Free Will And Angels in Supernatural

[rodo]

This article by dodger_winslow with the title Angels V2.0 (spoilers for 5.08) reminded me of something that has confused me for quite a while: the assumption that angels in Supernatural don’t have a free will. It shows up in fanfic a lot. Now, this might have to do with the fact that I am not religious and certain religious assumptions generally just confuse the hell out of me, but I’m not sure it’s just that.

There are a number of assumptions in this post, to name a few:

1. Free will is the defining character trait of humanity as a whole.


2. Angels have no free will because they do what God said would happen.


3. Angels are created to be perfect.


4. Humans were created because something went seriously wrong with angels.

Angels were, to my limited knowledge of the Bible, created to be God’s messengers on earth and his warriors. Kind of like, well, middle management. I always assumed that it was God’s plan to create humans all along, and that he just set up the infrastructure before he started on that and that that’s why angels were made before humans. The perfect vs. imperfect dichotomy is also very confusing because, according to the author, perfect equals imperfect while imperfect equals perfect. I love a good paradox, but by saying that angels are essentially imperfect they are also perfect, which means … and then my head starts spinning, at least when it appears in a text that argues that humans are better than angels because they’re imperfect.

Now, I think it’s quite a leap to say that free will is something that can only ever be attributed to humanity and that it even exists (not all religions will agree on these points either, I’d wager). As far as I know, philosophers still haven’t decided who wins the determinism vs. indeterminism (free will) debate. In fact, I think you could make the argument that Sam and Dean’s actions are clearly determined by what has happened before. Just like Lucifer and Michael’s actions are determined by their history. I have to admit that I was never comfortable with determinism myself, but I think it is entirely possible to argue that everything that happens in Supernatural happens according to God’s plan, so that there aren’t really any choices any of the characters can make. They’ll always choose the same alternative, no matter how often they try. And of course previous experience shapes how people decide when they’re faced with a decision.

Now, I also think it is entirely possible to argue that every creature in Supernatural has a free will, if we define free will as being able to choose between A and B and C. A being God’s side of the war, B being Lucifer’s side of the war and C being every option the characters come up with themselves. Let’s see what choices were made by the angels:

• Lucifer chose to defy God and come up with his own way of doing things ‒ C


• Michael chose to stick with God ‒ A


• Gabriel chose not to choose a side ‒ C


• Uriel chose to follow Lucifer ‒ B


• Zachariah chose to go through with Gods plan, not because of obedience, but because he preferred the outcome ‒ A


• Castiel chose to help stop the apocalypse and came up with a plan for it ‒ C

So I’d say that the angels actually can choose between two options and the individual angels would choose differently. They even come up with their own options. They can decide to resign themselves to fate. On the other hand there are Sam and Dean, who seem to be stuck repeating the same thing over and over again. I think defying destiny isn’t so much a choice for them as it is something that they just can’t help doing. They’ve been fighting their destiny with varying degrees of success for the entire series and giving in never occurred to them. And when they did follow their destiny, they thought they were fighting against it.

In conclusion: I really don’t think that the angels have more or less free will than the humans in Supernatural. Or did I miss something? If so, please explain it to me in the easiest way possible. I am that dumb when it comes to Christianity.

Comments

[starlady]

It's been a while, and I reserve the right to be wrong about some details, but I did go on a huge Milton/angelology bender in high school.

I guess the first thing is that 98% of angelology is non-Biblical. In the New Testament the word used is ό ἀνγελος, which of course is Koine Greek for 'messenger' and transliterates to 'angelos,' so God's messenger's are angels! I don't know the Hebrew word off the top of my head, but afaik the situation in the Old Testament is similar--there's no direct discussion of angels, every so often God's messengers just show up (and get wrestled with or whatever). But by the time of Augustine it was agreed that they existed (he devotes scads of text to them in City of God. Scads).

I always assumed that it was God’s plan to create humans all along, and that he just set up the infrastructure before he started on that and that that’s why angels were made before humans.

This is a pretty standard interpretation afaik. But it's also fairly standard to say that angels have to have free will, at least in a general Protestant worldview (and SPN has always struck me as fairly Protestant)--Milton says explicitly that there's no value to the service if it isn't freely given. And of course the whole point of the Fall is that humans had free will and chose poorly.

My understanding has always been that everyone has free will but that it's all part of the plan. So I definitely agree with your interpretation of the in-show events, and raise a very skeptical eyebrow to the idea that the angels don't have free will and the humans do.

[rodo]

there's no direct discussion of angels, every so often God's messengers just show up (and get wrestled with or whatever).

Which is pretty much what happened in the Bible so far (I just finished the first book of Samuel). Angel shows up, is generally Castiel-like and disappears once the humans were taught or not taught their lesson. But since I'm not very far yet, I wasn't sure if the topic comes up in the other 4/5th of it.

