Dante and Resurrection
In a comment on Joseph Komochak’s post on “Resurrection,” I suggested that Bishop Wright gets Dante wrong.
By contrast, I think that Hans Urs von Balthasar gets il Poeta exactly right.
Here are some insights from von Balthasar’s Glory of the Lord, volume three: Lay Styles: “Dante:”
“The Love which began on earth between two human beings, is not denied, is not bypassed on the journey to God. It is not, as was hitherto the case, sacrificed on the altar of the classical via negativa. No: it is carried right up to the throne of God, however transformed and purified. This is utterly unprecedented in the history of Christian theology.
“It is true that the figure of the beloved is enriched with symbolic content, but it would be ridiculous to maintain that she is only a symbol or allegory – of what? Of faith? Of theology? Of the vision of God? Only dusty academics could fall for something as abstruse as that!
“No, the figure of the beloved is a young Florentine girl of flesh and blood. Why should a Christian man not love a woman for all eternity and allow himself to be introduced by that woman to a full understanding of what “eternity” means? And why should it be so extraordinary – ought one not rather expect it – that such a love needs, for its total fulfillment the whole of theology and Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell” (p. 32).
Recall that Dante sees the souls in Purgatory in bodily form – even before the resurrection of the body. Balthasar comments:
“It is from their bodily appearance – their tears, thinness, and so on – that Dante can read the state of their souls. The explanation, given by Statius, is that the soul, as the substantial form of the body, has an attractive power over matter even after its death. When the solid matter slips from its grasp, it takes hold of the air that surrounds it and gives it form, and from this fashions for itself the new shadowy limbs in expectation of the future resurrection of the solid body (Purgatorio 25, 88-105).
“But this means that the souls of the departed are not separated from the world but are inserted into the community of this single real cosmos, and as cosmic beings help to determine, in their turn, the destiny of the world … this idea so boldly maintained by Dante against Platonism and even against Saint Thomas” (p. 71).
Moreover, in the blessed in Heaven,
“there remains a longing for the risen body, disio dei corpi morti (Paradiso 14, 63), for the immortalization of flesh and blood and thus also of the solidarity of the generations. Yes, there is a longing ‘not perhaps for themselves alone, but for their mothers, for their fathers, and for the others who were dear before they became eternal flames.’
“In a profound speech Solomon explains that the present shadowy or luminous body of the souls in Heaven receives its radiance from spiritual beatitude. One day, though, it will be the other way: the transfigured resurrection body will react upon the glorified soul’s beatitude and power of vision, thus raising it to new heights” (Paradiso 14, 37-66) (pp. 75&76).
“Yes, there is a longing ‘not perhaps for themselves alone, but for their mothers, for their fathers, and for the others who were dear before they became eternal flames.”
And don’t forget the crawfish. They’ll be changed too. They’ll *enjoy* being boiled. Or something mysterious like that.
“When the solid matter slips from its grasp, it takes hold of the air that surrounds it and gives it form, and from this fashions for itself the new shadowy limbs in expectation of the future resurrection of the solid body (Purgatorio 25, 88-105).
“But this means that the souls of the departed are not separated from the world but are inserted into the community of this single real cosmos, and as cosmic beings help to determine, in their turn, the destiny of the world …”
Wow! They exist at the crossroad of two sorts of time? Ghosts perhaps?
Ann, it’s not likely that our paths will cross in this lifetime. But if you have crawfish, indeed risen crawfish, with you in heaven, I’m certainly going to stop by for supper. And since I’ll have been mace over and vastly improved, you probably won’t hold it against me that I’ve left heaven’s antechamber, Louisiana
Bernard,
You are hereby invited, and we’ll have snoballs for desert. (Why not?)
Louisiana is indeed the antechamber of Heaven — a pleasant place as well as the locus of countless epidemics and plagues, civil war and occupation, fires, hurricanes and floods. But there’s no getting to Heaven without the suffering, and well we know it. Now the area is trying to resurrect again. One day with the grace of God we’ll get it right.
Snoballs. Oh, I miss snoballs. Loaded down with heavy bad-for-you imitation grape syrup.
Joe,
Yes, the concept of God which Aquinas proposes is “empty” in one sense. It’s empty the way an algebraic formula is empty — a+b = c doesn’t tell us anything much about all the numbers it can operate on. On the other hand it tells us at least something about *all* of them. So the “formula” for God is both empty in one respect and full in another respect: Consider:
(perfection A to the infinite degree) + (perfection B to the infinite degree) + . . . =
(the sum of all infinite degrees of perfection)
This formula doesn’t tell us fully what those infinite degrees are. It doesn’t even enumerate what all of the different kinds of perfections *are*. But we *do* know some finite degrees of, for instance, justice and love, and they are included in the formula. So the concept is *not* empty — it does not signify nothing.
We also know the meaning of that very abstract term “+”. But abstract does not mean unreal. The meaning of “plus” is quite real. Consider this: when your boss tells you you’ll get your usual salary plus a very large bonus, you know very well that “plus” has a very real meaning. The real Sum that our intellects seek to pursue by trying to through a whole infinite series of “more. . . and more . . . ” perfections is a never=ending one, but that doesn’t mean that it refers to something unreal, and neither does it mean that our concept is totally empty.
(By the way, that formula for God at the top is not logically complete, but I hope you get the point of it. No use multiplying technicalities unnecessarily, as Ockham might say. )
Joe,
I should hasten to add that in Catholic teaching some human being seem to be graced with knowledge of God which goes positively past what is said in Scripture. For instance, the greatest mystics such as St. John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila seem to have met God, so to speak, within the very depths of their souls, and what they found were perfections the like of which we don’t find in this world, perfections which are therefore ineffable, that is, inexpressible because there is nothing like them in this world.
It is my understanding that these private revelations go against the Protestant principle of “Sola Scriptura”, and Catholic acceptance of some private revelations is, as I understand it, one of the big bones of contention between some Protestants and Catholics, but you’d best ask the theologians about that.
Joe,
I should hasten to add that in Catholic teaching some human being seem to be graced with knowledge of God which goes positively past what is said in Scripture. For instance, the greatest mystics such as St. John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila seem to have met God, so to speak, within the very depths of their souls, and what they found were perfections the like of which we don’t find in this world, perfections which are therefore ineffable, that is, inexpressible because there is nothing like them in this world.
It is my understanding that these private revelations go against the Protestant principle of “Sola Scriptura”, and Catholic acceptance of some private revelations is, as I understand it, one of the big bones of contention between some Protestants and Catholics, but you’d best ask the theologians about that.
Joe,
I should hasten to add that in Catholic teaching some human being seem to be graced with knowledge of God which goes positively past what is said in Scripture. For instance, the greatest mystics such as St. John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila seem to have met God, so to speak, within the very depths of their souls, and what they found were perfections the like of which we don’t find in this world, perfections which are therefore ineffable, that is, inexpressible because there is nothing like them in this world.
It is my understanding that these private revelations go against the Protestant principle of “Sola Scriptura”, and Catholic acceptance of some private revelations is, as I understand it, one of the big bones of contention between some Protestants and Catholics, but you’d best ask the theologians about that.
Sorry about that double post. My computer seems to be determined to work improperly on dotCommonweal.