Metaphysics Imaginatively Engaged, For Thomists Only

I wrote this as an April Fools' joke a few years ago.  I'm still amused by it, so I decided to blog it.  Enjoy!



Question 687 of the Summa Cogitationum Seretharum "Whether it is a mark of the divine nature to be capable of perfect multitasking"

Objection 1.  It would seem that it is not a mark of the divine nature to be capable of perfect multitasking because Rebecca O.  is capable of perfect multitasking. 

Objection 2.  It would seem that it is not a mark of the divine nature to be capable of perfect multitasking because traveling at the speed of light gives the appearance of doing all things at once, and many things can travel at the speed of light, including light, and although God is light, light is not God.

Objection 3. It would seem that it is not a mark of the divine nature to be capable of perfect multitasking because the Doctor is capable of perfect multitasking by use of his TARDIS, wherein he may do an infinite number of things at the same time.

On the contrary, only God is capable of perfect multitasking about everything at once, properly.  

I answer that: "Traveling at the speed of light and multitasking" contains within it two necessary ideas: lack of mass and personhood.  But only the angels and God lack mass and are persons.  Angels are present at locations (and thus times, for all locations are time-locations and all times are location-times as the Physicist said in Relativity) by means of their power, and because their power is finite, it follows that they may not be in an infinite number of places ("spacetimes") at once.  The Angelic Doctor has said they may only be in one place (one spacetime) at once.   He also says that while the angels have no potentiality in regards to their knowledge of God (in beholding the beatific vision, the intellect is in act rather than potentiality), they may have potentiality regarding the knowledge of natural things, as they are not always contemplating everything in their intellect at once.  Therefore it is possible that angels are capable of multitasking, but because of the finitude of power, not about everything at once, or as one who is "simultaneously whole".

Reply to Obj. 1.  Although Rebecca's acts of multitasking have the form of supernatural virtue, they are not infinite and may not be mistaken as acts of divinity.  This may be proved from either the finitude of her power, or from my observation that she could not read a treatise of systematic theology, knit a garment, and hold a conversation simultaneously.  She was capable of the first two together, but not the third.

Reply to Obj. 2.  The above suffices as a response to the second objection.

Reply to Obj. 3. Although the Gallifreyan race is capable of feats of power and intellect matching or surpassing that of the angels though they are somewhat, if loosely tied to corporeal form: neither they nor TARDISes are capable of infinite power because they like the angels are created and therefore finite.  An infinite act cannot proceed from a finite cause.

***I originally wrote this as a little April Fools Day challenge to myself.  I still like it.  For those of you who aren't Thomists and braved the reading of this little spoof, I parodied the format and language of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae to ask my own little theological question.