According to Christianity, Angels and Demons inhabit a spiritual realm, in fact that is how they are defined- that which is not of the physical realm. That’s the reason that they do not conform to any physical laws, known or unknown, they are eternal beings, which is impossible under any physics. The soul of man is “spirit” too, being similarly eternal, as is God also Spirit, which is the Trinitarian doctrine itself. Here we see how all this can be possible and how it is also related.

Types of Substances

Substances are either physical and spiritual. A spiritual substance is simply anything that is not part of the physical universe and governed by physical laws including the constraints of space and time. We don’t know what it means apart from that, nor can we say what it means. Anything in this realm can be called “spirit”, and in this sense God is also Spirit, yet different in that he is God. This does not mean that God and other spirit creature share the same substance rather simply that they are both beyond physicality or anything that we can say about their “substance”, that’s all that is implied. In this sense there are at least two forms of spiritual substance, neither of which we can say a word about, and therefore we also cannot answer the next obvious question “how come there are more than one type of spiritual substance”. Having said that, we can state the fundamental difference between the spiritual substance of the angels and that of God himself. Our own soul is “spirit” and this is a third type of spiritual substance. This is the reason that it lives on after we suffer bodily death. Were this not the case then we would not live on. Physicality does not come back once it loses its physical integrity, since that’s what it is.

God’s own Spiritual Substance

God, on the other hand is not “substance” in the same manner that angels and souls are “substance” at all. He is that by which all other substances, including the physical, are held in existence since the point of their creation, since if not for God, nothing else could exist. Take a thought experiment- if God ceased to exist (which is admittedly and impossibility), it is not as though everything else would simply continue to go on and “run its course” as it were. Everything would vanish in an instant as though nothing had ever been. This is because something from it would be missing that were the reason it did not simply disappear and cease to exist. That is also the reason that it is impossible that God cannot cease to exist- there is not such thing as an existence without God- “Exist” cannot “not exist”, or it could not be “Exist”. That “thing in things” which is that by which they do not simply vanish, is not God himself, but it is the power that is only of God, and is not a “feature of the creature”. Did creatures have such a feature they would not by definition of that feature, vanish apart from God. This holds for the spiritual beings as well and it is how God is different from them. For a fuller description of this see the article The Holy Trinity- Three Persons, yet One God

Creation of Angels, their Free Choice and Thought

The Angels are created directly into the Vision and Presence of God. At the first instant of their creation they make the decision for God or to go against him. That decision for them is permanent. This is because angels are created in eternity and not in time (only physical substances are in time). Their instantaneous decision is their eternity.

Angels, since at the moment of their creation are given all the knowledge that they need in order to be able to make that decision for or against God. Human beings learn through the information that is relayed to their understanding through their physical senses. Their decisions are based upon the temporal collation and assimilation of all that information into their minds. Angels have no organs with which to sense physical things, having no physical bodies, nor do they require to do so- angels in a sense compress all that temporal activity of intellection that we described in humans of a lifetime into a single instant and this is why they can make an instantaneous decision. Men arrive at conclusions through a stepwise process of building upon various premises which are in turn based upon their sense data and memories- this is called “discursive thinking” whereas angels know the premises and the conclusions instantaneously, being directly infused with this knowledge by God. How much the capacity of each angel for knowledge is, is according to its rank and superiority in the angelic hierarchy- this is why there are greater and lesser angels.

Spiritual beings unlike humans so not have a “journey of faith” in which they are gradually strengthened in their faiths or “come to believe”. All this is not mere confablulation on the part of Christian apologists, it is required to satisfy the very definition of spirituality: having no physical referent. “faith” is not a possibility nor requirement for them, anymore than it will be for us in Heaven. This is clear from the verse in the Epistle of James which states that demons have the knowledge of God. They don’t need to deduce it, nor do some demons never arrive at the knowledge and remain “atheist” or “agnostic” in the manner of humans:

“You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that–and shudder” James 2:19.

The angels are thus created not in space and time, nor bound to it, but rather in God’s Eternity, or the eternal state which is Heaven itself. Therefore unlike humans, they do not have a succession of choices to make. They are purely intellectual beings. At the moment of their creation they were infused by God with all the knowledge that they would even have or need to have so that they could make a fully informed choice for or against God. That choice was therefore valid as their final choice, just as the final choice of a human being to repent or not to repent at the end of their life is final. This is why the demons can no more be forgiven, not anymore than the human soul which is damned upon death to Hell. The transition into eternity which man makes at his death is undergone by the angels at the first moment of their creation, incredible as it seems.

