether he himself believes in angels, but I get the feeling that he does. He admits that the philosophical idea of angels is hard or impossible to visualize; all of the representations of angels in art and literature have been poetic analogies to express the qualities of angels. At the same time, though, the Bible does assert that angels can appear in human form; Adler discusses how this can be so without the angels' having to assume actual physical bodies.
Adler has strong opinions which he is not shy about expressing. The assertions of many of the greatest thinkers, such as Descartes, Locke, Kant, and others, he deems to be erroneous. So much for them. And I think you would have to agree--if you accepted all his premises. For my part, I'm not sure I do. For example, the idea that angels have free choice, but only in the first instant after their creation (it was after this instant that certain angels were thought to have "fallen" and become demons), seems like an unreasonable limitation that exists only because of philosophers' faith in their starting premises. Can angels really be less free than humans in this respect?
Still, this book is richly illuminating and extremely well informed on its subject. Plus there's a really nice discursive bibliography at the end for the interested reader.
Do I believe in angels? I think I do. And as against the philosophers I'll stand with Hamlet:
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Amen.
Read
December 19, 2022a slog
March 12, 2015
This is a book of philosophy about the possibility that angels exist. If they do exist, then what kind of being must they be? Mortimer J. Adler was a very serious scholar, and so his contribution to this question cannot be discounted. His aim is ambitious. “I claim for it more than that. I will try to show that angels are the most fascinating of all such objects of fantasy and thought because, unlike all other forms of superhuman intelligence that fall short of the infinite power of a divine intellect, angels—and angels alone--are minds without bodies.” (4)
Clearly a major hurdle to his inquiry is the lack of solid, testable evidence. “The only justification for affirming the existence of something unperceived and, perhaps, imperceptible is that whatever it is that needs to be explained cannot be explained in any other way. This is the sound rule laid down by William of Ockham in the fourteenth century and it has been followed ever since by careful, cautious scientists and philosophers.” (56) While there is much support for the existence of angels in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, perception in a modern sense is difficult.
In typical Adler fashion, there are a number of interesting points. “To say that the devil has an irresistible power to cause sin is to deny that human sin, original and subsequent, proceeds from the exercise of free choice on the part of Adam and his descendants.” (90) Such ethical debates are hallmarks of Adler’s philosophical education and approach. He speculates as to what kind of beings they might be. “We noted earlier that if angels really exist, they are neither like bodies, temporal beings, nor like God, eternal. As finite spiritual beings, they exist in a manner that lies between temporality and eternity: their existence is aeviternal.” (132) I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen the word aeviternal before. Similarly reasoned, “Hence, we must give an affirmative answer to the following hypothetical question: ‘If angels really exist, do they love God, first of all, and then themselves and other angels, all objects they know by the ideas infused in their natures by God; all objects the intrinsic goodness of which they also understand?’ The angelic love just affirmed is both natural and an act of free choice.” (139) All in all, this is just a difficult book to love. It is entirely theoretical. That Adler is very well informed, a wonderful righter, and applies the maximum amount of reason makes the book a worthy contribution.
See my other reviews here!
Clearly a major hurdle to his inquiry is the lack of solid, testable evidence. “The only justification for affirming the existence of something unperceived and, perhaps, imperceptible is that whatever it is that needs to be explained cannot be explained in any other way. This is the sound rule laid down by William of Ockham in the fourteenth century and it has been followed ever since by careful, cautious scientists and philosophers.” (56) While there is much support for the existence of angels in the Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions, perception in a modern sense is difficult.
In typical Adler fashion, there are a number of interesting points. “To say that the devil has an irresistible power to cause sin is to deny that human sin, original and subsequent, proceeds from the exercise of free choice on the part of Adam and his descendants.” (90) Such ethical debates are hallmarks of Adler’s philosophical education and approach. He speculates as to what kind of beings they might be. “We noted earlier that if angels really exist, they are neither like bodies, temporal beings, nor like God, eternal. As finite spiritual beings, they exist in a manner that lies between temporality and eternity: their existence is aeviternal.” (132) I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen the word aeviternal before. Similarly reasoned, “Hence, we must give an affirmative answer to the following hypothetical question: ‘If angels really exist, do they love God, first of all, and then themselves and other angels, all objects they know by the ideas infused in their natures by God; all objects the intrinsic goodness of which they also understand?’ The angelic love just affirmed is both natural and an act of free choice.” (139) All in all, this is just a difficult book to love. It is entirely theoretical. That Adler is very well informed, a wonderful righter, and applies the maximum amount of reason makes the book a worthy contribution.
