Today, we explore a deceptively simple but theologically loaded question: Do angels gain knowledge by observing the world? In this short but powerful entry, Aquinas explains that angels, unlike humans, don’t come to know things through the senses or experience. Their knowledge is infused at creation, not acquired through learning. This frames a fascinating pre-modern answer to a modern debate: rationalism vs. empiricism. Do we come to know by looking outward or by having something already within us? Aquinas places angels squarely in the “born knowing” camp—pure intellects whose minds are shaped not by the world, but by God Himself.
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