Anna Lukina proposes an interesting thought experiment for considering the law that exists in wicked states, like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, or the so-called Islamic State. She proposes looking at the fallen angels, at demons. She argues that demons have a need among themselves for hierarchy and indeed for rules. The world of demons, she notes, is not a world of chaos; there is still order among the demons. By analogy, a human community ordered toward evil ends has the same need. While she acknowledges that, by Aquinas’s definition of law, the law of an evil regime will be defective, she suggests that its law may well be effective as a coordination mechanism.
However, Lukina’s angelology has some problems. These problems, I think, lead ultimately to problems for Lukina’s argument. The crux of the matter is this: Lukina assumes—or seems to assume—that the bad angels establish some order among themselves in response to a need for order. She suggests that they band together and coordinate through rules, even if the ends they pursue are vicious. (An understatement.) However, Lukina does not account sufficiently for the created nature of angels versus men. “Quia parvus error in principio magnus est in fine”—“A small mistake in the beginning is a big one in the end” (QD de Ente et Essentia, Prooemium).
By nature angels are unequal (ST Ia q.62 a.6 s.c.; Peter Lombard, II Sent. D.3). God bestows grace and glory on the angels according to their natural gifts: those with greater natural gifts receive greater grace and glory. In other words, angels are distinguished by their natural gifts and by the gifts of grace and glory, bestowed according to those natural gifts (cf. ST Ia. q.108 a.4 co.). To put it another way, order among the angels must be considered in two dimensions: the order of nature and the order of grace. (Aquinas distinguishes grace into perfect grace and imperfect grace, glory and merit.) The bad angels have fallen from the order of grace by their sin, but they have not fallen from the order of nature—nor could they.
Augustine provides a definition of order: “Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio”—“Order is the distribution which allots things equal and unequal, each to its own place” (De civitate Dei 19.13). Aquinas takes up this definition (ST Ia q.96 a.3 s.c.). The angels are, therefore, in their very existence ordered. Peace, which is the end of law, is nothing more than the tranquility of order (De civitate Dei 19.13). The bad angels, through their sin, have departed from the peace of God in which they were created.
But this is not the end of the question. Aquinas reminds us of Dionysius the Areopagite’s angelology (cf. ST Ia q.109 a.1 co.). Dionysius tells us that the bad angels have not lost their natural gifts (Div. Nom. IV. 23). Nothing about the bad angels’ natures is evil: it is because they have fallen away from those natures that they are evil (ibid.; cf. ST Ia q.63 a.4 co.). In his translation of the Divine Names, published in 1496 or 1497, though written probably a few years before that, Marsilio Ficino puts it like this: “demonica gens non qua ratione secundum naturae est, sed qua non est existit mala”—“the demonic host is bad, not for the reason it is naturally so, but for the reason it is unnaturally so.” In other words, what the bad angels were by nature before the fall, they are after the fall.
Aquinas tells us, therefore, that the demons are by natural order subject to others (ST Ia q.109 a.2 co.). There exists among them a natural hierarchy (ST Ia q.109 a.2 ad 3). Indeed, in the order of nature, they were at the moment of their sin, despite their pride, subject to the highest angel (ST Ia q.63 a.8 co.). At any rate, the nature of the fallen angels requires that there be some authority among them (ST Ia q.109 a.2 co.). There is a crucial distinction here: man, according to Aquinas here, is naturally equal (ST Ia q.109 a.2 ad 3). Aquinas explains the difference between angels and men in this context elsewhere (ST Ia q.62 a.6 ad 3).
We see, then, that there is a natural hierarchy of angels, and God bestows supernatural gifts upon angels according to the unequal natural gifts. The fallen angels did not lose their natural gifts through their fall. There remains, therefore, a hierarchy among them. The sin of the angels is, as has been explained, preferring to make themselves their ends, as opposed to God (cf. ST q.63 a.3 co.; QD de Veritate q.8 a.16 ad 6). Even so, Aquinas explains that they submit to their natural hierarchy out of their profound malice (ST Ia q.109 a.2 ad 2). Even their submission to the higher among them is itself a function of their pride (ST Ia q.63 a.8 ad 2). Moreover, their hierarchy leads to unhappiness: “praeesse in malis est esse magis miserum”—“to preside in evil is to be more miserable” (ST Ia q.109 a.2 ad 3).
Lukina recognizes much—but not all—of this. However, what she does not recognize presents problems for her argument. She suggests that, because the angels are unequal, there is the need for a hierarchy among them. But this is not quite right. For one thing, their inequality means that there simply is a hierarchy among them, not that they need to create one. For another thing, God established and rules over creation (ST Ia q.103 a.3 co.). All things are subject to God’s government (ST Ia q.103 a.5 co.). To this end, Aquinas recognizes that the bad angels are ordered by God (ST Ia q.109 a.1 ad 2). And he notes that the natural authority among them does not come from their own justice—they have none—but God’s justice in ordering all things (ST Ia q.109 a.2 ad 1). The bad angels cannot escape from God’s order (ST Ia q.103 a.8 co.).
The problem with Lukina’s argument is now clear. Order does not emerge by the will of the bad angels in response to some need on their part, like castaways organizing a foraging party. The scenes Milton sketches of Pandemonium in Paradise Lost must remain on the page. They bear no connection to reality. The bad angels exist in order naturally as a result of their creation, and the natural aspects of this order remain even after their fall. Their fall comes from preferring themselves to the common good, the tranquility of order that God has ordained. As a result, their submission to the order among them is a matter of pride and malice on their part, though it produces no happiness among them. But their order is not their own: God has established the order among them and they cannot escape from it.
Pat Smith