See my other reviews here!
June 23, 2013
As would be expected of Mr Adler, a very readable but serious examination of the possibility of angels. The book is structured in a bifurcated fashion. Just as St Thomas approaches the same theological ideas via the different roads of Revelation and Reason via his Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles so Adler looks at the reality of Angels via the implications of various religious traditions in the first half of his book and in the second, what can be said of them philosophically, from Reason alone.
While Angelology has largely fallen into negligence since the Early Modern period, Adler makes a good case for why the study of Angels is integral to our overall study of Cosmology. Popular confusions of human, angelic and divine natures have implications on how we view the world beyond speculation on the existence of incorporeal intelligences.
While Angelology has largely fallen into negligence since the Early Modern period, Adler makes a good case for why the study of Angels is integral to our overall study of Cosmology. Popular confusions of human, angelic and divine natures have implications on how we view the world beyond speculation on the existence of incorporeal intelligences.
February 16, 2015
A philosophical treatise on angels, identifying what the theologian can assert versus what a philosopher can surmise--and seeking to use those insights to clarify what it means to be human (i.e., not angels ourselves).
June 7, 2024
AN UNUSUAL BOOK FOR THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHER
Mortimer Jerome Adler (1902-2001) was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author, who worked at various times for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and his own Institute for Philosophical Research.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1982 book, “When, in 1943, Robert Hutchins and I undertook to edit ‘Great Books of the Western World’ for the Encyclopedia Britannica company, I also worked on constructing a systematic guide to the discussion of the great ideas by the authors of the great books. The first task… involved the selection of the ideas to be treated and the formulation of the topics to be considered under each idea. By 1945, after working for two hears with collaborators, I settled upon a final list of 102 ideas… I had little difficulty in getting my associates’ approval of almost all the ideas I proposed to include. But … I stood almost alone in my insistence on the inclusion of the idea of ANGEL. The task fell to me of writing an essay about each of the great ideas… Deciding to adopt an alphabetical order for the presentation of the ideas, I wrote the essay on ANGEL first, and sent copies of my first draft… I will never forget [the Encyclopedia Britannica publisher’s] immediate reaction. He was flabbergasted by my choice of ANGEL as one of the great ideas. He thought it did not belong in that company at all… I persisted. My reading of the great books had persuaded me that ANGEL should be included among the great ideas… Writing this book has further persuaded me that I was right in my judgment thirty-five years ago. Reading it, I hope, will persuade others that that is the case.”
