Dante's Inferno
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In the wake of St. Thomas AquinasÆ argument that reason and successful argument were capable of providing knowledge to man of the first principle or first cause (i.e. God), Paganism and its philosophers suffered increasing abandonment and rejection as more individuals converted to Christianity. In the early 1300s, Dante Alighieri wrote what is considered his greatest work, The Divine Comedy. In this work, Dante is guided through the nine levels of Hell or Inferno by the Roman poet Virgil. Within the Inferno, Dante provides us with his views of cosmology and theology. While critical of Church popes and clergy for not fulfilling their holy duties, as is apparent in Inferno in many instances, nevertheless Dante helps shape a worldview that placed reason and faith at the center of the human search for truth, a truth that equated to GodÆs will. In this Dante is very similar in cosmology and theology to St. Thomas Aquinas. This analysis will explore parts of the Inferno that can be directly traced to the influence of AquinasÆ theories on Dante.There are a number of ideas and beliefs offered by Saint Thomas Aquinas that are illustrated in DanteÆs Inferno. Chief among these is that one cannot asbend to the highdst level of knowing or knowledge of truth without believing in God. Another idea of AquinasÆ we see readily expressed in DanteÆs Inferno is the belief that through reason and faith man has the capacity to discern the highest truth. This tru
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ory where individuals are purged of shn before they ascend to Heaven, but only if they are fortunate will they ascend. We see that they both eventually travel to the Garden of Eden, but Virgil cannot continue his journey with Dante. For all his wisdom and nobility, Virgil cannot ascend to the highest level, Paradise, because he does not have faith in God since he is a pagan. This is the case even though Virgil appears to repudiate paganism. As he describes himself, Virgil ôlived at Rome under the good Augustus, / During the time of false and lying gods,ö (Alighieri, Inferno, I). When Dante does ascend to Paradise, we see that Saint Thomas Aquinas and others who believe in God like Saint Augustine, are there. These men have ascended to the highest realm because they have faith in God.
We see that in Paradise Dante learns of the cosmos and the nature of the universe in a way that equates to AquinasÆ notion of discovering knowledge of the first cause or prime mover. Dante learns that the universe is a concentric system of spheres that are constructed in a hierarchy. The smallest sphere contains formless matter but as we progress to higher spheres we encounter animals and human beings. Above the sphere of human beings are t
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Approximate Word count = 1277
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)
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