“… already my desire and my will were being turned like a wheel, all at one speed, by the love which moves the sun and other stars.” – Dante Alighieri (Paradiso)
I’ve just finished reading The Divine Comedy, and I feel as though the entire structure of my belief has changed during the process. Much like the titular Dante who, in the poem, travels through a host of different locations and learns a great deal about God and His creation, so too have I experienced a variety of things and discovered much of God.
Love
Dante’s most astute and moving notion is that of love. He believes that at the centre of all human beings is love, it drives all decisions and leads us to the foulest evils and the greatest goods. To work this out, Dante ascribes to us two different types of love; natural and rational.
The natural, he says, is that prime love which cannot falter and is always without error. The rational love, however, Dante believes can lead one towards evil, it can love with too little vigour, and it can love with too much vigour.
I could spend time describing how these three aspects lead to the seven capital vices, but what I’m more interested in is how we operate in the knowledge of that.
When we think on how all our actions stem from love, we might say to ourselves “well that doesn’t work because we still do bad things.” J.R.R. Tolkien describes Satan as “the deceiver”, and this is because the best thing he does is trick and lie and twist the truth. This is scarily accurate.
You see, what the enemy seems to enjoy most is not ‘making’ you do anything, he is incapable. But just as in the form of a twisted snake he whispered in Eve’s ear and deceived mankind into it’s fall, so too does he whisper in our ears and hide the right choice from us.
All that Satan can do, it seems, is lie. He is crafty and wicked and can’t create anything for his own purposes; the only power he has is that which we give him when we believe what he says.
Dante believes us to be simply set to love like a bee is set to make honey, and that ‘rational love’ I mentioned earlier he believes to be at the mercy of our rational mind. Satan has already deceived and laid the groundwork for us to choose the most wicked evil, but God still fuels our desire (when we let him) for the greatest good.
I wrote some time ago about how we observe the world (see ‘Where you’re going’), and that whatever we’re looking at or going towards will naturally realign our lives to best get there. This is very much Dante’s belief if I’m not mistaken. To him, our love, through the rational mind, can be steered towards God which will see our whole world shifted as well.
Inner voice
This means we have within us this amazing voice that God created us with, and it keeps us accountable. It is up to us to listen to the voice, to feed our minds, to let it be as intuitive as possible so as to not lead us into the darker areas of the world.
I’m not entirely sure, the truth is, these ideas have just been bouncing around for ages in my head and it’s only now I’m trying to get them out. What I do love, however, is Dante’s idea that we are all made to love. We are set to love and every part of our life stems from our love.
Yes, this can lead us to the poorer choices in life, but it can also lead us to the highest good of all. I also love that God has given us this rational mind that, the more and more it gets fed, can keep us and hopefully those around us from choosing evil.
Hopefully there’s something in what I’m thinking which will help someone to put things together, but if not, I recommend reading Dante. A lot. He has really changed my thinking and I feel a stronger love than ever before from the sky above.
Josiah Gray lives in Logan City, Australia. He is currently studying teaching at Christian Heritage College and is committed to telling the story of Jesus to the next generation. Josiah’s previous articles may be viewed at: https://www.pressserviceinternational.org/josiah-gray.html