Path: christian Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian From: wjhovi01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu (Bill Hovingh, LPTS Student) Subject: Re: Angels on needles? Organization: University of Louisville Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu joe@erix.ericsson.se (Joe Armstrong) writes: > > I recall reading somewhere that a number of bishops spent a great > deal of time debating the topic of "how many angels could fit on the > tip of a needle". > > Does anybody have a reference to this? There was considerable speculation in the Middle Ages about the nature of angels -- what form they had, whether they had substance, etc. Some of the discussion were taken up by University students and faculty as debating exercises. One particularly famous exercise was the question, "How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" The answer is either one (if angels have material substance) or an infinite number (if they do not). This is often cited as an example of the useless and pedantic degeneracy of medieval Catholic theology. Such a use is invalid, since the dispute was used as a kind of training exercise to hone debating skills. I cringe when I think about some of the friendly dorm-room debates I engage(d) in being cited as examples of 20th century thought! billh From @mitvma.mit.edu:MNHCC@cunyvm.cuny.EDU Mon May 24 13:00:41 1993 Received: from EDDIE.MIT.EDU by aramis.rutgers.edu (5.59/SMI4.0/RU1.5/3.08) id AA09152; Mon, 24 May 93 13:00:41 EDT Received: from mitvma.mit.edu by eddie.mit.edu id aa24674; 24 May 93 12:55 EDT Received: from MITVMA.MIT.EDU by mitvma.mit.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8065; Mon, 24 May 93 13:00:39 EDT Received: from CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU by MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Mailer R2.10 ptf000) with BSMTP id 3667; Mon, 24 May 93 13:00:38 EDT Received: from CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (NJE origin MNHCC@CUNYVM) by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (LMail V1.1d/1.7f) with RFC822 id 6916; Mon, 24 May 1993 13:00:16 -0400 To: SOC-RELIGION-CHRISTIAN@eddie.mit.edu Organization: City University of New York Date: Monday, 24 May 1993 12:54:19 EDT From: Marty Helgesen Message-Id: <93144.125419MNHCC@CUNYVM.BITNET> Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Angels on needles? References: In article , joe@erix.ericsson.se (Joe Armstrong) says: > > I recall reading somewhere that a number of bishops spent a great >deal of time debating the topic of "how many angels could fit on the >tip of a needle". > > Does anybody have a reference to this? > > Thanks > > Joe Armstrong > That story is, in that invaluable phrase from _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, a load of dingoes' kidneys. It is like the spurious claim that a church council debated whether women have souls that appeared recently in another newsgroup. Sir Arnold Lunn, in the notes to his 1950 book, _The Revolt Against Reason_, reports that when he tried to track down the origin of the story he was referred to an article by Father James Broderick, S.J., in _The Tablet_ of October 10th, 1942. He quotes from Fr. Broderick: "In 1890, _Notes and Queries_, that national chastener of all who Talk at Random, resumed earlier inquiries into the history of the conceit, and managed to trace angels and needles back to the year 1638, when William Chillingworth published his famous _Religion of Protestants_. A Jesuit had cast aspersions on the learning of Anglican divines, which rankled with Willian because he was of that fraternity himself, though somewhat shaky on the point of Sabbatical worship. He retorted scornfully that men might be learned even though they 'dispute not eternally . . . whether a million of angels may not sit upon a needle's point.' Despite the new position of the angels, this is plainly the same old story. Chillingworth links it with the really clever and amusing _Chimera bombinans in vacuo_, and certainly the two conceits had a similar origin, not in the speculations of any Catholic theologian, but in the brain of some smart humanist or reformer who wanted to make scholasticism look ridiculous. It was the same ingenious propagandists who succeeded in converting the venerated name of Duns Scotus, 'of reality the rarest-veined unraveller,' into a synonym for a blockhead." Lunn comments: "The angel-needle thesis, if in fact it was ever debated, was almost certainly a debating exercise to sharpen the wits of pupils. Angels, it was believed, were pure intelligences not material, but limited, so they could have location in space but not extension; rather like a point which in theory has position but no magnitude. Thus an angel could not _occupy_ space--i.e. a needle point--but could be _located on_ a needle point." ------- Marty Helgesen Bitnet: mnhcc@cunyvm Internet: mnhcc@cunyvm.cuny.edu "What if there were no such thing as a hypothetical situation?"