Monday, December 11, 2017

Brian Shanley Discusses Angelic Being and Activity

Brian J. Shanley maintains that while angels qua spirits don't move from place to place, because of their immateriality or incorporeality: "there is some mutability in their being." Thomas Aquinas apparently discusses the nature of angels in Questions 52-53 and 58-59 (inter alia) of the Summa Theologiae. The upshot of Shanley's remarks is "natural angelic activity is measured by time because there is a succession of before and after. So angels occupy a midpoint between temporal before and after and eternal tota simul. Angelic being is altogether at once and measured by the aevum, while angelic natural activity (with the exception of self-knowledge) is measured by time" (The Treatise on the Divine Nature: Summa Theologiae 1a.1-13, page 283).

Brian Shanley is President of Providence College.



5 comments:

Duncan said...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=l3tW7Ugsj-QC&pg=PA271&lpg=PA271&dq=Brian+Shanley+angelic&source=bl&ots=v7dr_RAgWU&sig=KB_1db2QrWm3f15_Ua_k5AYD_7M&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjgrcXXh4jYAhUHDcAKHeuFDqsQ6AEIWDAM#v=onepage&q=Brian%20Shanley%20angelic&f=false

Edgar Foster said...

Thanks for linking to Shanley's work. On reading that part of the book, it becomes evident that Aquinas believes angels are incorporeal, which contrasts with the Witness belief that angels and God have spiritual bodies. Nevertheless, if someone thinks angels do not have bodies at all, then the problem of mutability or locomotion in space-time seems to deepen.

Duncan said...

I find this very confusing.

http://www.saintaquinas.com/article3.html

There defenition is that incorporeal means to have a spiritual body.

Edgar Foster said...

Duncan,

I think incorporeal means not having a body at all, spiritual or otherwise. God is thought to be incorporeal insofar as God is bodiless or devoid of material substance; the angels are believed to be incorporeal as well--without a body. Aquinas reckons that angels have form, but no matter: he also reasons that God is pure form without matter, and Aquinas believes God is pure act with no potentiality, unlike us.

The link you mention above says, "The doctrine of the incorporeal nature of God states that God is a spirit, and as such has no body (John 4:24)."

Edgar Foster said...

See Aquinas' argument for the incorporeality of angels here: https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/summa-translation/Part%201/st1-ques50.pdf

Also note that he insists they are purely form in the Aristotelian sense without matter (the principle of individuality/principium individuationis).