Do Angels sin?

Angels do not have physical desires, therefore they cannot commit sins related to physical desire. Not being physical, angels are purely intellectual beings. Their sin therefore being only related to the intellect, the only sin they are capable of is the sin of Pride. So it is out of pride we think that one-third of the angels chose against God and chose not to serve him. they are then confirmed in eternity in this choice, and are eternally damned. These are the demons, the so-called “fallen angels”. They are hereafter capable of nothing other than evil. This is the same as a human being who is eternally confirmed to Hell at the end of their lives- they can do nothing but evil for eternity, having been permanently cut off from the source of all good which is God. When we go to Heaven, we never disobey God. This is because we have the Vision of God and we are confirmed in our faith. That is different from saying we have no free Will. Angels are like that.

“For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment (…) Bold and willful, they are not afraid to slander the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not bring against them a slanderous judgment. These people, however, are like irrational animals, mere creatures of instinct, born to be caught and killed. They slander what they do not understand, and as those creatures are destroyed, they also will be destroyed” (2Pet.2:4, also Jude 6)

How Angels Interact with the Natural World

So how do angels interact with nature? Angels exist in the eternity of Heaven where we shall one day be with God forever. The Daemons exist in the eternity of Hell. There is no other place apart from “Eternity” and “temporality” such as a dimension into which creatures slip invisibly as is required to explain the existence of jinn. However the denizens of eternity are able to interact with temporality, even those in the eternity of damnation, within limits permitted by God. This interface is not a new dimension, it is merely an interaction, although we can never understand how eternality interacts with temporality, for the simple reason that we do not comprehend eternity. When these creatures do interact with temporality they do not shed their eternality. The devil does not die upon earth, he interacts with it as an atemporal spirit. He is here purely in order to tempt human beings to a damnable outcome with him. He is not here to for sex, physical sustenance or learning. His eternal outcome is already determined to Hell. This is not the same as physical beings obeying different physical laws interacting with our own physical space.

The Soul of Man

Here we attempt to clarify the terms “soul”, and the nature of the immaterial part of man. At the outset I will state that I understand “soul” and “spirit” to be one and the same thing, and I think that St. Paul and other Gospel writers use them separately only as a literary device. It does not make ontological sense for there to be two immaterial principles in the same person. Sometimes we’re struggling to defend even the one! “Spirit” rather is an interesting literary term because it conveys the notion of passion, desire and the things that man desires in his soul. Therefore it is a powerful synonym drawing the attention to a different aspect from perhaps what just “soul” denotes, which is more in the manner of permanence and eternality (and good music!)

The “Spirit” returns to God at Death

“then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.” (Ecclesiates 12:7).

Jesus himself on the Cross says: “into your hands I commend my Spirit”

and St. Steven at the time of his martyrdom says “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit”.

There would be no point in a Destructible Soul. It is the same as Spirit

Some Christian denominations and Jehovah’s Witnesses hold that the soul is destroyed at death, having been somehow an “emergent property” of the body (something that is dependent upon the physical body for its existence). If the soul died at death it would be irrelevant anyway, it would have been entirely undetected, and there would have been no point in creating it. A spiritual substance does not perish with the body, that’s the whole point of not being physical. In verses that follow we shall see that the spirit is the seat of understanding and wisdom, and this makes it impossible that the soul be destroyed, since were this the case, nothing of the individual would remain.

Some Christians believe in “soul sleep”, either that the soul at death is preserved unconscious until the Day of Judgement. The language of Jesus and the writers of the epistles use simply does not lend support to this view. A soul does not sleep- It does not need to, humans need sleep (it cannot however be denied though, that the thought of the soul sleeping might help some Christian apologists to sleep better!). But it is clear in the Book of Revelations that the souls are awake and speaking to God. This is really another case of Sola Scriptura as long as its convenient- if one is really sola scriptura then the moment souls are awake in Scripture, I don’t understand how we can say “soul sleep”. An alternative means of parsing this out for some Protestants might be that when they close their eyes in death, the next moment they are aware of is directly on Judgement Day, the time in between passes in a twinkling. So for example. Sts. Peter and Paul are asleep now, but they ‘re not aware of thousands of years going by. That’s the same as “soul sleep”, if they were aware of the thousands of years, but just going really quick, then the quickness serves no extra purpose.

All this destruction and re-creation of the soul seems terribly unnecessary, has no explanatory value apart from avoiding the discomfiture of knowing that the souls are “out there”, which seems Catholic- if they’re out there in Heaven, why won’t they be aware of us and be praying for us? And just the same if they’re out there, what is stopping them being aware of us? Why does God require to destroy a soul, has the Creator of souls run out of options? Let’s examine what the Bible says in this regard:

Luke 20:38 so he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him.”

