Dante and His Inquiring Mind

The Divine Comedy explores a question that is even more urgent in our culture than it was in medieval culture: Why do we believe in things we cannot see?

After two posts on northern European, English-language spirituality in the early and late Middle Ages, it’s time to move south. More specifically, to Tuscany, where Dante Alighieri composed one of the most famous and revered works of literature in history.

The Divine Comedy is a masterpiece of such extraordinary genius that it seems to confirm Hamlet’s generous words for human nature:

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculties! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god!

Stanza after stanza, canto after canto, Dante sings of a spiritual journey that fuses poetry, narrative, psychology, and philosophy into a uniquely compelling and cosmic vision of the human experience. So supremely artistic and yet so keenly intellectual, the Divine Comedy leads us into rare moments of resonant union between heart and mind. To read it is to behold the breadth and depth of the beauty that is within man’s reach; to study it is the work of a lifetime.

Modern society has circulated various clichés about religion in the Middle Ages: blind faith and superstition were the norm, doubters were persecuted, dissenters were burned at the stake, Galileo was imprisoned for believing in science (actually that was during the Renaissance), and so forth. Such ideas are a confused mixture of truths, misunderstandings, and distortions, which I have no intention of sorting out. I do, however, want to share what Dante has to teach us about the mystery of belief, and more specifically, belief in things that we cannot see or touch.