Choose a topic from Part 1:
1. Angels are creatures. They exist, not by necessity, but by having existence given to them. That is, they have existence by participation. Now, what has existence by participation receives this existence from that which has existence by its own essence. Only God exists by his own essence. Therefore, angels have their existence from God; they are created.
2. God alone exists from eternity. He creates things by producing them from nothing. Creatures exist after they were nonexistent. Hence angels do not exist from eternity.
3. It seems most likely that angels and the bodily world were created at the same time, not angels first (as a kind of independent world of spirits) and the bodily world afterwards. Angels are part of the universe, and no part is perfect if it be entirely severed from the whole, the totality, to which it belongs.
4. The angels were created in heaven. And it is fitting that creatures of the most perfect nature should be created in the most noble place.
"It is vanity to love what passes quickly and not to look ahead where eternal joy abides.
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Thomas á Kempis
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"What good does it do to speak learnedly about the Trinity if, lacking humility, you displease the Trinity? Indeed it is not learning that makes a man holy and just, but a virtuous life makes him pleasing to God. "
Thomas á Kempis
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"God gives us some things, as the beginning of faith, even when we do not pray. Other things, such as perseverance, he has only provided for those who pray."
St Augustine
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