You wrote:
“How many angels CAN dance on the head of a pin, anyway?”
Fascinating question. This is something of a hoax. Dorothy Sayers spent a great deal of time trying to find a single instance of this question ever actually being debated in the Middle Ages, but failed. Why is it such a commonly held belief that scholastics in the Middle Ages “wasted time” debating this question? Apparently it was made popular as a one sentence condemnation of medieval scholasticism by Rev. Chillingworth - a 16th-17th century Anglican with an axe to grind against the Catholic Church.
A medieval professor I had in graduate school, however, opened my eyes about this issue. He once said that it made perfect sense to ask the question because it is about space and corporality. Do incorporeal beings occupy space? Angels have no bodies. They are pure spirits even though they are given physical attributes in the scriptures. How can an angel sing, however, if it is a pure spirit since that would require physicality (a voice box)? The question about angels dancing on the head of a pin is actually an excellent question. Can more than one incorporeal being occupy a certain physical space at a time? How would you come to your answer without being able to see an example of such or performing any kind of experiment? A medieval scholastic could only use logic, scripture and philosophy.
Every once in a while I really appreciate what my old professors taught me.
I can’t diasagree with you. I love theology, and I think we can learn a lot about God and his will for us by studying it. However, as a wise priest once told me, we can know everything about God through theology except for the really important things. So, I say we discuss whether there is a rock too heavy for God to lift, or whether angels can dance on the head of a pin, but we don’t go to war over it, we don’t have schism over the wording of a document. In the end the only answer is that it’s a mystery and we’ll find out sooner or later. It’s a mystic religion, and i like it.
I can’t diasagree with you. I love theology, and I think we can learn a lot about God and his will for us by studying it. However, as a wise priest once told me, we can know everything about God through theology except for the really important things. So, I say we discuss whether there is a rock too heavy for God to lift, or whether angels can dance on the head of a pin, but we don’t go to war over it, we don’t have schism over the wording of a document. In the end the only answer is that it’s a mystery and we’ll find out sooner or later. It’s a mystic religion, and i like it.