Paradiso: The First Sphere, Doubts Addressed

Along with Dante, we are entering territory where our intellect no longer needs reason but still seeks understanding. Once the idea is posited, Dante is able to comprehend the answer with very little trouble, and he'll get better at it as he moves closer to the Empyrean. Aristotle, in telling us how to live within a community with others anticipates the spirit of St. Peter Regaldo, and he also gives us Hesiod's dictum, which runs "Far best is he who knows all things himself;/ Good, he that hearkens when men counsel right;/ But he who neither knows, nor lays to heart/ Another's wisdom, is a useless wight." In building upon what he learns through this canticle, Dante is demonstrating his being of the former kind rather than the latter, and he is willing to accept the meal being offered him so that he can better share it with others.



The doubts that enter his mind, Beatrice intuits, are of two kinds -- one about the difference between predestination and free will, which she states has the potential to lead Dante into damnable heresy. She offers by way of explanation the idea that the soul moves to the sphere which best represents its character, demonstrating that it knows where to go and doesn't have to be assigned by a creature like Minos. In the second instance, she deals with the idea of the will in the face of violence, which has two natures -- the absolute, which must bend to the will of God, and the conditional, which may bend to the body's sense of self-preservation. Those who are more greatly configured to the will of God will martyr themselves rather than compromise. We learn from this that there is no injustice in God's justice, and those who think they see it confirm their faith in the observation rather than betray it.

S.