Earthly and Heavenly Justice
In Paradiso, the third and final cantica of The Divine Comedy, Dante is primarily concerned with justice. Many of the figures he meets during his tour of Heaven are concerned about injustices that prevail on Earth, especially corrupt rulers whose actions harm everyday people. Since he’s still living, Dante wonders about his role in addressing these earthly injustices—in fact, other characters urge him to write in order to speak out against the injustices…
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Creation and God’s Providence
As Dante journeys through Heaven, he questions Beatrice and other souls about God’s creation (the earth, humanity, and everything that exists), as well as creation’s diversity, its flaws, and its ultimate fate. Dante is troubled by the mysteries he perceives in creation—for instance, why do imperfections exist in nature if God is perfect? These concerns prompt Dante to question how and why God works as he does. What Dante learns is that God diffuses his…
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God’s Character and Will
Throughout Paradiso, theology is always personal. Dante often wants to know, for instance, why a certain person, or group of people, has been given a particular fate. As Dante’s understanding develops, he comes to believe that such circumstances reflect God’s will, and in turn, God’s will must be expressive of God’s character. In other words, although events on earth and in Heaven are often difficult for humans to grasp, these events are ultimately reflective…
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Vision, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of God
As he journeys through Heaven, Dante frequently gazes at his beloved Beatrice, who throughout The Divine Comedy has symbolized divine revelation. Sometimes, just looking at the beautiful Beatrice overpowers and temporarily blinds Dante. His overwhelm and loss of sight in the face of her beauty—symbolically, the beauty of divine revelation, or indirect knowledge of God—suggests that his own knowledge of God is weak and easily overwhelmed. But that Dante continually gazes at his beloved…
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Language and the Ineffable
A curious aspect of Paradiso is that Dante often uses his poetic skill not to describe the sights and sounds of Heaven in detail but to indicate his inability to fully capture an experience in words. In fact, Dante opens the cantica with this very warning: in Paradise, “our intellect so sinks into the deep [of God] / no memory can follow it that far. / As much, though, truly of that holy realm /…
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