Love and Free Will of the Angels

Free will is an essential constituent of every spiritual nature, divine, angelic, and human. The Angels are pure spirits, as was demonstrated in the preceding chapter. They must consequently enjoy freedom of choice, no less than man who is a little less than the Angels.
Sacred Scripture clearly implies the existence of a free will in the Angelic nature. The mere fact that a number of them sinned while the rest chose to remain loyal to God proves it beyond doubt. Personal sin is a willful transgression of the law of God. Sin cannot exist where there is no free will. Since the Scripture explicitly reveals the sin of the Angels and their banishment from heaven, it clearly implies that they are in possession of a free will. "God spared not the Angels that sinned."[12] "The Angels who kept not their principality, but forsook their own habitation, he hath reserved under darkness in everlasting chains, unto the judgment of the great day."[13] The voluntary abandonment of their "principality" and their subsequent punishment are facts that absolutely presuppose free will and free choice. "An Angel is an intellectual substance, endowed with liberty," writes Saint John Damascene; and again, "Every being that is endowed with reason is also endowed with free will. Consequently an Angel, being a nature endowed with reason and intelligence, is also equipped with freedom of choice. Being a creature, he is mutable, because he is free either to persevere in what is good, or to turn to what is bad."[14]
The words of the Divine Savior revealing that Angels rejoice in heaven when they see a sinner converted to God and doing penance, presuppose a free will and free choice not only in man-the sinner doing penance but also in the Angels who rejoice instead of lamenting over such an act. "So I say to you, there shall be joy before the Angels of God upon one sinner doing penance."[15] This rejoicing over man's conversion, and hope of salvation, reveals the most beautiful and noble act of the Angelic will, their love. They love themselves and each other in God, and God in Himself and above all else. They love man because he is made to the image and likeness of God, is a partaker of the Divine nature, redeemed by the Son of God and destined to live with them in heaven. Yes, they love man, they protect him, they inspire him with holy thoughts and desires, they offer his prayers, his good works, his sufferings and his tears to God and they pray for him. Yes, the good Angels love man as much as Satan hates him. This love of man explains the heavenly joy they experience when they see a sinner doing penance, because through sin he was lost and now has been found, was dead and has come back to life.
Being entirely free from passions and all sensitive appetites, the act of the Angelic will is determined exclusively by the Angelic mind with a decision and a firmness that are final and admit of no reverse. It was exactly this quality of the Angelic will, as some say, that made the fallen angels incapable of conversion and repentance. For an Angel to sin-at the time of their probation when they were still free to do so-is to assume an immutable attitude against God, an aversion that will never end. He thus becomes an adversary of God, a demon. Whereas the good Angel that has once elicited an act of love of God will love God for all eternity. "Following that perfect knowledge of theirs, the Angel's surrender to love is immediate, unwavering, utterly whole and completely irrevocable. The fire of an Angel's love is not built up slowly; it has no stages of mere smoldering, no agonizing moments of dying embers; rather the Angel is immediately a holocaust, a roaring conflagration, aflame with a love that will never lessen."[16]
Desire is another manifest sign of a free will in a rational being. Saint Peter attributes this quality to the will of the Angels.
For centuries and ages, ever since the primal revelation was made to them, those heavenly spirits had ardently desired to see the fulfillment of the redemption promised mankind from the beginning: "Into these things Angels desired to look."[17] This desire to see our redemption accomplished is another proof of their love for us.
Once established in grace and admitted to the Beatific Vision, the Angelic will, no less than the human will, can no longer choose between good and evil. The choice it has made of the Good, is now an eternal choice. In the eternal possession of the Supreme Good they can still choose what they please, but their choice is always guided by the love of the Supreme Being and is only a choice between good and better.