True, the cat is not both alive and dead at the same time. But, mathematics of quantum physics describe superposed states. Particles are also waves, as shown by diffraction experiments; if not a contradiction, certainly something that's hard to wrap your head around.
How many angels can sit on the head of a pin?"
or should I say cats?
The need for rationality as complementary to faith was raised as an important point for Catholic theology at the
Council of Trent.
[2] The question has also been linked to the
fall of Constantinople, with the
imagery of scholars debating about
minutiae while the Turkish besieged the city.
[3][4] In modern usage, it therefore has been used as a
metaphor for wasting time debating topics of no practical value, or questions whose answers hold no intellectual consequence, while more urgent concerns pile up.
[5][6]
The fact that certain renowned medieval scholars considered similar questions is clear; Aquinas's
Summa Theologica, written c. 1270, includes discussion of several questions regarding angels such as, "Can several angels be in the same place?"
[7] However the idea that such questions had a prominent place in medieval scholarship has been debated, and it has not been proved that this particular question was ever disputed.
[8] One theory is that it is an
early modern fabrication,
[a] as used to discredit scholastic philosophy at a time when it still played a significant role in university education.
James Franklin has raised the scholarly issue, and mentions that there is a 17th-century reference in
William Chillingworth's
Religion of Protestants (1637),
[9] where he accuses unnamed scholastics of debating "Whether a Million of Angels may not fit upon a needle's point?" This is earlier than a reference in the 1678
The True Intellectual System Of The Universe by
Ralph Cudworth. HS Lang, author of
Aristotle's Physics and its Medieval Varieties (1992), says (p. 284):
"The question of how many angels can dance on the point of a
needle, or the head of a pin, is often attributed to 'late medieval writers'... In point of fact, the question has never been found in this form".
The early modern version in English (usually a needle, rather than a pin) dates back at least to
Richard Baxter. In his 1667 tract
The Reasons of the Christian Religion, Baxter reviews opinions on the materiality of angels from ancient times, concluding:
And Schibler with others, maketh the difference of extension to be this, that Angels can contract their whole substance into one part of space, and therefore have not partes extra partes. Whereupon it is that the Schoolmen have questioned how many Angels may fit upon the point of a Needle?".
— Richard Baxter
[10]
Philosopher
George MacDonald Ross[11] has identified a close parallel in a 14th-century
mystical text, the
Swester Katrei. Other possibilities are that it is a surviving parody or self-parody, or a training topic in debating.
In Spanish, the conundrum of useless scholarly debates is linked to a similar question of whether angels have sex or are genderless.
[4]