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By the Middle Ages theologians had constructed an intricate model of heaven, based on the writings of the fifth-century theologian Dionysius. They divided the heavenly host into nine choirs, each with its own task. Contrary to the mocking of modern skeptics, medieval theologians did not spend time debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. They had far more serious enterprises in mind. In their layered architecture of heaven, the highest angels were the seraphim and cherubim, those closest to God in nature, who exist to worship him. The thrones bring justice; dominions regulate life in heaven; the virtues work miracles; the powers protect mankind from evil; the principalities are concerned with the welfare of nations; and the archangels and angels serve as guides and messengers to individual human beings.
The early Protestants, on the other hand, had little use for either the image or the idea of angels. They rebelled against the "decadent" decoration of Renaissance churches, with their lavishly winged, lushly adorned angels + acting as God's attendants but reigning supreme over earthly citizens. In building a new, democratic model of church life, the Protestant reformers not only swept away the papal bureaucracy of Bishops and Cardinals, but the angelic hierarchy as well. Man could commune directly with his Maker without a winged messenger intervening. And God for his part could move the planets through the skies without calling upon angels to push them.
In the centuries since, few Protestant theologians have addressed the subject. The modern exception is Billy Graham, whose 1975 book Angels: God's Secret Agents was a national best seller: 2.6 million copies. In a sense it was a natural outgrowth of his biblical scholarship; one cannot believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture and dismiss the role that angels play throughout it. Furthermore, for many theologians the belief fulfills the promise of a merciful God. In the face of war, hunger, AIDS, drugs, sorrow and fear, only a force more potent than any earthly power could provide peace. "These are desperate times," says Peter Kreeft, a philosophy professor at Boston College. "People seek supernatural solutions to their problems. We want to reassure ourselves of our spiritualism."
THE ANGELIC NATURE. Angels, the scholars take pains to explain, are not gods, and they are not ghosts or spirits of the dead. They do not spend time "trying to earn their wings," like the sweetly ministering Clarence of It's a Wonderful Life. "I know of no place in classical theology where humans become angels," notes the Rev. John Westerhoff, a pastoral theologian at Duke University's Divinity School. "Angels were created separately and were given free will, just as humans were. That's why there were fallen angels, like Satan. Their fallenness had to do with a denial and distortion of angelic life just as our fallenness has to do with the denial and distortion of goodness and truth."
Philosopher Mortimer Adler attributes the fascination with angels to the intriguing idea of minds without bodies -- especially superior minds freed from the frailty and limitations of perishable bodies. "They are not merely forms of extraterrestrial intelligence," he notes. "They are forms of extra- cosmic intelligence."