Does every human being have a guardian angel? The answer of tradition and of Saint Thomas

Every human being has a guardian angel, and not only the baptised. This is the position of the majority tradition of the Fathers and that of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the reason is precise: the guardian angel is given to man as a creature of God, not as a member of the Church. There was, however, a second school that restricted the custody to the faithful, and from it comes the confusion still read everywhere today.

The question is neither modern nor merely devotional. Anne Bernet, in «Na companhia dos anjos: a verdadeira história dos mensageiros de Deus» (1998), puts it in the very terms in which the ancients debated it: «pode não se ser cristão e ter-se um anjo?», can one not be a Christian and still have an angel. And she adds that «esta discussão dividiu durante muito tempo os padres e os doutores, divididos em duas escolas e duas opiniões», this discussion long divided the fathers and the doctors, split into two schools and two opinions.

The verse at the origin of the question

The reference text is Matthew 18,10, where Jesus warns against despising any of these little ones, «pois vos declaro que os seus anjos nos céus vêem incessantemente a face de meu Pai, que está nos céus», for I tell you that their angels in heaven continually behold the face of my Father who is in heaven. Bernet calls it «versículo fundamental para a doutrina cristã dos anjos da guarda», a fundamental verse for the Christian doctrine of guardian angels, and notes what it asserts at one stroke: the angel watches over the earth and is at the same time immersed in the beatific vision.

The second passage is Acts of the Apostles 12,14-16, the scene in which the community gathered in Mary’s house, refusing to believe that Peter was at the door, tells the maid that it must be his angel. The argument is indirect but historically decisive: it shows that the idea of an angel proper to each person was already current in the first Christian generation, before any theological elaboration.

The two schools: all men, or only the baptised?

Bernet presents the first and majority position thus: «A primeira, que é a de Tertuliano, de Santo Agostinho, de Santo Ambrósio, de São João Crisóstomo, de São João Cassiano, de São Jerónimo e de São Gregório de Nissa, decreta: todas as pessoas têm um anjo.» In literal translation: the first, which is that of Tertullian, Saint Augustine, Saint Ambrose, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint John Cassian, Saint Jerome and Saint Gregory of Nyssa, decrees that all people have an angel. The second, she writes, is more severe and gathers Origen, Saint Basil and Saint Cyril of Alexandria, with the formula «Cada fiel tem junto de si um anjo como tutor e pastor a fim de o conduzir à Vida.», each of the faithful has beside him an angel as guardian and shepherd to lead him to Life.

Here the sources must be set against one another, because they do not agree on the distribution of names. Fabián Alejandro Campagne, in the study «Bodin y Maldonado: la demonología como fenómeno de masas en la Francia de las Guerras de Religión» (2018), reproduces the patristic survey of Juan Maldonado, which places Saint Basil and Saint John Chrysostom on the side of universal custody, with references to the Homilies on the psalms 33 and 58, to the Book of the Holy Spirit, chapter 13, and to the Homilies on Saint Matthew, 60. And it is to Origen that Maldonado ascribes the restrictive hypothesis: «Orígenes en las Homilías sobre San Mateo, 5, hace una oscura mención a la opinión de algunos según la cual solo los bautizados reciben ángeles para su custodia», that is, Origen, in the Homilies on Saint Matthew, 5, makes an obscure mention of the opinion of some according to which only the baptised receive angels for their custody. Chrysostom, he adds, seems to follow that opinion in the Opus imperfectum on Saint Matthew, homily 40.

The attentive reader sees what happened: the same Father appears on both lists because he wrote in different contexts, and the attribution of a work such as the Opus imperfectum is itself disputed. This is not to be harmonised in silence. What can be said with confidence is that the restrictive opinion existed, was a minority one and never prevailed.

Saint Thomas’s reason: the angel is given to the creature, not to the baptised

The decisive argument is not a count of authors, it is a theological reason. The collective work «Anjos e Demónios: O Drama da História entre o Bem e o Mal», by Benito Marconcini, Angelo Amato, Carlo Rocchetta and Moreno Fiori, states it without circumlocution: «La presenza dell’angelo custode, per altro, non riguarda solo i battezzati e i giusti, secondo la tradizione patristica essa riguarda anche i pagani e i peccatori. Ogni uomo, secondo questa tradizione, ha il suo angelo. Questi è vicino ad ogni creatura non in primo luogo perché è un battezzato, ma perché è una creatura di Dio.» In literal translation: the presence of the guardian angel does not concern only the baptised and the just, according to the patristic tradition it concerns pagans and sinners as well. Every man, according to this tradition, has his angel. He is close to every creature not first of all because that creature is baptised, but because it is a creature of God. The same authors record that Saint Thomas set out this conviction by going back to divine providence and its universality.

