Angels and Demons is built around a number of paired/opposed forces that wind through the novel as they do human society and human history.

Science Versus Faith
The clash between science and faith is everywhere in Angels and Demons. It is symbolized through the opposing organizations of the Illuminati (who claim to speak for free thought and science) and the Catholic Church (which bulwarks two millennia of dedication to the Christian faith). That this clash can be a war is spelled out by both sides, though Leonardo Vetra and his daughter show readers that it is possible for these two methods of seeking the truth to find peaceful accord within a single heart. However, the camerlengo’s impassioned “surrender” to science in the war shows how uncommon and unlikely such a resolution is. The camerlengo articulates the case for pure faith, in large part because he can see the hand of God in his life. By contrast, Maximilian Kohler’s life was ruined by a misinformed faith, and so he burns with an anticlerical fire.

Passionate Dedication Versus Obsession
Leonardo Vetra, whose murder begins Langdon’s involvement with the novel’s complex mysteries, is a fine example of the ideal of passionate dedication, as is his counterpart, the assassinated pope. Each man pursued truth and supported his chosen organization with his whole heart. Both touched others with their evident devotion, which was intense, but not so single-minded that it excluded the human. Both of these busy men found time in their lives to embrace their children, children who joined their families voluntarily. By contrast, Maximilian Kohler, the camerlengo, and the assassin all embody the dark side of dedication, which is obsession. Each is willing to allow suffering, and even to create suffering and bloody death, in order to pursue his goals.

Public Versus Private
The control and definition of public and private spaces and knowledge play important parts in Angels and Demons. For example, when Robert Langdon is brought to CERN, he is concerned that he did not bring his passport. His pilot assures him that “passports are unnecessary.” CERN director Maximilian Kohler has a video camera mounted on his wheelchair and often offends people by taping meetings without their knowledge or permission. Langdon is enlisted in this extended adventure because information about him is available on the Internet, which CERN had a hand in creating. Perhaps the most striking examples of the interplay of public and private, though, are in judging the moral strength of major characters in the book, and in the nature of the Illuminati’s strategies. The camerlengo judges the late pope for his supposed ethical lapses, but he is wrong to do so; he knows only the public pope, and not what was in the pontiff’s heart. The importance of this divide is shown when it is revealed that the camerlengo accidentally assassinated his own father. A similar layering happens with the Illuminati. They have long infiltrated the Catholic Church (or so it seems), with their representatives playing one role in public and another in private. This practice goes so far as to mark the public art works of Rome with private signs that only the Illuminati can read.

The Past Versus the Present
This last pair shows how forces that seem to be opposed are also intertwined, creating one another even as they clash. CERN is engaged in creating the future—but they are attacked in their headquarters by a representative of the dead past, the Illuminati. At the same time, some of the scientists at CERN are already familiar with the Illuminati because the society had been recycled...