Angels and free will?

Question

From the responses of my last question, it seems like a lot of people believe that angels have free will.

However, over and over I've read in books, seen in movies and been told in church, the thing that makes mankind special and unique is free will.
No other creature is supposed to have it. Can anyone find the place in the bible that explains that for me? Can others comment on why both men and angels can have free will but be different?
Could the reason Satan and a third of all angels were banished from heaven was not that they were evil, but because the wanted or discovered free will? And they became evil after their exile from their hatred of mankind's gift and God's intolerance.

Answer 1

In Jewish beliefs, angels don't have free will. That's why the Christian belief of Satan "rebelling" just doesn't make sense. To Jews, Satan is still an angel of G-d and is still following the job G-d gave him.

Answer 2

Think about it like this; if angels did not have free will, they could not have fallen and chosen to disobey God. At the same time the life of an angel is different, but only in the way our lives should be. They are servants of God who are always led in what they do by the Holy Spirit. By doing always what God commands they are in a sense one with His will and therefor one with Him. Humans seem to have this belief that they are greater or above the angels. If this were true why would the bible say that for a little while Christ was made lower than the angels. Would that also mean Christ was lower than humans? And Jesus said that until the days of John the Baptist, no one born of woman was greater than he, but he who is least in the kingdom of Heaven is greater than John. When man sinned the crime was not as great as when angels sinned, because angels were closer to God.

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Answer 3

Yes, angels have free will like us. I have put a link with the following info:

When Satan chose to stop obeying and worshipping God, and vaunted his own pride, that was a free choice, with the consequences that followed. One third of the angels chose to follow him. (See Rev. 12:4)

What sets apart angels from us is that we can be forgiven and restored, and they can't. To follow God or not was a one-shot deal for angels, as far as we can tell. 1 Peter 1:12 says that angels "long to look into these things" (salvation and grace), which are not available to them.

God bless. I also learned something from your question. Thank you.

Answer 4

I have heared the same things, over and over and over again. My advice to you is- do like the Bereans in Acts, examine EVERYTHING people tell you with Scripture, to see whether it contradicts, agrees with, compliments, or just plain isn't found in the Word of God.

Free will is one of those subjects that is NOT to my recollection discussed by name in the Bible. No one is said to have it or not have it. It is shown clearly that the will is not free to the point that it is above outside influence or divine tweaks (just look at Pharoah, how God hardened his heart, which He could do since he was already in rebellion against God). Nevertheless, the free will does have the power to make decisions with what it has to work with, that is, its limited knowledge and spiritual influences. Read Galatians 5:13-25 for some interesting info on this! It seems to support a "limited free will", in that every person can make their own decisions autonomously and is responsible for those decisions, but that their ability to make decisions is limited to spiritual and mental influences. Furthermore, Jesus said no one can make a decision for Him except that the Father draws that person (John 6:44). Now, it also says He will draw everyone at one time or another (John 12:32), but the point is that God has to act to enable the will, which is enslaved to sin without the Holy Spirit's influence.

I said all that to show what the Bible says about how the will operates, and to clear up exactly what we mean when we say "free will". This is actually how free will appears in the original Arminianist doctrine, which states that prior to being drawn and enabled by God, no one is able to believe God.

Many modern preachers and teachers like to re-define free will to mean that in and of ourselves we can decide to do anything we want, regardless of our nature, internal influences, and external influences, even respond to God. This is a distortion of what free will was originally stated as.

Then, they take this further, and say it is what makes us special, what makes us different from the rest of creation- when no where in the Bible does it say this. It says fairly clearly what makes us special in creation- we were made in God's image (Genesis 1:26-27), and we are intended for fellowship with Him and to be the Bride of Christ (Hosea 2:16, Revelation 21:9-10). Apparently, this isn't good enough for some, perhaps insecure because of many philosophical attacks on Christianity, so they have to invent new reasons to add! After all, making a non-Bible based arguement concerning something that is "common knowledge" or "easily observable" like free will is much easier than actually standing on the Word of God. Some of it also might be over-compensation and a knee-jerk defense reaction to Calvanists (who don't believe in free will), in order to make free will into more than it is to show how essential it is.

