Does every human being have a guardian angel? The answer of tradition and of Saint Thomas

Every human being has a guardian angel, and not only the baptized. This is the position of the majority tradition of the Fathers and that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the reason is precise: the guardian angel is given to man as a creature of God, not as a member of the Church. There was, however, a second school that restricted this guardianship to the faithful, and from it comes the confusion that is still read everywhere today.

The question is neither modern nor devotional. Anne Bernet, in “In the Company of Angels: The True History of God’s Messengers” (1998), frames it in the exact terms in which the ancients discussed it: “can one not be a Christian and still have an angel?” And she adds that “this discussion long divided the fathers and the doctors, split into two schools and two opinions”.

The verse at the origin of the question

The reference text is Mt 18:10, where Jesus warns that none of these little ones be despised, “for I declare to you that their angels in heaven unceasingly behold the face of my Father, who is in heaven”. Bernet calls it a “verse fundamental to the Christian doctrine of guardian angels” and notes what it affirms all at once: the angel watches over the earth and is at the same time immersed in the beatific vision.

The second passage is Acts 12:14-16, the scene in which the community gathered in Mary’s house, not believing that Peter was at the door, answers the maid that it must be “his angel”. The argument is indirect, but decisive from the historical point of view: it shows that the idea of an angel proper to each person was already current in the first Christian generation, before any theological elaboration.

The two schools: all men or only the baptized?

Bernet presents the first and majority school in these terms: “The first, which is that of Tertullian, Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint John Cassian, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory of Nyssa, decrees: everyone has an angel.” The second, she writes, is more severe and brings together Origen, Saint Basil and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, with the formula “Every one of the faithful has beside him an angel as guardian and shepherd, in order to lead him to Life.”

Here it is imperative to compare the sources, because they do not agree on the distribution of the names. Fabián Alejandro Campagne, in the study “Bodin y Maldonado: la demonología como fenómeno de masas en la Francia de las Guerras de Religión” (2018), reproduces Juan Maldonado’s patristic survey, which places Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom on the side of universal guardianship, with references to the Homilies on Psalms 33 and 58, to the Book of the Holy Spirit, chapter 13, and to the Homilies on Saint Matthew, 60. And it is to Origen that Maldonado attributes the restrictive hypothesis: “Orígenes en las Homilías sobre San Mateo, 5, hace una oscura mención a la opinión de algunos según la cual solo los bautizados reciben ángeles para su custodia”, that is, Origen, in the Homilies on Saint Matthew, 5, makes an obscure mention of the opinion of some according to which only the baptized receive angels for their guardianship. Chrysostom, he adds, seems to follow that opinion in the Unfinished Work on Saint Matthew, homily 40.

The attentive reader sees what happened: one and the same Father appears on both lists because he wrote in different contexts, and the attribution of a work such as the Unfinished Work on Saint Matthew is itself disputed. This is not to be harmonized in silence. What can be said with certainty is that the restrictive opinion existed, was in the minority and never prevailed.

Saint Thomas’s reason: the angel is given to the creature, not to the baptized

The decisive argument is not a census of authors, it is a theological reason. The collective work “Angels and Demons: The Drama of History between Good and Evil”, by Benito Marconcini, Angelo Amato, Carlo Rocchetta and Moreno Fiori, states it without evasion: “La presenza dell’angelo custode, per altro, non riguarda solo i battezzati e i giusti, secondo la tradizione patristica essa riguarda anche i pagani e i peccatori. Ogni uomo, secondo questa tradizione, ha il suo angelo. Questi è vicino ad ogni creatura non in primo luogo perché è un battezzato, ma perché è una creatura di Dio.” In literal translation: the presence of the guardian angel does not concern only the baptized and the just; according to the patristic tradition it concerns pagans and sinners as well. Every man, according to this tradition, has his angel. The angel is close to every creature not in the first place because that creature is baptized, but because it is a creature of God. The same authors record that Saint Thomas set out this conviction by tracing it back to divine providence and its universality.

