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Where have all the Angels Gone?1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Stephen R. L. Clark
Stephen R. L. Clark
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, PO Box 147, Liverpool L69 3BX
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Extract

Anyone who wishes to talk about angels has to respond to the mocking question, how many of them can dance on the point of a pin. The answer is: ‘just as many as they please’. Angels being immaterial intellects do not occupy space to the exclusion of any other such intellectual substance, and their being ‘on’ the point of a pin can only mean that they attend to it. The question, however, is not one that concerned our mediaeval predecessors, although it seems as difficult to persuade anyone of this as it is to clear Canute of the charge of insane conceit.

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Type
Research Article
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Religious Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , June 1992, pp. 221 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

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