Angels and Demons: What Do We Really Know about Them?

Peter Kreeft has a gift, and that gift is making the most difficult and exalted philosophy and theology accessible to the modern reader. Much like his excellent redacted Summa with comments: A Shorter Summa: The Essential Philosophical Passages of Saint Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica Kreeft here takes a brief, and highly educational, look at what Scripture, Theology, and Philosophy tell us about Angels and Demons. The book is written in question and answer format. Kreeft humbly and patiently answers questions that many modern people have about angels. However, it is not some weird and new age treatise. Kreeft gives us scholarly and scriptural answers to our questions about Angels and Demons. This book is sane and solid and at times fun and entertaining. It is an easy read, and not at all off-putting and therefore I recommend it to everyone, especially skeptics and unbelievers. As a believer I must point out that all around us there is a battle being waged for our souls. This war, between Angels and Demons, is one we cannot see with our eyes, but one we can discern with scripture and through the eyes of faith. Read this book and learn why we ask St. Michael the Archangel to, by the power of God, defend us in battle against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.

Reading Peter Kreeft is always a pleasure: his enthusiasm is contagious, his love for God, his good nature and humility in spite of being a philosopher are qualities that should be expected from any writer of books (whose purpose is to get in our minds his version of things). His book on angels is short, succint, fun, clever as usual, informative, scholarly but not pedantic, and very entertaining. It's one of those books you read in 3 nights (around 150 pages). You have to keep in mind that this author is Catholic and so you are going to find the Catholic perspective on certain aspects of the Christian faith. Catholic or Protestant you should agree, as is clearly demonstrated in this book, that angels are not myths, that they exist and the exist for some reason which is not meant to be any secret. I encourage you to know more about the army of angels that God has disposed for your protection and for communicating His purpose to you, that is: if you are willing to be one of His sons or daughters. Because we all are his creation, but we only become His children by accepting Christ, His Son, as our Lord and Savior (Savior from sin -to those PC oriented persons).

I enjoyed reading Peter Kreeft's "Angels and Demons." Writen in a question and answer format, it is easy to look up information about angels and demons that people may conceive while reading the Bible, other spiritual reading, or when confronted by images given to them by Hollywood. This is helpful reference for the seriously relgious, spiritual seekers, or those interested in investigating these ebings after ecountering them in literature or the movies. I was slightly disappointed that more of the book concered information about angels than demons, since there are so many more books available from mainstream book sellers about angels. Then again, far more people believe in angels than demons. Kreeft covers a lot of territory in the book by researching what information is available from the Bible, other works by Christian writers, and even occasionally adds insights from other religions such as Islam, when answering adressing questions that arise from popular preceptions of angels and demons; some of which were posed to him personally as a teacher at a college.

I picked up this book quite at random a few days ago in the bookstore and didn't put it down until I finished it. Many times, the popular books on angels out there are made up of (uneducated) guesses or what feels good, but Kreeft uses reason, Church tradition and other philosophers (mostly Aquinas), in addition to the Bible, to support his answers about angels. It's tough to wade through all the pop-theology books on angels in stores and I highly recommend this as one of the few quality gems that makes a lot of sense. Truly a refreshing, intelligent, and thought-provoking read.

There are so many fluffy "feel good" books out there that make angels out to be cherubic pansies. This is solid information -- scripturally based, with faith and reason to boot! Excellent!