Charles R. Jaekle, in “Angels: Their Mission and Message” (1995), explains why Saint Thomas’s systematic ordering settles the question: “Angels are ministers of God’s providence, not God’s redemption, whose minister can be only Jesus Christ. Placement under providence also implies that God’s angels help and assist all human beings, those who have never heard of Jesus Christ, as well as all believers and unbelievers alike.” If the angel belonged to the order of redemption, it would be consistent to reserve it to the baptized. Since it belongs to the order of providence, it extends to all.

The extreme case Saint Thomas did not shrink from affirming

The proof that the doctrine is taken seriously to the very limit lies in a detail that Bernet records with humor: “Saint Thomas Aquinas will not hesitate to write that the Antichrist himself will have his own guardian angel”, and the reference she gives is the Summa Theologiae, I, question 113, article 4, ad 3. If not even the eschatological figure of the adversary falls outside angelic guardianship, then this guardianship depends neither on the goodness nor on the faith of the one guarded. It depends on the one who institutes it.

Why the Catechism speaks of “each believer”

Much of the confusion comes from a famous formulation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in number 336, teaches that “from infancy until death, human life is surrounded by their protection and their intercession. Each believer has at his side an angel as protector and shepherd, to lead him to life”. It is exactly the formula that Bernet attributes to the second school, the more restrictive one, and this is no accident: what is involved is a patristic sentence being quoted, not a delimitation of the scope of the guardianship. The Catechism speaks to the faithful and says what this guardianship is for them. It does not affirm that the others have no angel, and the tradition gathered in those same paragraphs points in the opposite direction.

If everyone has an angel, why does the world go on like this?

It is the objection that Bernet herself raises immediately afterward: if each and every man is under the guard of an angel, “how is it that humanity goes on sinning? Why do their guardian angels not bring murderers, tyrants, executioners and other monsters to their senses?” The answer she gives is the only one compatible with the rest of the doctrine, and it is the mystery of freedom. The angel guards, enlightens, rules and governs, but does not take the place of the will of the one it guards.

Michael Patella, in “Angels and Demons: A Christian Primer of the Spiritual World”, refuses to manufacture a more comfortable answer for the cases in which misfortune happens without any angel preventing it: “Simply, there is no answer”, and he adds that the Christian faith does not promise exemption from the laws of the world. Honesty here is doctrinally safer than any improvised consolation.

It is also worth noting a consequence that the same authors of “Angels and Demons” draw and that changes the way one prays: “Dio non custodisce una massa amorfa ed indifferenziata bensì un popolo”, God does not guard an amorphous and undifferentiated mass but a people, in which each one is an unrepeatable person, and for this reason the relations of the angels with men “non sono uniformi e standardizzati, bensì rigorosamente individuali e singolari”, are not uniform and standardized, but rigorously individual and singular.

To go deeper, see what the Church teaches about the guardian angel, the treatise on the angels in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas, numbers 328 to 336 of the Catechism and, on the freedom of the angelic creatures, whether angels have free will.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does someone who is not baptized have a guardian angel?

Yes, according to the majority tradition. The work “Angels and Demons”, by Marconcini, Amato, Rocchetta and Fiori, states that the presence of the guardian angel concerns pagans and sinners as well, because the angel is beside each one not for being baptized, but for being a creature of God.

Is the guardian angel given at baptism or at birth?

It is not given by baptism. Since the angels belong, in the systematization of Saint Thomas gathered by Charles R. Jaekle, to the order of providence and not to that of redemption, this guardianship accompanies man as a creature, and not as a member of the Church.

Does an atheist or a sinner have a guardian angel?

He does. The patristic tradition expressly extends this guardianship to sinners, and Saint Thomas Aquinas went so far as to write, in the Summa Theologiae I, question 113, article 4, that the Antichrist himself would have his guardian angel.

Then why does the Catechism say “each believer”?

Because number 336 takes up a patristic formula addressed to the faithful, the one that Anne Bernet identifies with the more restrictive school. It says what this guardianship is for the believer, not that the rest are deprived of it.

If everyone has an angel, why does it not prevent evil?

Because the angel does not take the place of human freedom. Michael Patella adds that, in cases of misfortune with no visible help, the honest answer is that there is no answer, and that the Christian faith does not promise exemption from the laws of the world.