Thanks again for exploring what il Sommo Poeta can teach us about how to think about reality. I think I understand what you’re “up to conceptually in this series”, and thus why the focus on Dante’s “world-building” is paramount at this early point, but I was struck by the fact that God isn’t mentioned once in this piece (unless references like the “serene presence of mystery” and “the eternal” are stand-ins). I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but it’s indisputable that the loom on which Dante’s cosmos was woven is Christianity. The Divine Comedy is a profound Christian vision; Pope Benedict said “Dante had no other purpose than to raise mortals from the state of misery, that is from the state of sin, and lead them to the state of happiness, that is of divine grace”. Dante was, as Charles Manley says, “saturated in Scripture,” and a “shepherd of the Christian imagination.” Yes, he had extraordinary (one might even say supernatural) perception about human experience and existence, from which we can reap great insights, but his work shouldn’t be distanced from its DNA. He uses the combination of the natural, human, and divine relationships to reality (and, of course, his personal calamity) to educate us.
Dante would have fervently agreed with the theologian Hans Boersma that Christ is the “central thread of the cosmic tapestry,” and the “eternal anchor for all of created existence.” Dante’s other threads may have included cosmology, history, topography, politics, philosophy, culture, and even revenge, but the purpose of weaving a unified tapestry was to set the stage for the Pilgrim’s redemptive journey and his hope in “a certain expectation of future glory"' (Paradiso, Canto XXV; 'glory' referring to the salvation of the soul). Dante constructed an imaginative, fantastically organized universe, as Michael Palma says, of “astonishing richness and texture.” It was the backdrop, as Jose Luis Borges says, for the poet to penetrate “the indecipherable province of God” and bring the pilgrim (on behalf of us all) face-to-face with the eminence “uncircumscribed and circumscribing all.” (Paradiso 14: 28-30). The Pilgrim’s initial “disorientation” may have prompted the need for guides, but in the deeply religious setting of the Divine Comedy, that “disorientation” was igniting the penultimate desire to see God face to face, and to quench the Pilgrim’s appetite for knowledge. His “dominant cultural atmosphere” was the Christian (Catholic) paradigm; Virgil (representing reason) and Beatrice (representing revelation) weren’t there primarily to help the pilgrim find “interior freedom” — they were there to guide him to “future glory.” As Saint Augustine said, “We have heard the fact: let us seek the mystery” — it was both an educational and spiritual journey.
Maybe C.S.Lewis can help us use tools like Dante’s elegant cosmos to derive personal meaning-making: “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”
Reverend Charles Brock said “The poem amazes by its array of learning, its penetrating and comprehensive analysis of contemporary problems, and its inventiveness of language and imagery.” Dante’s cosmos, then, has more than served its purpose as a map for Homo Viator’s search for “future glory.” I look forward to reading more about your perspectives on how it can be a useful map for overcoming “the vices and obstacles that impede our purpose and happiness.” Thanks again for revisiting the Pilgrim’s journey and being our pacesetter. Merry Christmas!
Hi Corey, Merry Christmas and thank you for your insightful comment. You are correct on both points, namely, that I didn't mention God in this post and that Dante's poem cannot be understood as anything but a profoundly Christian work of art. My choice in leaving God out of this post as a named Presence and Person was intentional. At this point of the journey, I'm trying to recreate the original "groping in the dark" of those very ancient thinkers. Recall that this is even before the God of Plato or Aristotle. So I think it's important to put ourselves in their shoes, so to speak, and see the cosmos from that original perplexity that only later will resolve into a knowledge of the God of Augustine, Aquinas, and Dante.
Wow Corey, I love how you weaved together all these quotes. I had your same impression at the beginning of the reading. It bothered me that Amy wrote “occasional alienation from truth” referring to the dark wood. I thought it was deeply clashing with the concept of original sin that underlines all our life on earth, but… after reading the whole piece, I find it a kind of rhetorical reticence that allows the reader to get settled in this first overview from the pre Christian philosophers. I am sure we will see our Lord presence going forward through our self education about other sources of Dante’s thoughts. And I loved to meditate on the possibility of being born before Christ and have available “only” Heraclitus and Parmenides. In any case, your collection of quotes and meaningful comments is amazing. Thanks.
