St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Summa Theologia, asks the question, whether a beatified angel can sin.

The word beatified there just means made blessed, so an angel who has chosen for God, and so enjoys the vision of God forever in heaven.

He responds in this way.

It belongs to the perfection of its liberty for the free will to be able to choose between opposite things, keeping the order of the end in view.

But it comes of the defect of liberty for it to choose anything by turning away from the order of the

end. And this is to sin. Hence, there is greater liberty of will in the angels who cannot sin

than there is in ourselves. I'm going to read that again. It belongs to the perfection of its liberty for the free will to be able to choose between opposite things,

keeping the order of the end in view.

But it comes of the defect of liberty for it to choose anything by turning away from the order of the end,

and this is to sin.

Hence, there is greater liberty of will in the angels who cannot sin than there is in ourselves.

The insight here is provocative.

It goes against our intuitions, and will prove for us a kind of occasion of further inquiry,

namely this. Okay. Greatest freedom is to be found in heaven when we are bound to the end

and beyond the possibility of defection.

Greatest liberty is to be found in heaven, where we cannot but choose God.

We cannot look away because it's a vision that is wholly satisfying that admits of no lessening and no fear of loss.

And in that vision, we are most perfectly free. This, I think, is contrary to the prevailing notion

of what constitutes freedom or liberty.

Our modern notion, also, is rooted in our modern understanding of nature and human nature.

So what we're going to do for this talk is very simple.

We're going to examine the prevailing notion, the modern notion as to what constitutes freedom,

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