Dante for Dummies

I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell. (II Corinthians 12:4). 

At age 72, I’ve checked an item off my bucket list that has been there for decades: reading through all three volumes of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. Years ago, I read the first volume (Inferno), but never had the courage to tackle volumes two and three: Purgatory and Paradise. So, last fall, throwing caution to the wind, I ordered the Penguin Classics edition, took a deep breath, and dove in. For four months I struggled through poetry that was hard to understand. And I found myself in doctrinal disagreement with Dante on numerous occasions. But I did it; I read the whole thing! (I can hear the applause. Thank you!)

Reading The Divine Comedy reminds me of the first time I climbed Cascade Mountain in upstate New York. It took courage just to make the attempt. It was intimidating, laborious, and time-consuming. As I climbed, I often wanted to quit. I was tired and my body ached. All I could see was the rocks under my feet and the canopy of trees overhead. But when I reached the top – oh my! The 360-degree panorama from the bald summit gave a breath-taking view of the Adirondack Mountains I will never forget. Yeah, it hurt to get there, but it was well worth the effort. By bedtime that night, I knew I wanted to do it again!

Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) grew up in Florence, Italy, a city torn by political rivalries and religious factions. Forced out of his home, he wrote his masterpiece while living in exile. He called it a comedy, not because it was funny, but because, in contrast to a tragedy, it has a happy ending. There is nothing politically correct about Dante’s work. It is edgy and provocative. He seems to enjoy putting his religious and political rivals in various sections of hell where these noblemen, priests, kings and popes (!) receive the punishments he feels they deserve. Dante’s gift for vituperation and verbal assault makes today’s shock jocks of talk-radio and social media look tame in comparison! 

Dante’s genius is seen in the fact that he writes himself into the script! He is the main character; a pilgrim searching for truth and salvation, whose journey takes him through hell, purgatory, and heaven. The scope of his work is staggering. He treats a wide range of theological issues but focuses especially on the nature of sin, the desires of the human heart, and the power of grace to purify the will. The theme that unites the whole is love; disordered love in hell, getting our loves rightly ordered in Purgatory, and divine love in Paradise. The opening lines of the first volume set the stage for all that is to follow.  

Midway along the journey of our life

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

For I had wandered off from the straight path.

The poet Virgil, symbolizing human reason, serves initially as Dante’s guide. Although Virgil successfully leads him through hell, he is of no help in getting into heaven! It takes Beatrice, the symbol of divine love, to guide Dante the rest of the way until he is able to see God face to face.

Volume One: Inferno

As he enters the realm of the damned, Dante reads a sign over the gate that says, “Abandon every hope, all you who enter.” The vestibule of hell is populated by the undecided; those who never had the courage to choose one way or the other. Heaven wouldn’t accept them and hell didn’t want them. Descending ten levels in an ever-tightening downward spiral of doom, darkness, and despair, Dante realizes that the degrees of torment are perfectly matched to the sins they are meant to punish. The lustful are blown about by strong winds, the gluttons are mired in filthy muck and battered by dirty rain and snow, the wrathful are ripping each other to shreds, etc. The worst torments are inflicted on heretics, blasphemers, homosexuals, hypocrites, liars, and those who are proud. In the deepest pit of hell at the very center of the earth, Dante finds Satan, trapped in a sea of ice (not fire), gnawing on Judas forever! 

Volume Two: Purgatory

For Dante, purgatory is not some land of in-between, a place where people get a second chance. It is, rather, a part of heaven, a sort of antechamber. It is the dwelling place of those who have been redeemed but are not yet ready to see God. As they climb Mount Purgatory, the saved are cleansed from sin. Dante believes that without holiness, “no one will see the Lord” (see Heb. 12:14). But he is suggesting that real victory over sin is not possible in this world. Here, on this side of the grave, we will always struggle with pride, envy, anger, sloth, lust, etc. Dante is telling us that becoming like Jesus is possible only after we die. (You might want to reread that sentence). 

I’m impressed that Dante devotes the entirety of his second volume to the subject of entire sanctification. I agree with his insistence that holiness is a gift of grace, not the result of human striving. And I very much like the way he explains that becoming holy involves both a process (growth and development) as well as a crisis (passing through “a wall of fire” in order to be cleansed). However, I do not share Dante’s theology of purgatory or his belief that sanctification takes place only after death. As creative as it is, his teaching has no Biblical support. 

I have to wonder if Dante is to blame, at least in part, for the fact that almost no one in the contemporary church believes that holiness of heart and life is possible in this life. Yes, when it comes to the doctrine of sanctification, I’m convinced that the majority of believers today have unconsciously adopted a theology that comes from Dante, rather than from the Bible. I’m tempted to say that the evangelical church is full of people who have a cryptic belief in purgatory – that is, they believe that they will become holy only after they die!    

Volume Three: Paradise

Perhaps, no single statement better summarizes the message of The Divine Comedy than a short sentence found in Canto III of the third volume: “In His will is our peace.” Rising through ten circles of light, music, and movement, Dante envisions the place where God dwells with more creative imagination than perhaps anyone else in history. He discovers that the redeemed in heaven have been “transhumanized” into beings that share God’s glory in a way that is uniquely suited to their particular standing. Repeatedly, he tells us that words are incapable of describing the beauty and majesty of what he has seen. When he reaches the highest heaven, a place of pure light and love, he sees God, in his tri-unity, face to face. 

Dante notices that, among the millions of seats reserved for the saints in heaven, only a few remain empty. He wants the reader to ask the question: “Is there a place reserved for me?”

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