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Why Angels And Aliens Do Not Receive The Sacraments
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
My ‘Would St. Thomas Aquinas baptize an Extraterrestrial?’ argued that intelligent extraterrestrial life with sufficiently different matter from human beings would not share a human nature and would therefore not be integrated into the Mystical Body of Christ in the same way as human beings, through Christ's sacrifice and the sacraments. Marie George, in ‘Would St. Thomas Aquinas Baptize an Extraterrestrial? Revisited’, demonstrated that the angels are fully incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, and therefore posited that St. Thomas would not object to intelligent extraterrestrials of a different nature being baptized. This article revises my contentions about the Mystical Body and then shows that St. Thomas's theology excludes angels from the sacraments on the grounds of lacking a shared nature and argues that, while both extraterrestrials and angels can be saved by Christ, the sacraments have been given only to those who share a human nature with Christ.
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- Copyright © 2022 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 Lazzari, Edmund Michael, ‘Would St. Thomas Aquinas baptize an Extraterrestrial?’, New Blackfriars 99 (2018), pp. 440-457CrossRefGoogle Scholar; George, Marie, ‘Would St. Thomas Aquinas Baptize an Extraterrestrial? Revisited’, New Blackfriars 102 (2021), pp. 352-367CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 George, ‘Revisited’, 356.
3 George, ‘Revisited’, 367.
4 George, ‘Revisited’, 352-353, 364.
5 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 445, 447, 456.
6 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 451, 456.
7 George, ‘Revisited’, 352-353, 364.
8 While not treated at length by either my original article or George's response, such a position is shown in Orson Scott Card's Ender pentology in Speaker for the Dead (New York City: Tor, 1991), pp. 34, 95Google Scholar and Xenocide (New York City: Tor, 1991), pp. 162-163Google Scholar. For three different approaches to extraterrestrial missions as portrayed in science fiction, see Lazzari, ‘Missions to Extraterrestrials’, in Feist, Richard, ed., Jesuits and Science Fiction (Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press, Forthcoming)Google Scholar.
9 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 456.
10 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 445.
11 George, ‘Revisited’, 366.
12 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 453, emphasis added. Additional statements about the necessity for a human nature to be incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ by baptism or as needed to receive the sacraments also occur on 451, 452, and 456.
13 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 456.
14 See George, ‘Revisited’, 353-352.
15 George, ‘Revisited’, 359 n13.
16 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 440.
17 ST III Q. 61, art 1c ‘Quarum prima sumenda est ex conditione humanae naturae, cuius proprium est ut per corporalia et sensibilia in spiritualia et intelligibilia deducatur. Pertinet autem ad divinam providentiam ut unicuique rei provideat secundum modum suae conditionis. Et ideo convenienter divina sapientia homini auxilia salutis confert sub quibusdam corporalibus et sensibilibus signis, quae sacramenta dicuntur.’ All Latin texts of the Summa Theologiae are taken from Summa Theologiae, Commissio Piana, eds. 5 vols. (Ottawa: Institutio Studiorum Medievalium Ottaviensis, 1953).
18 ST III Q. 61, art. 1c ‘Tertia ratio sumenda est ex studio actionis humanae, quae praecipue circa corporalia versatur. Ne igitur esset homini durum si totaliter a corporalibus actibus abstraheretur, proposita sunt ei corporalia exercitia in sacramentis, quibus salubriter exerceretur, ad evitanda superstitiosa exercitia, quae consistunt in cultu Daemonum, vel qualitercumque noxia, quae consistunt in actibus peccatorum.’
19 ST III Q. 61 art. 1c ‘Secunda ratio sumenda est ex statu hominis, qui peccando se subdidit per affectum corporalibus rebus. Ibi autem debet medicinale remedium homini adhiberi ubi patitur morbum. Et ideo conveniens fuit ut Deus per quaedam corporalia signa hominibus spiritualem medicinam adhiberet, nam, si spiritualia nuda ei proponerentur, eius animus applicari non posset, corporalibus deditus.’
20 ST I, Q. 96, art. 1 ad 2. See also Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 447-448.
21 See George, ‘Revisited’, 358-359, especially 359 n13.
22 See, for example, ST III, Q. 61, art. 1c; SCG Bk. IV, c. 56; In Sent. IV Distinction 1 q. 1 a. 2 qc. 2 ad 3.
23 Aquinas, De malo, Q.4, art.1c. See 445-448.
24 ST III, Q. 61, art. 2c.
25 In Sent. IV Distinction 1, Q. 1, art. 2, Qc. 2 respondeo ‘ex influentia divini luminis’; ST III, Q. 61, art. 2 ad 2 states that human beings would be given grace, ‘non tamen ut eam consequeretur per aliqua sensibilia signa, sed spiritualiter et invisibiliter’. All Latin texts of the Commentary on the Sentences are taken from the Moos 1956 edition as found in Commentary on the Sentences Book IV, Questions 1-13 (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2017)Google Scholar.
26 Lazzari, ‘Extraterrestrial’, 447-448, 454-456.
27 See George, ‘Revisited’, 355n7.
28 In Sent. IV Dist. 5, Q. 2, art. 3, qc. 1 responsio, trans. Mortensen, Beth in Commentary on the Sentences Book IV, Questions 1-13 (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic, 2017)Google Scholar. ‘Diabolus in figura sacerdotis apparens potest immergere, sed non sacramentum conferre, propter duas rationes. Primo, quia dispensatio sacramentorum non est concessa nisi hominibus, qui conveniunt cum verbo incarnato, a quo sacramenta fluxerunt in natura assumpta; et etiam cum sacramentis, in quibus est spiritualis virtus in corporeis elementis, sicut et homines ex natura spirituali et corporali compositi sunt. Secundo si baptizare se fingeret, semper esset timendum quod non faceret intentione baptizandi, quae ad sacramentum exigitur, sed intentione decipiendi: quia non esset probabile quod tantum bonum homini procuraret, sicut est spiritualis regeneratio’.
29 In Sent. IV Dist. 5, Q. 2, art. 3, qc. 2 responsio, trans. Beth Mortensen in Commentary ‘Ad secundam quaestionem dicendum quod Angelis bonis non est collata potestas baptizandi, propter duas rationes. Primo, quia non habent praedictam convenientiam cum sacramento, et cum Christo, qui est auctor sacramenti’. The second reason is because angels, being invisible, cannot aid human beings, who cannot see them.
30 In Sent. IV Dist. 5, Q. 2, art. 3, qc. 2 responsio, trans. Beth Mortensen in Commentary ‘Sed sicut Deus potentiam suam sacramentis non alligavit, ita nec potestatem consecrandi sacramenta alligavit aliquibus ministris; unde qui dedit hanc potestatem hominibus, posset dare et Angelis. Nec Angelus bonus baptizaret nisi divinitus potestate sibi concessa; unde si baptizaret, non esset rebaptizandus, dummodo constaret quod bonus Angelus esset’.