![]() “.the whole Book of Tobit is in some ways about this elaborate plan that Raphael is hatching.”įr. “Raphael seems particularly invested in the life of this one particular family,” Porter noted. In a more extended case, Porter added, the angel Raphael in the whole book of Tobit could be seen as acting in the capacity of a guardian angel. With their hands they shall support you, lest you strike your foot against a stone.” The Psalmist proclaims in Psalm 91: “For he commands his angels with regard to you, to guard you wherever you go. In the Old Testament, there are numerous examples of angels of the Lord that are sent to guard and protect humanity. While the idea of personal guardian angels is not explicitly defined by the Church or in Scripture, there are passages in Scripture that may suggest their existence. There are good reasons to think (they exist), but it's not something that the Church has thought that she needs to make a definitive statement on.” Guardian angels in Scripture “You have other things that could be deduced from Scripture and certainly are licit positions to hold, but aren't doctrinally defined. “Those are the basics about angels, generally,” Porter said. “Humans sort of enter into this war that's been raging between the demons and the holy angels.” “We hear about this in Revelation 12 in particular, and this is mentioned a couple of times in Church documents,” he said. The angels have the power of an intellect and a will, and when they use their will to defect from God, they are fallen angels, and they fall precisely from the goodness in which they were created.”Īnother important teaching about angels is that they are engaged in a great cosmic war - the heavenly angels versus the fallen angels, also known as demons. “The big ones are that they're created - they're not gods, they're not something standing alongside God, they are creatures. As for angels, there are one a handful of things that the Church can say it definitively knows about them. The number of doctrinal matters that the Church has defined as definitively true are relatively few, he said. Porter said that while the idea of personal guardian angels is a broadly held belief in the Church, it is not a doctrine of the Church - that is, it is not a belief neccesary for salvation, or binding upon Catholics. Philip Porter, PhD, is a theologian at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, and wrote his dissertation on the fall of the angels.
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