Theology by the Slice: Dante's Vision of Human Destiny

On February 11 we were pleased to welcome back (for the third time now) Prof. James Kee of the English Department. Prof. Kee has spoken to us before* on the Bible and modern literature, and on the poem Love (3) by George Herbert. He returned for one final presentation, this time on the Italian Renaissance poet Dante Alighieri's vision of human destiny in his work The Divine Comedy.

Prof. Kee began his discussion of Dante with some background on the poet's view of the world. According to Fr. Robert Sokolowski of the Catholic University of America, Dante didn't believe the universe was a kind of enclosed, cosmic oneness, but rather a creation in a relation to its Creator. He saw the created world as everything that was not God, and thus unnecessary. The universe, then, is radically contingent on its Creator as its source and sustenance, existing because of God's free act of love. Dante's vision of the universe takes up the relation between the grace of this gift and the nature of things within it.

Dante also thought that nature came from God and circled back to Him. Humans have a substantive quality or nature, and thus a relative autonomy. We have a distinct nature, our being is radically contingent on God's creative gift. Humans also have a proper form, or most perfect ideal, which is comprised of excellence (an idea that Dante got from Aristotle, through reading St. Thomas Aquinas). We have the potential to actualize, or become, this ideal human, and  The Divine Comedy is in part about aspiring toward this telos or final purpose. In addition to these Aristotelian ideas, Dante also draws from St. Augustine's idea of the "restless heart" - that is, that humans find their ultimate completion in God. Human nature is wounded and in need of God's grace. The other aspect of Dante's work, then, is the response to this grace, and the freedom necessary to give that response.

Dante's Comedy takes us through three realms in the afterlife: Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Heaven). In his Hell, we find humans who have actualized their potential in a deformed way. The lowest circle of Hell is reserved for those who seriously betrayed their relationships with others, which could have been the most excellent actualization of their humanity. Dante sees purgatory, however, as a realm of hope, wherein humans can realize their capacity to be free. Purgatory is a mountain (bathed in the light of Venus) divided into seven stories, each representing one of the seven deadly sins. The process of purgation involves refining each of these vices into its contrasting virtue and undoing sinful habits.Heaven, finally, is here humans come to participate in the divine nature through God's grace.

Look for example, at this passage near the end of the Purgatorio translations are by Allen Mandelbaum):

“My son, you’ve seen the temporary fire
and the eternal fire; you have reached
the place past which my powers cannot see.
I’ve brought you here through intellect and art;
from now on, let your pleasure be your guide;
 you can rest or walk until
the coming of the glad and lovely eyes-
those eyes that, weeping, sent me to your side.
Await no further word or sign from me:
your will is free, erect, and whole-to act
against that will would be to err: therefore
I crown and miter you over yourself.” (Purgatorio 27.127-131; 136-142)

Dante's guide through this Hell and Purgatory is Vergil, the Ancient Roman poet. Vergil represents the most excellent a human can be without God's grace. Yet as Dante prepares to exit Purgatory, Vergil cannot accompany him, for Vergil lives in Limbo, the part of Hell reserved for the righteous pagans who lived before Christ. The mystery of God's justice is that Dante has been brought to salvation by an agent who is excluded from it. Furthermore, the line "your will is free to act, erect, whole" Dante's new-found moral freedom. His intellect has guided him to the truth, and his will has assented to it. Having succeeded in purgation, Dante now enjoys the excellences of humanity. He can act spontaneously without fear of error because of his virtue.

For Dante, however, there is more to be had than the excellences alone:

That done, she drew me out and led me, bathed,
into the dance of the four lovely women;
 “Here we are nymphs; in heaven, stars; before
she had descended to the world, we were
assigned, as her handmaids, to Beatrice;
we’ll be your guides unto her eyes; but it
will be the three beyond, who see more deeply,
who’ll help you penetrate her joyous light.”  (31.103-104; 106-11)

Scholars agree that the "four lovely women" are the four cardinal virtues (prudence, fortitude, justice, and temperance), which in turn are the Aristotelian excellences that Dante has just attained to. Yet there is more to Dante's journey than the actualization of excellence. Dante is continuing toward the Augustinian rest with God. It is beyond anything Vergil can show him. It is something that must be given by God.

