Biblical arguments against the existence of angels?

[Kelp(p)]

As for the necessity of angels: I think one possible way of thinking about it is that the holiness of God would suggest that it may be more appropriate for intermediaries to do much of God's work here on Earth. This is of course all speculative.

Isn't that what Prophets are for?

[Kelp(p)]

If God is utterly transcendent and ineffable, then He cannot work directly with the physical creation without contradicting those attributes. As immaterial creatures, angels would be necessary go-betweens used by God to communicate with and affect creation (at least before the Incarnation). This is what I vaguely understand to be the Middle Platonist/Neo-Platonist conception of God, which was appropriated by early Christian philosophers to describe God (although only the Father was considered completely transcendent; we can only know the Father through what has been revealed by the Son and the Spirit).

But the Spirit is constantly at work invisibly anyway.

[Kelp(p)]

Strictly speaking, yes, but when this is in the context of what seems to be a somewhat emotional difficulty in grasping a concept, it's helpful to address it on its own terms.

When I say, "I don't like the idea of angels," I don't mean that it upsets me. I mean it causes me confusion. It's something that just seems like it should not be for some reason.

[KingsGambit]

Isn't that what Prophets are for?

Angels do more than prophesy.

[Kelp(p)]

Yes, and Prophets beat people up. God can also empower any number of other people for His purposes.

[KingsGambit]

I suppose when it comes down to it, at least for me, the idea that it is something that "should not be" simply reminds me that our ways are not God's ways. Obviously I know such an answer is never satisfying but I am at a loss for anything else to say.

[Kelp(p)]

It's alright. So am I...

[One Bad Pig]

But the Spirit is constantly at work invisibly anyway.

But the Spirit is, um, spirit. Angels tend to be used by God for face-to-face communication, as it were.

[Cow Poke]

But the Spirit is, um, spirit. Angels tend to be used by God for face-to-face communication, as it were.

And I often say, tongue in cheek, that they go to Angel School to learn that they can be awfully frightening, so they're taught to say things when interacting with humans like "Fear not....."

[Rushing Jaws]

I agree. It is quite irrational to worship an angel. But people are dumb and fallible. From a practical standpoint, it would be nice to clear away as many potential distractions as possible.

Besides, angels are completely superfluous. God doesn't need them for anything and He already has human beings to worship Him.

## Creatures, all of them, of all kinds, are superfluous. What creatures does God need ? Not a single one. STM it would make much more sense not to have created man, if one has to choose.

[Rushing Jaws]

... and shows like "touched by an angel", "heaven can wait", hymnology, bad preaching, bad teaching...

(and, as much as I hate to admit it, my favorite movie - It's a Wonderful Life )

## "It's a Wonderful Life", is dreck - it has to take some of the blame for the sentimentalising of Christianity.

"Modern infatuation with angels is based on imagery that is far removed from Psalm 103’s depiction of angels as “mighty ones who do his bidding.” With the loss of knowledge and respect for scriptures has come a greatly demeaned understanding spiritual realities, especially those concerned with supernatural occurrences. And Lewis is more concerned about the danger of a wrong conception of angels than about obliviousness to them. He speaks about this in his Preface to The Screwtape Letters:

"[A] belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. . . . They are given wings . . . in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form because man is the only rational creature we know. Creatures higher in the natural order than ourselves, either incorporeal or animating bodies of a sort we cannot experience, must be represented symbolically if they are to be represented at all. . . .

In the plastic arts these symbols have steadily degenerated. Fra Angelico’s angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish and consolatory angels of nineteenth-century art. . . They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying “Fear not.” The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say “There, there.”"

https://www.cslewis.com/blog/mighty-ones-who-do-his-bidding/

## Angels these days are not holy, and they are not numinous - they are (very indifferent) people-with-wings, at best. An Assyrian *karibu*-"demon" with bird's beak & four wings is more like the Biblical angel than the wretched things so common in the media. The Liturgies, prayers & hymns of the Church are a much needed corrective to such pernicious trash.

[footwasher]

http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.php

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Dunn puts it succinctly: "What pre-Christian Judaism said of Wisdom and Philo also of the Logos, Paul and the others say of Jesus. The role that Proverbs, ben Sira, etc. ascribe to Wisdom, these earliest Christians ascribe to Jesus." [James D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 167] This conception of Wisdom parallels a less significant, general Jewish explanation of how a transcendent God could participate in a temporal creation. The Aramaic Targums resolved this problem by equating God with His Word; thus, in the Targums, Exodus 19:17, rather than saying the people went out to meet God, it says that the people went out to meet the word of God, or Memra.

This term became a periphrasis for God; whether it could have been reckoned as a separate person, as in Christian Trinitarianism, is a matter of debate. The risk involved with making Wisdom/Word an independent deity was too great for the rabbis to speculate further, but Christians found in the Wisdom tradition an ideal categorical conception within which to place the person of Jesus.
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http://taylormarshall.com/2015/01/is...te-christ.html

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The Church Fathers held an unwavering belief that the Second Person of the Trinity appeared frequently in the Old Testament in a variety of forms: the Angel of the Lord, the Burning Bush, the Son of Man, and the one like a Son of God in Daniel.
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Since no one could see or hear God and live, all instance of conversation between God and man are examples of God assuming a form that made Him non lethal.