I know. I have seen another answer, not Thomistic in origin. Either way, the answer depends on a correct understanding of the angelic nature. And the question was a didactic device.

GKC

I don't think St. Thomas could have given any answer to the question because I think the question post-dated him

I thought gherkin's reply was based on St. T.

GKC

My reply was indeed based on St. Thomas, but it was not an account of St. Thomas's own answer to that specific question, since that question was never posed (as far as we know) until the 17th century.

I love learning stuff.

GKC


Added: Ok, I went back to the first place I ever saw the origin discussed: Lunn's REVOLT AGAINST REASON.

Was the 17th century origin in a book titled RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS, by William Chiilingworth?

Not me. I found that the more I learn, the more I find out that I don't know. So what's the point?

Yes, that's the place I had in mind, though I admit to not having done an exhastive study of the matter. I also noticed yesterday when I ran a quick fact-check on myself that there's some very loose talk about a line from a heretical 14th century mystical text that may be traceable to an errant disciple of Eckhart. I was not impressed with the story as it appeared in the online sources, especially since nobody seemed to even agree on what the exact content of the line was. (Some said it was about angels, some said it was about human souls. None gave the Latin. None refereed, IIRC, to any reliable scholarship on the manuscript at all.) I prefer to stick with the 17th century in the absence of better evidence. But even if I'm wrong, we're still far post-Aquinas.

Water is only wet until it is dehydrated

The point is to fathom your ignorance to its uttermost depths

I cherish that bit I've learned.

Then I use it to be a pain in the neck.

GKC

So.... the more I learn about what it is I don't know the more knowledgeable I become since I now know more than I did before about what I don't know?

Socrates could scarcely have said it better.

On a semi serious note, I have always been fond of this cute little saying:

There are four kinds of men: the man who knows and knows he knows, the man who knows and knows not he knows, the man who knows not and knows he knows not, and the man who knows not and knows not he knows not.

The question is, which are you?

(This paradigm, of course, cannot be applied to women, for all the obvious reasons.)

The greatest problem we face in the world is that the first group is far too rare and the last group is as common as flies on dung. And the last group alwasy fancy themselves the wisest in the land and consider the first group to be fools because they don't agree with their folly.

Ok I am going to bite.

Water is not wet. Water is water. BUT...Water has "wettness" as a quality.

Can water become wet?

Only if you pour water on it.

H2O isn't wet if you remove the O.

Did George Lucas somehow edit the Redbook of Westmarch? I'm almost certain that he violated Mr. Frodo's intellectual property rights.