He explains in the Prologue, “Angelology, which is the subject of this book, is speculation about minds, either totally without bodies or with bodies that they take on as guises but do not inhabit. It is no longer in vogue. Angels are no longer the object of poetic and pictorial imagination that they once were, nor are they now the objects of the extensive theological and philosophical speculation that they were in the Middle Ages and down to the nineteenth century… I will try to show that angels are the most fascinating of all such objects of fantasy and thought because, unlike all other forms of superhuman intelligence that falls short of the infinite power of a divine intellect, angels---and angels alone----are minds without bodies.” (Pg. 4)
He asks “Why should religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in angels?... All three… are distinguished by their faith in certain writings as Sacred Scriptures because they are the revealed word of God… The assertion that these writings contain Divine revelation is an affirmation that is both unprovable and irrefutable. It does not belong, therefore, in the domain of historical, scientific, or philosophical knowledge. It belongs to the realm of religious belief.” (Pg. 33)
He acknowledges, “neither a theological nor a philosophical argument can be constructed to prove the existence of angels. All that philosophical reasoning can do… is to help … explain why [a believer] believes what, in fact, he does believe. The explanation proceeds by the following steps. STEP 1: We know by reason and beyond a reasonable doubt… that God, an infinite and purely spiritual being, exists… STEP 2: We believe by religious faith… that [God’s] omnipotence enables him to do everything that is possible… STEP 3: We believe… that the infinite perfection of the Divine being includes perfect freedom… [STEP 4:] angels or spiritual creatures in fact exist in this particular universe that God created…. Why, then, did God create angels, fi he was under no necessity to do so?... STEP : … Among the possible universes God might have created, one that includes angels is better than one in which they are lacking.” (Pg. 65-67)
He suggests, “the theologian’s explanation of Satan’s sin runs along the following line. So near to God… Satan desired more---the supernatural knowledge whereby God knows himself. This was tantamount to wishing to be God… his pride---his love of self---made him reject the gift of grace... What he desired was good, not evil; but he sought to achieve it in the wrong way… How, then, could Satan have been so prideful in self-love that he committed the sin of preferring his own way to God’s way… instead of being humble enough to receive it as a gift from God? If there is an answer to this question, I cannot find it in dogmatic theology. Nor can I find an answer to the question how Adam could have committed original sin… He wanted his own way rather than God’s. But why? No answer is forthcoming. In the inscrutability of Satan’s and of Adam’s choice lies the mystery of original sin, and, indeed, the mystery of evil.” (Pg. 94-95)
He argues, “The materialist assumption that spiritual substances do not exist is as much an act of faith as the religious belief in the reality of angels… The denial of reality to angels is one thing; the denial of their possibility is quite another. The materialist assumption that nothing really exists except bodies or corporeal substances … does not… lead to the conclusion the angels are impossible. They remain possible as objects of thought about which we can meaningfully ask whether or not they really exist… And if the fundamental tenet of materialism … turns out to be false, the religious belief in the reality of angels may be true.” (Pg. 107)
He speculates, “Granted that angels differ only as species differ, not as individuals differ, we must ask: According to which theory of species do they differ---the scientific or the philosophical theory of species[?]… Nothing that we have learned about angles so far enables us to answer this question… angels are differentiated by the number of innate ideas each has and by the comprehensiveness of these ideas, with the result that each angel is higher or lower than another.” (Pg. 126-127)
He suggests, “human beings… can become in the future quite like angels when the transformation of these conditions by communism produce a ‘new man,’ a terrestrial angel who, like his heavenly counterpart, lives in love and friendship with his neighbor in a stateless society, without government, law, or coercive force… Human nature may be affected for better or worse by nurture, but no set of social conditions or economic and political conditions can make men angels.” (Pg. 170)
Interestingly (and perhaps inconsistently), he rejects parapsychology as ‘fallacious.” (Pg. 171-173)
He concludes, “Some people… may think it odd for a philosopher… to be seriously concerned with angels as objects of philosophical thought… In response, I would like to point out that… both theological speculation about angels as objects of religious belief and the philosophical consideration of angels as possible beings have proved indispensable to exposing the … fallacies at the bottom of a wide variety of theories and opinions. It is these theories and opinions that are fat out, not angelology… One very important lesson to be learned from the history of human thought is this: no theory or opinion is so strange or weird that it is beyond the power of the human mind to confect and cherish.” (Pg. 176-177)
It’s difficult to “objectively” evaluate this book. (I admit to being one of those who wonders why a philosopher of Adler’s stature would write an entire book on Angels.) Fans of Adler’s more “philosophical” books may not like this one at all---but others, as well as the non-philosophically-minded, may love it.