The "three beyond" refer to the theological virtues (faith, hope, and charity), which will let Dante stare into the eyes of Beatrice, who in turn guides him to the Beatific Vision. He expands on the three virtues here:

My eyes were so insistent, so intent
on finding satisfaction for their ten-
year thirst that every other sense was spent.
And to each side, my eyes were walled in by
indifference to all else (with its old net,
the holy smile [of Beatrice] so drew them to itself),
when I was forced to turn my eyes leftward
by those three goddesses because I heard
them warning me: “You stare too fixedly.”
And the condition that afflicts the sight
when eyes have just been struck by the sun’s force
left me without my vision for a time. (32.1-12)

The "three goddesses" are again the theological virtues. Although Dante longs to look into Beatrice's eyes, he cannot do so by himself with being blinded. The Three admonish him, saying he stares "too fixedly." The theological virtues, which are beyond the human excellences, are a radical gift of God. Dante needs God's help (represented by the help of the three goddesses) to enjoy the beatific vision.

Dante can eventually look into Beatrice's eyes without harm:

The eyes of Beatrice were all intent
on the eternal circles; from the sun,
I turned aside; I set my eyes on her.
In watching her, within me I was changed
as Glaucus changed, tasting the herb that made
him a companion of the other sea gods.
Passing beyond the human [It. trasumanar] cannot be
worded; let Glaucus serve as simile
until grace grant you the experience. (Paradiso 1.64-72)

The word trasumanar is a neologism. Dante created the word to express the idea of "going beyond the human." The simile of Glaucus, a sea-god who was transformed from a mortal to an immortal, likewise illustrates what is happening to Dante. The eschatological experience exceeds the natural human teleology. By the gift of God, humans can exceed the human.

Dante at last comes to his description of the beatific vision, which he comes to through Christ:

     In the deep and bright
essence of that exalted Light, three circles
appeared to me; they had three different colors,
but all of them were of the same dimension;
 That circle which, begotten so, appeared
in You as light reflected when my eyes
had watched it with attention for some time,
within itself and colored like itself,
to me seemed painted with our effigy,
so that my sight was set on it completely.
As the geometer intently seeks
to square the circle, but he cannot reach,
through thought on thought, the principle he needs,
so l searched that strange sight: I wished to see
the way in which our human effigy
suited the circle and found place in it
and my own wings were far too weak for that.
But then my mind was struck by light that flashed
and, with this light, received what it had asked.
 Here force failed my high fantasy; but my
desire and will were moved already like
a wheel revolving uniformly – by
the Love that moves the sun and the other stars. (33.114-117; 127-145)

The three circles that are different but with the same dimensions is a representation of the Trinity. The circle that "appeared / in you as light reflected" and "seemed painted with our effigy" is Christ, who is true God and true man. Dante is looking at Christ, attempting to see how his humanity can possibly be united to God's divinity. It is like trying "to square the circle" and the "seeing" that Dante wants refers to intellectual sight or perception. Yet Dante's "wings were far too weak for that" - with his own human faculties, he cannot grasp the mystery before him. Yet he is given grace, his "mind is struck by light that flashed / and, with this light, received what it had asked." By the grace of God, Dante is elevated into a participation in the divine nature.

He is elevated by the "Love that moves the sun and the other stars." Even now, within the created order, we participate imperfectly in God, who created it and sustains it, moving the sun and stars. We obtain a glimmer on earth of the eternal reality that is to come by response the response of "desire and will" to God's gift.

We sincerely thank Prof. Kee not just for this excellent presentation, but for all the times he has come to speak to us. With his (and His) help, we have seen more clearly the glimmer that points beyond itself to "the essence of that exalted Light."

*"The Bible in Modern English Literature," delivered 2.13.13; "Love (3) by George Herbert," delivered 10.9.13.