Angels

Angels feature in people's lives, deaths, and afterlives in the form of guardian angels, angels that meet people after death or dead people who become angels. After a period in which secularization led to an eclipse of angels, recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in angels in relation to death, for instance in popular religiosity.

By and large angels are seen as intermediate beings between the human and the superhuman worlds. Literally the word means “messenger” or “envoy” (Greek άγγελος: messenger; Latin angelus; Hebrew mal‘achךאלמ). In a religious sense it often refers to a messenger of God or the divine. In the Abrahamic religions, for instance, angels are depicted as beings intervening between God and humankind. It always concerns mediation between the immanent and the transcendent, the here and now and a dimension beyond. Thus angels embody a key characteristic of religion: mediation between two worlds via a symbol that makes it possible to experience another world. Often this other world is the domain where the dead sojourn after they have passed on, the hereafter.

There are three main interpretations of the position of angels: (1) They are messengers who accomplish God's will. (2) They are protectors and guides to human beings in their relationship with God and the divine, who also make human contact with God possible. (3) The third meaning is a kind of antipode: the fallen angels who turned away from God and led people into temptation. In relation to death, the first meaning indicates that angels execute an instruction from God or the divine when a person dies. It pertains to how they die and live on after death. The second meaning affects the way people live, die, and live on. Angels take part in human life and help people by preparing them for death and the afterlife. After death they guide people to the hereafter. The third meaning entails the danger that in life, death, and the afterlife, people will not have contact with goodness but with evil—with the fallen angel.

Role of Angels

Angels are seen as God's helpers. In Judaism angels assist God in the Final Judgment as accusers, punishers, and angels of death. In Christianity, too, angels carry out God's will when a person dies, as described in John's Apocalypse. In Islam everyone has two angels sitting on his or her shoulder: one who records the good deeds that the person has done, the other the bad deeds. Hence the daily salat prayer ends with the Muslim looking to the right and to the left. When a Muslim dies these two angels appear and announce the good and bad deeds of the deceased. On the basis of their report, God passes judgment. If evil deeds predominate, the person goes to hell; if good deeds predominate, the person goes to paradise. There are also angels who guard paradise and keep a keen watch over who enters it.

Angels are helpers of human beings. In the Abrahamic religions angels play the role of protectors of human beings. They take part in their lives, deaths, and afterlives. Guardian angels—individual angels that guide and protect individual persons—date back to Judaism. Angels directly influence life and death and establish a link with God. In the hereafter they remain at people's side and guide them to paradise. The eternal afterlife with God of people who lived righteous lives is one of fellowship with angels. The righteous are waited on by angels and enjoy their company. Ultimately they may even become angels themselves. That means that they rise in the heavenly hierarchy and are closer to God. This image of angels as guides to human beings is perpetuated in Christianity and Islam, so that they form a link between humans and the divine.

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