Do Angels Know the Future? What the Sources Say About Angelic Knowledge

Angels know the future in an incomparably wider way than we do, but they do not know all of it. Angelology distinguishes two things: the knowledge the angel has of himself and of creatures, which is penetrating and immediate, and the knowledge of what God reserves to Himself, which is denied to him. Mt 24:36 sets the limit by saying that not even the angels know that day.

The question is not settled with a single sentence, because the works in the Locus library do not say exactly the same thing, and the difference deserves to be shown. Anne Bernet affirms that the angels see the end of everything. João Evangelista Martins Terra, reading Karl Rahner, recalls that Scripture denies the angels the knowledge of the final day. This article compares the two positions and shows where they meet.

What Angelology Affirms About the Knowledge of the Angels

The starting point is nature. Anne Bernet, in “In the Company of Angels: The True Story of God’s Messengers” (1998), defines the angel as an intelligent and purely spiritual creature, without figure or palpable forms, and warns in the chapter itself that “unless otherwise indicated, the developments of this chapter are reproduced from the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas”. The author adds that angels are not symbols of our drives but “individualities, capable of knowledge and of will”, with the threefold vocation of adorers of the Trinity, messengers, and protectors.

From this follows the mode of angelic knowledge. According to the same work, the intelligence of the angel admits of no possible comparison with ours, because in order to know he does not need the means that are indispensable to us, the senses: in him knowledge is entirely of the spiritual order. On the status of this nature, see the treatise on the angels in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas.

The compilation “Noções sobre Angelologia”, by Luiz Sérgio Coelho de Sampaio, gathers other authors to the same effect. Citing Seemann, it records that the Fathers and the great theologians of the Middle Ages agree that the angels, by their spiritual nature, are capable of a comprehensive knowledge of themselves and of all created things. And citing Michael Schmaus, it recalls that Scripture signifies this penetrating knowledge by saying that the angels are covered with innumerable eyes, in a formula that the compilation transcribes thus: “Their whole essence is to see”.

Anne Bernet: The Angels “Know the Outcome of Everything”

The strongest affirmation in the library on this matter is in Bernet, in a precise context: that of the scandal of evil. The author observes that the angels suffer in the face of crimes and blasphemies because they do not understand the place that evil occupies in God’s plan, and she immediately counters: “The angels, for their part, are informed about everything God has done, does, and will do; they know the outcome of everything.”

The argument closes with a sentence worth quoting in full, because it is from it that the popular question about the future is born: “This end that is hidden from us, the angels see it.” Note the exact object of the affirmation. Bernet does not say that the angel reads the detail of the events to come. She says that he sees the outcome, the term toward which history is moving, what remains hidden to man. The distinction is decisive for what follows.

“Not Even the Angels Know That Day”: The Limit of Mt 24:36

Against any reading that makes the angel a universal seer, Scripture sets an explicit limit. João Evangelista Martins Terra, in “A angelologia de Karl Rahner: à luz dos seus princípios hermenêuticos” (1996), formulates it without circumlocution when treating the glorious coming of Christ: “Not even the angels know ‘that day’, only the Father (Mt 24:36)”. The same study recalls that the angels are sent to gather the elect when that day comes (Mk 13:26-27), which makes the ignorance even more remarkable: they are the executors of the event whose hour they do not know.

The same compilation by Sampaio, citing George Tavard, keeps the same limit in another form—the knowledge of the angels far surpasses that of men, and yet there are mysteries that God keeps to Himself. And, citing Schmaus, it specifies that the angels do not fully penetrate the divine depth, accessible only to the Spirit of God Himself, with a reference to 1 Cor 2:10.

How the Two Affirmations Are Reconciled

The divergence between the sources is real and should not be dissolved in silence, but it is a divergence of object, not of doctrine. Bernet speaks of the outcome, of the direction toward which everything converges, and on that level she affirms that the angel sees. Terra and Tavard speak of the day, that is, of a datum that belongs to the divine decree not yet communicated, and on that level they deny that the angel knows. Between the two affirmations there is no clash if one recognizes that knowing the end and knowing the hour are distinct things.

There is also a second criterion, this one of nature. If angelic knowledge, as Sampaio’s compilation says following Seemann, embraces created things, then the free future and the divine decree do not fall under it for the simple reason that they are not created things already given. The angel is a creature, and no creature knows by itself what God has not yet manifested. It is the same reason why the angel can choose and, in choosing, err—a question treated in do angels have free will.

Do Angels Know Our Acts?

Here the sources are more sober than devotion usually is. Terra’s study on Rahner grants the essential and no more: “We also admit that the angels and saints know us and the acts we direct to them”. What is affirmed is the knowledge of the person and of the acts directed to them, and it is on this datum that the practice of invocation rests, not on a total surveillance of the human interior, which the texts consulted do not describe.

The same study formulates the underlying question that Rahner raises—whether the angels and the saints belong to God or to the world—and answers that, as creatures, they belong to the world, although they enter the sphere of God when relations of love and of self-giving are established with them. This clarification is useful precisely against such inflation: the angel remains a creature, even when he is the object of prayer.

Why the Question Matters

Anízio Alves Caetano, in “Porquê estudar angeologia e demonologia?”, gives the methodological reason: comparing life, knowledge, language, and love as they are realized in an angel and in a human being makes it possible to determine the stable core of that perfection and, at the same time, the particular traits it assumes in man. To ask what the angel knows is, therefore, an indirect way of asking what knowing is.

And it is also a way of keeping a sense of proportion. An angel who knew everything would be a lesser god, and Catholic angelology refuses that path as much as it refuses to reduce the angel to a symbol. On the internal order of that created world, see the hierarchy of the angels according to the Bible.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do angels know the future?

They know far beyond what man attains, but not everything. Anne Bernet affirms that the angels are informed about everything God has done, does, and will do and that they see the outcome of everything. Mt 24:36, however, denies them the knowledge of the final day, as João Evangelista Martins Terra recalls in his study of the angelology of Karl Rahner.

Do angels know the day of the final judgment?

No. The Gospel text is explicit and angelology respects it: not even the angels know that day, only the Father (Mt 24:36). According to the same study, the angels are sent to gather the elect when that day comes, without the hour being given to them.

Can angels read our thoughts?

The works consulted do not affirm this. What they affirm is that the angels, by their spiritual nature, have a comprehensive knowledge of themselves and of created things, and that they know us and the acts we direct to them. Moreover, they recall with Michael Schmaus that the angels do not fully penetrate the divine depth, accessible only to the Spirit of God (1 Cor 2:10).

What is the knowledge of the angels like, if they have no senses?

It is entirely of the spiritual order. Anne Bernet explains that angelic intelligence admits of no possible comparison with ours, because the angel does not need the means that are indispensable to us, the senses. The compilation by Luiz Sérgio Coelho de Sampaio cites Michael Schmaus to say that Scripture expresses this knowledge by calling the angels beings covered with innumerable eyes.

What is the function of the angels, according to these works?

Anne Bernet sums up a threefold vocation: perpetual adorers of the Trinity, messengers between God and men, and protectors of humanity. The study on Karl Rahner adds the function of disclosing to men the salvific dimension of Christ, in the two comings, that of the flesh and that of glory.