Angels still part of the Creed, says Archbishop
Sunday, April 29th, 2007The Telegraph (London UK) reports today on Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams’s new book, Tokens of Trust. The leader of the Anglican Communion apparently gives much credence to the place of angels within the Anglican Creed. He says angels “can be at least a powerful symbol for all those dimensions of the universe about which we have no real idea”, which nearly implies that the holy beings may only be symbolic and not literal angels. But the book is also quoted as reciting that, “a human form appears to give a message from God and something in the event tells the people involved that this is a moment of terror and truth, and they recognise that they have met an angel in disguise”, which may imply a more literal understanding of the winged creatures.
The commentator for the Telegraph, Christopher Howse, apparently agrees with the Archbishop about the veracity of angels, even warning against dismissing their existence out of hand:
Belief in angels is far more respectable [than belief in Muslim djinn’s or related creatures of folklore]. Why should there not be pure intellects, with no admixture of matter, who are located wherever they act, are of immense intelligence and power, and vary greatly from individual to individual? They remain servants of God.
In the 17th century the danger was to attempt to use angels for magical purposes; the contrary danger in our own day is to assert the impossibility of their existence, as if we were the only creatures in the universe that counted.