Luke 9:30-31 “Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory”. We see the two great Old Testament figures “in glory” and freely conversing with Jesus.”

Elijah was taken up to Heaven in a Chariot of Fire (and it is also held that Enoch was taken up into Heaven without tasting death). What did Elijah have to then do, return the chariot to the rental station and then play dead? That’s improbable, I think he gets to keep on ridin’! Nor is it possible that the Cloud of witnesses” all the heroes of the Old Testament, who witness to our earthly journeys these can also be unconscious.

Where also the souls under the altar of God “who had been slaughtered for the Word of God and the testimony they had given…. (who cry out):”Sovereign Lord how long will it before you avenge our bloods on the inhabitants of the earth?” They were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number would be complete both of their fellow servants and of their brothers and sisters, who were soon to be killed as they themselves had been killed (Rev. 6:9-11).

How can they cry out and make pronunciations if they are unconscious? These souls are under the altar of God in the Holiest place and given a while robe, it cannot be that they are anything but what is said in the Catholic doctrine about the saints in Heaven.

Where is the “great portent…the woman clothed with the sun with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars”? Again it seems incredible that the woman be taken off her exalted pedestal only to be put to sleep.

In Revelations 14:3-5 and 20:51-5 seem to speak, initially of the 144000 who are “undefiled, blameless” , the “first fruits from the dead” in chapter 14:4 (confirmed in 1 Cor 15:23), and then in chapter 20 it states :

“Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. Over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him a thousand years.” Whatever might be the figurative meaning of these difficult verses, it certainly seems from them that there are those that are conscious even prior to the General Resurrection, and these are exceptionally holy. Further (Rev 20:4, 5)  speaks of a “first resurrection”, and that “the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended)

Rev 20:6 “Over these the second death has no power” can be taken to indicate that the saints in Heaven are indeed saints eternally (since it is being spoken of the ones who are already raised as the “first fruits”). Those in Hell on the other hand are raised only to the final condemnation.

Two passages from the first Letter of St. Peter:

1 Peter 4:6 “For this is the reason the gospel was proclaimed even to the dead, so that, though they had been judged in the flesh as everyone is judged, they might live in the spirit as God does.”

1 Peter 3:19,20a “in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey….”

Jesus says to the thief: “truly I say to you, this day you will be with me in Paradise” There is no indication of soul sleep here.

The Spirit is the seat of Understanding, therefore the Self

If your spirit has your understanding, your spirit returns to God, that means you return to God. You have only one understanding and that understanding is you. So it does not make sense to have a soul as an entity separate from the spirit, else who is the soul? There are not two identities in a human person. The faculties of memory, intellect and will reside in the soul (“mind” is just a word that humans use to describe their intellect and when it is used in the Bible it is in this sense). Scientists cannot explain consciousness and mind, the “subjective experience of self”, because the true seat of the subjective experience is in the soul or spirit of a man.

St. Paul is quite clear that we must in the life of Faith- “walk/live according to, set their minds on the things of the spirit”, and significantly, it is the seat of the our communication with God himself: “the Spirit bears witness with our spirit”:

“so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace… For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God (…) it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Romans 8:4-6, 14-16)

Job 32:8 “But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.”

(1 Cor 2:11a) “For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within?…”

When Christ died, his Spirit left his Body. Was His Soul destroyed? Impossible. It was his Soul that separated from his Body, same as Spirit

Mother Mary exults “my soul magnifies the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour”:  There are two activities here, both are performed by her as a person. Does this mean that the spirit cannot magnify, and only rejoice in God, whereas the soul cannot rejoice in God but for some reason can on magnify ? this is absurd. Speaking of soul and spirit separately is only a linguistic tool.

Feel free to read more about the souls of the dead here, some of the verse in the “soul-sleep” section are repeated there, though The Intercession of the Saints and Holy Angels in Heaven

Summary and Conclusion

The subject of decribing spiritual substances is tricky to navigate. One difficulty is describing how come angels are pure form, but they are not infinite (under the hylomorphic view). Aquinas has an explanation, which is an approach, but still not fully satisfactory. I think we have to accept that we can not hope to fully understand this, just like we struggle to understand how the physical and the spiritual co-exist in timeless eternity. Or maybe hylomorphism, although its the only view, is still not the right view, and we simply don’t have words to describe spiritual things.