Perhaps Being and Becoming are two edges of the same sword; immanence and transcendence two separate aspects of the same Ultimate Reality. I feel there is something unchanging which underlies the obvious impermanence of our experience of existence, but allow I can't see it or point to it. I can only say "I feel this way", or "this makes sense to me; I agree with this, not so much with that...", which ultimately means I know nothing for certain. I appreciate the way you are approaching and presenting this study. Thanks for the challenge.
Rodney, I think you are on the right track! Whenever I'm faced with a stark duality like this, I tend to think like you - I wonder if they are just two sides of the same coin. Instead of prematurely choosing sides, I like to look for some other perspective that can help me solve the paradox. Thanks for your comment!
I find the Parmenides and Heraclitus discussion at the core of my own journey. What I have settled upon is that the resolution is unattainable in metaphysical terms because it's beyond metaphysics. To define the answer is a calculative activity (metaphysics). However, the challenge requires thinking, not calculation, using Heidegger's terminology. I find myself answering the puzzle of Being (Parmenides) in Time (Heraclitus) only with "awe" and "wonder." The answer appropriates our Being such that we know but have no metaphysical method to describe it. I think that is its source of enchantment in Being - that we can know it without knowledge. It is intuitive and precognitive. "Understanding comes before knowing," sayeth Heidegger. Please do not ask me to source that - it's somewhere in Being and Time :-).
Thanks for your great comment, Walter. I believe you about the Heidegger quote, lol! What's interesting to me about the Parmenides-Heraclitus debate is that they were formulating their ideas before the metaphysics of Plato and Socrates, but we are trying to understand them afterwards. I know that my thinking is so dominated by such Platonic and Aristotelian concepts as forms and substances that I can't really get at the original Pre-Socratic meaning of their philosophies. So, it's like you're saying here, we can't arrive at an answer using traditional metaphysics. "Beyond metaphysics" = meta-metaphysics! :)
Thanks again for exploring what il Sommo Poeta can teach us about how to think about reality. I think I understand what you’re “up to conceptually in this series”, and thus why the focus on Dante’s “world-building” is paramount at this early point, but I was struck by the fact that God isn’t mentioned once in this piece (unless references like the “serene presence of mystery” and “the eternal” are stand-ins). I’m not a particularly spiritual person, but it’s indisputable that the loom on which Dante’s cosmos was woven is Christianity. The Divine Comedy is a profound Christian vision; Pope Benedict said “Dante had no other purpose than to raise mortals from the state of misery, that is from the state of sin, and lead them to the state of happiness, that is of divine grace”. Dante was, as Charles Manley says, “saturated in Scripture,” and a “shepherd of the Christian imagination.” Yes, he had extraordinary (one might even say supernatural) perception about human experience and existence, from which we can reap great insights, but his work shouldn’t be distanced from its DNA. He uses the combination of the natural, human, and divine relationships to reality (and, of course, his personal calamity) to educate us.
Dante would have fervently agreed with the theologian Hans Boersma that Christ is the “central thread of the cosmic tapestry,” and the “eternal anchor for all of created existence.” Dante’s other threads may have included cosmology, history, topography, politics, philosophy, culture, and even revenge, but the purpose of weaving a unified tapestry was to set the stage for the Pilgrim’s redemptive journey and his hope in “a certain expectation of future glory"' (Paradiso, Canto XXV; 'glory' referring to the salvation of the soul). Dante constructed an imaginative, fantastically organized universe, as Michael Palma says, of “astonishing richness and texture.” It was the backdrop, as Jose Luis Borges says, for the poet to penetrate “the indecipherable province of God” and bring the pilgrim (on behalf of us all) face-to-face with the eminence “uncircumscribed and circumscribing all.” (Paradiso 14: 28-30). The Pilgrim’s initial “disorientation” may have prompted the need for guides, but in the deeply religious setting of the Divine Comedy, that “disorientation” was igniting the penultimate desire to see God face to face, and to quench the Pilgrim’s appetite for knowledge. His “dominant cultural atmosphere” was the Christian (Catholic) paradigm; Virgil (representing reason) and Beatrice (representing revelation) weren’t there primarily to help the pilgrim find “interior freedom” — they were there to guide him to “future glory.” As Saint Augustine said, “We have heard the fact: let us seek the mystery” — it was both an educational and spiritual journey.