Mortimer Jerome Adler (1902-2001) was an American philosopher, educator, and popular author, who worked at various times for Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Encyclopædia Britannica, and his own Institute for Philosophical Research.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1982 book, “When, in 1943, Robert Hutchins and I undertook to edit ‘Great Books of the Western World’ for the Encyclopedia Britannica company, I also worked on constructing a systematic guide to the discussion of the great ideas by the authors of the great books. The first task… involved the selection of the ideas to be treated and the formulation of the topics to be considered under each idea. By 1945, after working for two hears with collaborators, I settled upon a final list of 102 ideas… I had little difficulty in getting my associates’ approval of almost all the ideas I proposed to include. But … I stood almost alone in my insistence on the inclusion of the idea of ANGEL. The task fell to me of writing an essay about each of the great ideas… Deciding to adopt an alphabetical order for the presentation of the ideas, I wrote the essay on ANGEL first, and sent copies of my first draft… I will never forget [the Encyclopedia Britannica publisher’s] immediate reaction. He was flabbergasted by my choice of ANGEL as one of the great ideas. He thought it did not belong in that company at all… I persisted. My reading of the great books had persuaded me that ANGEL should be included among the great ideas… Writing this book has further persuaded me that I was right in my judgment thirty-five years ago. Reading it, I hope, will persuade others that that is the case.”
He explains in the Prologue, “Angelology, which is the subject of this book, is speculation about minds, either totally without bodies or with bodies that they take on as guises but do not inhabit. It is no longer in vogue. Angels are no longer the object of poetic and pictorial imagination that they once were, nor are they now the objects of the extensive theological and philosophical speculation that they were in the Middle Ages and down to the nineteenth century… I will try to show that angels are the most fascinating of all such objects of fantasy and thought because, unlike all other forms of superhuman intelligence that falls short of the infinite power of a divine intellect, angels---and angels alone----are minds without bodies.” (Pg. 4)
He asks “Why should religious Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe in angels?... All three… are distinguished by their faith in certain writings as Sacred Scriptures because they are the revealed word of God… The assertion that these writings contain Divine revelation is an affirmation that is both unprovable and irrefutable. It does not belong, therefore, in the domain of historical, scientific, or philosophical knowledge. It belongs to the realm of religious belief.” (Pg. 33)
He acknowledges, “neither a theological nor a philosophical argument can be constructed to prove the existence of angels. All that philosophical reasoning can do… is to help … explain why [a believer] believes what, in fact, he does believe. The explanation proceeds by the following steps. STEP 1: We know by reason and beyond a reasonable doubt… that God, an infinite and purely spiritual being, exists… STEP 2: We believe by religious faith… that [God’s] omnipotence enables him to do everything that is possible… STEP 3: We believe… that the infinite perfection of the Divine being includes perfect freedom… [STEP 4:] angels or spiritual creatures in fact exist in this particular universe that God created…. Why, then, did God create angels, fi he was under no necessity to do so?... STEP : … Among the possible universes God might have created, one that includes angels is better than one in which they are lacking.” (Pg. 65-67)
He suggests, “the theologian’s explanation of Satan’s sin runs along the following line. So near to God… Satan desired more---the supernatural knowledge whereby God knows himself. This was tantamount to wishing to be God… his pride---his love of self---made him reject the gift of grace... What he desired was good, not evil; but he sought to achieve it in the wrong way… How, then, could Satan have been so prideful in self-love that he committed the sin of preferring his own way to God’s way… instead of being humble enough to receive it as a gift from God? If there is an answer to this question, I cannot find it in dogmatic theology. Nor can I find an answer to the question how Adam could have committed original sin… He wanted his own way rather than God’s. But why? No answer is forthcoming. In the inscrutability of Satan’s and of Adam’s choice lies the mystery of original sin, and, indeed, the mystery of evil.” (Pg. 94-95)
He argues, “The materialist assumption that spiritual substances do not exist is as much an act of faith as the religious belief in the reality of angels… The denial of reality to angels is one thing; the denial of their possibility is quite another. The materialist assumption that nothing really exists except bodies or corporeal substances … does not… lead to the conclusion the angels are impossible. They remain possible as objects of thought about which we can meaningfully ask whether or not they really exist… And if the fundamental tenet of materialism … turns out to be false, the religious belief in the reality of angels may be true.” (Pg. 107)