(And this is where I was interrupted writing this comment by Jehovas' Witnesses knocking on my door who wanted to convince me that reading the Bible will surely turn me into a devout Christian. Gah!)

But it's also fairly standard to say that angels have to have free will, at least in a general Protestant worldview (and SPN has always struck me as fairly Protestant)

I don't know. Protestants are a pretty diverse bunch. I grew up in a Protestant family and SPN feels far more Catholic to me. Or at least not Lutheran. Maybe just because my family is of the general opinion that hell and everything related doesn't exist. There is only being near God/in heaven and being not near God, in a very abstract, neutral way.

[starlady]

Definitely not Lutheran, at least not the Lutheranism practiced and taught at my college (they weren't big on hell either, really, which was nice). I don't know, I was sort of notionally raised Catholic, and the show doesn't quite seem Catholic to me--in some ways telling stories about this kind of thing isn't very Catholic as I understand it, and it definitely seems to reflect the sort of unquestioned Protestant ethos that I find to be latent in a lot of discourse in the States. Definitely people at my college raised an eyebrow when I tried to bring Milton into our discussions of the Bible in our humanities course, but then, being an atheist Quaker by choice, they're all equally stories to me. I dunno. But I think you're right that the angels have equal free will, definitely. ^^

[rodo]

You definitely won't hear any criticism from me for bringing up Milton (haven't read his books, though). My view on Christian mythology was influenced by Angel Sanctuary, so ...

And since I'm from a country where "Protestant" more or less equals "Lutheran", I'm really not in a position where I can talk about the way things are in America.

[starlady]

My view on Christian mythology was influenced by Angel Sanctuary, so ...

Nice. Yeah, in college I realized that my views on the whole thing came pretty much directly from Milton.

It's definitely interesting to me realizing just how many different kinds of Protestantism there are in the States, and which ones are ascendant where--between my nominally Catholic family and my Quaker education, I sort of lived in a bubble that I didn't know existed until after high school.

[rodo]

I sort of lived in a bubble that I didn't know existed until after high school.

Yeah. Where I grew up, almost everyone was Lutheran and then there were the few odd Catholics, a Jehova's Witness here and there and atheists weren't really talked about.

So it was weird when I moved across the country and suddenly knew more about the Bible than everyone else around me, even if they were Christians. And I really don't know much and learned most of it in elementary school by painting comicstips in religious education.

[amaresu]

I've always figured that for the angels it wasn't that they didn't have free will, it's that they never use their free will. They follow orders and it just doesn't occure to most of them that making up their own opinion on something is an option.

Which it kinda isn't if you look at what happened to Anna and Castiel. Doing anything but following orders is highly frowned upon.

I think that angels have to have free will though. God isn't around to give the orders so someone has to be giving them. Presumably Zachariah and his buddies. They have to be coming up with the orders somehow and that implies free will.

[rodo]

Yeah, I can totally see them not using their free will. I guess it's a bit like they don't use their feelings much. Not because they don't have, them, it just doesn't occur to them.

God isn't around to give the orders so someone has to be giving them.

This is a really good point. And not only do they come up with them, they are also apparently okay with implying that they're God's orders when giving them to the lower ranks.

[eumelkeks]

After dealing loosely with angels in my final exams and in a paper that juxtaposed Milton's Lucifer and the biblical Satan, I feel relatively qualified to play. :D

The rebellion isn't in the Bible. Neither is Lucifer as Satan. I always thought that writers with a lot of fantasy made this up because one God is just really boring as far as storytelling goes. Which is why angels are basically lesser Gods and the whole family replaced the Greek and Roman pantheon. And we all know that Greek and Roman deities were very human and made mistakes all the time.

The whole rebellion plot in the apocrypha doesn't make any sense, if angels don't have a free will. Or if there is a God who is omniscient and omnipresent. Because in this case he would have known all along that some of his angels wouldn't be thrilled with humans and Lucifer and co. couldn't have rebelled in the first place. So in this regard SPN mythology isn't very different from or any less logical than Christian mythology.

What really got my goat, though, was that SPN mythology makes Lucifer the younger brother. The parallel would have flown if they had stuck with Christian mythology, in which Lucifer was the most beautiful and most powerful angel and first among his peers. But apparently viewers are too thick to get it if the brothers' roles are reversed? Why this annoys me? Well, why would Lucifer be God's Adversary if he is second to Michael as well? Wouldn't he be Michael's Adversary then?

[rodo]

Because in this case he would have known all along that some of his angels wouldn't be thrilled with humans and Lucifer and co. couldn't have rebelled in the first place.

Unless, of course, that was exactly what God planned. But in that case, humans would probably still have as much free will as angels.

Well, why would Lucifer be God's Adversary if he is second to Michael as well?

Did they say that Michael was more powerful than Lucifer? *iz confused* Does "first" actually refer to his age exclusively?