Holy Tradition teaches us that angels, spiritual creatures in the service of God, possess an intelligence superior to our own. However, this intelligence has precise limits, and the Church has always warned against the illusions that fallen spirits can provoke.
Natural Events Foreseen by Angels
An angel can, without fear of error, foresee events dependent on natural forces: storms, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, or meteor showers. From these phenomena, it can also predict, with a certain probability, their consequences: loss of life, destruction of cities, famines, or plagues.
Similarly, the physical constitution of each man is perfectly known to angels. They can thus foresee the probable evolution of a person's health, or even the approximate duration of their life, barring unforeseen accidents.
What Angels Are Totally Ignorant Of
Events that depend on the free will of the Creator or the freedom of creatures are absolutely unknown to angels. The thought of God remains impenetrable to any created being, and the interior wills of man are manifest only to the eyes of God alone.
This is why any future prediction linked to human freedom or any revelation of the secret thoughts of the heart has always been considered a sign of an immediate intervention by God, and thus as a true miracle intended to manifest the supernatural order of grace.
An Imperfect and Relative Knowledge
Even in the realm of natural phenomena, angelic knowledge never attains absolute certainty. It remains limited, for God, Master of the universe, can at any moment decree changes in the course of nature.
Thus, no angelic intelligence could have foreseen the fall of the walls of Jericho at the sound of trumpets or the miraculous healing of Naaman in the waters of the Jordan. Even more, who could have guessed that a simple piece of bread would become, through consecration, the Body of the Savior?
False Revelations: Deception and Immorality
When a spirit claims to know with certainty the future linked to human freedom or to secret thoughts, without divine revelation, it is never a good angel. These claims are nothing but false conjectures, attributable to evil spirits.
To present as absolute truth what is merely a hypothesis is the sign of a morally depraved spirit. This is why the ancient pagan oracles, like those of the Pythonesses or the Sibyls, were contradictory and subject to multiple interpretations, proof of their immoral and demonic origin.
The Cunning of Spirits to Deceive Men
The subtlety of fallen spirits is such that they can assemble real knowledge and combine it with natural conjectures. This mixture of truth and falsehood allows them to give the illusion of superior knowledge and to impress men.
They then present themselves as capable of probing the future and hearts, but in reality, they merely exploit the limits of human weakness to lead into error and turn away from God.
True Catholic wisdom reminds us that God alone knows hearts and the future in its fullness. Faithful angels serve divine Providence, while fallen spirits exploit their partial knowledge to deceive. Every Christian must therefore maintain prudence and discernment, relying on Revelation and grace.