He speculates, “Granted that angels differ only as species differ, not as individuals differ, we must ask: According to which theory of species do they differ---the scientific or the philosophical theory of species[?]… Nothing that we have learned about angles so far enables us to answer this question… angels are differentiated by the number of innate ideas each has and by the comprehensiveness of these ideas, with the result that each angel is higher or lower than another.” (Pg. 126-127)
He suggests, “human beings… can become in the future quite like angels when the transformation of these conditions by communism produce a ‘new man,’ a terrestrial angel who, like his heavenly counterpart, lives in love and friendship with his neighbor in a stateless society, without government, law, or coercive force… Human nature may be affected for better or worse by nurture, but no set of social conditions or economic and political conditions can make men angels.” (Pg. 170)
Interestingly (and perhaps inconsistently), he rejects parapsychology as ‘fallacious.” (Pg. 171-173)
He concludes, “Some people… may think it odd for a philosopher… to be seriously concerned with angels as objects of philosophical thought… In response, I would like to point out that… both theological speculation about angels as objects of religious belief and the philosophical consideration of angels as possible beings have proved indispensable to exposing the … fallacies at the bottom of a wide variety of theories and opinions. It is these theories and opinions that are fat out, not angelology… One very important lesson to be learned from the history of human thought is this: no theory or opinion is so strange or weird that it is beyond the power of the human mind to confect and cherish.” (Pg. 176-177)
It’s difficult to “objectively” evaluate this book. (I admit to being one of those who wonders why a philosopher of Adler’s stature would write an entire book on Angels.) Fans of Adler’s more “philosophical” books may not like this one at all---but others, as well as the non-philosophically-minded, may love it.
January 7, 2021
Unlike reading about the Devil, a review I provided earlier this morning, reading about angels is far more edifying. Let's consider how the most renowned angelologist, E. Gilson, developed his understanding of the angelic community.
1. There are intelligences turned wholly to God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. What do these intelligences "do all day"? This community is organized around the intelligible essence of God. They "view" God in the aspect of His Essence. Viewing the supreme God, Father Almighty, they implicitly understand that the universe itself is not a vast empty space with dust particles, but as the transition station between an infinite abyss and the splendor and glory of God's court. To witness this is to be enflamed with love for God the Father Almighty.
2. The next community of angelic intelligences view God indirectly as Providence. In this account the attention of those in this community is focused on the Divine Types which order the affairs of lesser beings.
3. The next community is occupied with the Divine Judiciary, or Court of Sessions. Here we witness the judgment rendered over those found guilty of a lack of love for others. For instance, Charles Manson was sentenced here to two eternities for his lack of concern. It is possible that an Appeals Court may reduce the sentence to only one eternity but no one actually expects that. Joe Biden will be prosecuted for being a "faux" Catholic, because an actual Catholic would never be a loudmouth.
I hope to be present when he is prosecuted to the full extent of Divine Justice. And of course I invite you gentle reader to my own trial; see you in the next life when these things get sorted out.
1. There are intelligences turned wholly to God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. What do these intelligences "do all day"? This community is organized around the intelligible essence of God. They "view" God in the aspect of His Essence. Viewing the supreme God, Father Almighty, they implicitly understand that the universe itself is not a vast empty space with dust particles, but as the transition station between an infinite abyss and the splendor and glory of God's court. To witness this is to be enflamed with love for God the Father Almighty.
2. The next community of angelic intelligences view God indirectly as Providence. In this account the attention of those in this community is focused on the Divine Types which order the affairs of lesser beings.
3. The next community is occupied with the Divine Judiciary, or Court of Sessions. Here we witness the judgment rendered over those found guilty of a lack of love for others. For instance, Charles Manson was sentenced here to two eternities for his lack of concern. It is possible that an Appeals Court may reduce the sentence to only one eternity but no one actually expects that. Joe Biden will be prosecuted for being a "faux" Catholic, because an actual Catholic would never be a loudmouth.
I hope to be present when he is prosecuted to the full extent of Divine Justice. And of course I invite you gentle reader to my own trial; see you in the next life when these things get sorted out.
December 11, 2014
I quit reading this book because it was more like a book that I would read for a college philosphy class. It was difficult for me to follow along and I lost interest quickly so I decided that it was time to set it aside and read something else.
June 20, 2019
Complex topic covered with detail and sensitivity. Adler tackles both the religious and the philosophy of angels in his well supported book.
August 24, 2009
edisi bahasa Indonesia terbitan Teraju
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