Charles R. Jaekle, in «Anjos: sua missão e mensagem» (1995), explains why Saint Thomas’s systematic placement settles the question: «Angels are ministers of God’s providence, not God’s redemption, whose minister can be only Jesus Christ. Placement under providence also implies that God’s angels help and assist all human beings, those who have never heard of Jesus Christ, as well as all believers and unbelievers alike.» If the angel belonged to the order of redemption, it would be coherent to reserve him for the baptised. Since he belongs to the order of providence, he extends to all.

The extreme case Saint Thomas did not shrink from asserting

Proof that the doctrine is taken seriously to its limit lies in a detail Bernet records with humour: «São Tomás de Aquino não hesitará em escrever que o próprio Anticristo terá ele próprio o seu anjo da guarda», Saint Thomas Aquinas will not hesitate to write that the Antichrist himself will have his own guardian angel, and the reference she gives is the Summa Theologiae, I, question 113, article 4, ad 3. If not even the eschatological figure of the adversary falls outside angelic custody, then custody does not depend on the goodness or the faith of the one guarded. It depends on the one who institutes it.

Why the Catechism speaks of «each of the faithful»

Much of the confusion comes from one famous formulation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, at number 336, teaches that «desde a infância até à morte, a vida humana está rodeada da sua proteção e da sua intercessão. Cada fiel tem ao seu lado um anjo como protetor e pastor, para o conduzir à vida», from infancy to death human life is surrounded by their protection and intercession, and each of the faithful has beside him an angel as protector and shepherd to lead him to life. This is exactly the formula Bernet ascribes to the second, more restrictive school, and it is no accident: it is a quoted patristic sentence, not a delimitation of the reach of the custody. The Catechism speaks to the faithful and says what the custody is for them. It does not assert that others have no angel, and the tradition gathered in those same paragraphs runs the other way.

If everyone has an angel, why does the world go on like this?

This is the objection Bernet herself raises immediately after: if every man is under the guard of an angel, «como é que a humanidade continua a pecar? Por que é que os seus anjos da guarda não chamam à razão os assassinos, os tiranos, os carrascos e outros monstros?», how does humanity go on sinning, why do their guardian angels not bring murderers, tyrants, executioners and other monsters to their senses. The answer she gives is the only one compatible with the rest of the doctrine, and it is the mystery of freedom. The angel guards, enlightens, rules and governs, but does not replace the will of the one he guards.

Michael Patella, in «Anjos e demônios: um guia cristão do mundo espiritual», refuses to manufacture a more comfortable answer for the cases in which disaster happens with no angel preventing it: «Simply, there is no answer», and he adds that the Christian faith does not promise exemption from the laws of the world. Honesty here is doctrinally safer than any improvised consolation.

One further consequence drawn by the same authors of «Anjos e Demónios» changes the way one prays: «Dio non custodisce una massa amorfa ed indifferenziata bensì un popolo», God does not guard an amorphous and undifferentiated mass but a people, in which each one is an unrepeatable person, and therefore the relations of the angels with men «non sono uniformi e standardizzati, bensì rigorosamente individuali e singolari», are not uniform and standardised but rigorously individual and singular.

To go deeper, see what the Church teaches about the guardian angel, the treatise on the angels in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas, numbers 328 to 336 of the Catechism and, on the freedom of angelic creatures, whether the angels have free will.

Frequently asked questions

Does an unbaptised person have a guardian angel?

Yes, according to the majority tradition. The work «Anjos e Demónios», by Marconcini, Amato, Rocchetta and Fiori, states that the presence of the guardian angel concerns pagans and sinners as well, because the angel is beside each one not because that person is baptised but because he is a creature of God.

Is the guardian angel given at baptism or at birth?

Baptism does not give him. Since the angels belong, in Saint Thomas’s arrangement as reported by Charles R. Jaekle, to the order of providence and not to that of redemption, the custody accompanies man as a creature, not as a member of the Church.

Does an atheist or a sinner have a guardian angel?

He does. The patristic tradition expressly extends the custody to sinners, and Saint Thomas Aquinas went so far as to write, in the Summa Theologiae I, question 113, article 4, that the Antichrist himself would have his guardian angel.

Then why does the Catechism say each of the faithful?

Because number 336 quotes a patristic formula addressed to the faithful, the one Anne Bernet identifies with the more restrictive school. It says what the custody is for the believer, not that the others are deprived of it.

If everyone has an angel, why does he not prevent evil?

Because the angel does not replace human freedom. Michael Patella adds that in cases of disaster with no visible help the honest answer is that there is no answer, and that the Christian faith does not promise exemption from the laws of the world.