Humans have a special role in creation, and The Bible says angels have a special role too, they are ministering spirits, servants, and carriers of His Word (Hebrews 1:6-7). None of this negates that they could have free will. And not just angels, but perhaps other living things as well- perhaps many or all animals.

The fact is- we don't even know how the will works or what the substance of it is. What makes us qualified to determine who or what has one, and who doesn't?

Whew, ok, almost done. A few final words about your theory, that Satan and his followers were kicked out of heaven because they were thinking about free will. I would then ask- How could they even think about free will if they didn't have a will free enough to think about it? Something to think about :D

Anywho, I hope this helps, and I hope I wasn't TOO lengthy. God bless!

Answer 5

well...its an interesting question...i think angels doesn't have free will like u said, they were took from heaven and they didn't wanted to, because they are creatures that are made to worship the name of the Lord, but satan took them because he is like that he took want inst his. right now i cant give u the caps in which the Bible says kinda of that, but i think we are the only ones who can choose between all the options...i would send u some vesicles soon OK God bless u!

Answer 6

Under God's most basic and most primitive system of justice, one who does not have free will cannot be punished for his sins.

Fallen angels are subject to God's punishment. And since angels are creatures that exist in eternity ... they always had, they have now, and they always will have free will.

Answer 7

St Augustine suggested that Angels had loose will yet that being ideal creatures they desperate in an instant no rely if or not they could serve God. In that experience an Angel won't substitute. individuals that serve God, selected to yet will continually do basically His will. individuals that selected to not serve God will in no way substitute their recommendations.

Answer 8

If you check the Bible you see that the angels and of course God has free will.

Some angels, it says, sinned. To do so they would have had a choice of good and evil, of obedience and disobedience.

Answer 9

Actually the 'Bible says that Satan wanted the Angles to worship him and one third of them did, so they were cast out of heaven , because they sinned, they were created to worship God and God alone, when they listened to Lucifer, and obeyed him, they sinned, because the only one that the Angels were to worship was God, so one third of the Angels fell with Lucifer, and God took away his name that meant Star of morning and he was named Lucifer. Lucifer is the father of sin.

Answer 10

Angels don't have free will. They are made out of light. Angels obey God's every command. They never disobey God. God uses them to manage the world affairs that humans can not know or see. God assigns at least two angels to each human for his protection. They record good deeds and bad deeds of humans. Pehaps they also record
good deeds and bad deeds of jinns also. I am not sure about it.

Humans have free will. They are made out of the chemicals found in the dust (fruits, vegetables, wheat, milk and meat). That is why we eat the products produced from the dust of earth to replenish our energy. They commit sins and disobey God........and many are so good that they are better than Angels in obedience to God. That is why God calls human as "The Best cration of God" Humans received God's Prophets and Messengers for guidance.
Humans follow different Prophets of God and their religons.


Satan is jin made of fire. Satans have free will like humans.
They commit sins like Humans because of their will. There are good jins and bad jins also. Jins make themselves invisible to humans and attend lectures of Prophets of God or scholars amongst humans in the company of men and women without humans knowlege about their presnece. They become followers of the Prophets and Humans. Because Jinns can go any where and remain invisible to humans.

Accoding to Quran some Jins heard Prophet Mohammad's preaching. They went and informed jins about new Prophet and many became Muslims. They become followers of Torah, Bible and Quran. Like mens Jins are good as well as bad. Amongst them some are good scholars of the religions of God like humans. They do good deeds and bad deeds. Some obey God and some don't because they have free will. I have not read any where yet but I assume that God did send Prophets from amongsts themselvesfor their guidance like God sent Prophets to humans from amongst them. .