Maybe C.S.Lewis can help us use tools like Dante’s elegant cosmos to derive personal meaning-making: “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”
Reverend Charles Brock said “The poem amazes by its array of learning, its penetrating and comprehensive analysis of contemporary problems, and its inventiveness of language and imagery.” Dante’s cosmos, then, has more than served its purpose as a map for Homo Viator’s search for “future glory.” I look forward to reading more about your perspectives on how it can be a useful map for overcoming “the vices and obstacles that impede our purpose and happiness.” Thanks again for revisiting the Pilgrim’s journey and being our pacesetter. Merry Christmas!
Hi Corey, Merry Christmas and thank you for your insightful comment. You are correct on both points, namely, that I didn't mention God in this post and that Dante's poem cannot be understood as anything but a profoundly Christian work of art. My choice in leaving God out of this post as a named Presence and Person was intentional. At this point of the journey, I'm trying to recreate the original "groping in the dark" of those very ancient thinkers. Recall that this is even before the God of Plato or Aristotle. So I think it's important to put ourselves in their shoes, so to speak, and see the cosmos from that original perplexity that only later will resolve into a knowledge of the God of Augustine, Aquinas, and Dante.
Wow Corey, I love how you weaved together all these quotes. I had your same impression at the beginning of the reading. It bothered me that Amy wrote “occasional alienation from truth” referring to the dark wood. I thought it was deeply clashing with the concept of original sin that underlines all our life on earth, but… after reading the whole piece, I find it a kind of rhetorical reticence that allows the reader to get settled in this first overview from the pre Christian philosophers. I am sure we will see our Lord presence going forward through our self education about other sources of Dante’s thoughts. And I loved to meditate on the possibility of being born before Christ and have available “only” Heraclitus and Parmenides. In any case, your collection of quotes and meaningful comments is amazing. Thanks.
Perhaps Being and Becoming are two edges of the same sword; immanence and transcendence two separate aspects of the same Ultimate Reality. I feel there is something unchanging which underlies the obvious impermanence of our experience of existence, but allow I can't see it or point to it. I can only say "I feel this way", or "this makes sense to me; I agree with this, not so much with that...", which ultimately means I know nothing for certain. I appreciate the way you are approaching and presenting this study. Thanks for the challenge.
Rodney, I think you are on the right track! Whenever I'm faced with a stark duality like this, I tend to think like you - I wonder if they are just two sides of the same coin. Instead of prematurely choosing sides, I like to look for some other perspective that can help me solve the paradox. Thanks for your comment!
I find the Parmenides and Heraclitus discussion at the core of my own journey. What I have settled upon is that the resolution is unattainable in metaphysical terms because it's beyond metaphysics. To define the answer is a calculative activity (metaphysics). However, the challenge requires thinking, not calculation, using Heidegger's terminology. I find myself answering the puzzle of Being (Parmenides) in Time (Heraclitus) only with "awe" and "wonder." The answer appropriates our Being such that we know but have no metaphysical method to describe it. I think that is its source of enchantment in Being - that we can know it without knowledge. It is intuitive and precognitive. "Understanding comes before knowing," sayeth Heidegger. Please do not ask me to source that - it's somewhere in Being and Time :-).
Thanks for your great comment, Walter. I believe you about the Heidegger quote, lol! What's interesting to me about the Parmenides-Heraclitus debate is that they were formulating their ideas before the metaphysics of Plato and Socrates, but we are trying to understand them afterwards. I know that my thinking is so dominated by such Platonic and Aristotelian concepts as forms and substances that I can't really get at the original Pre-Socratic meaning of their philosophies. So, it's like you're saying here, we can't arrive at an answer using traditional metaphysics. "Beyond metaphysics" = meta-metaphysics! :)