Saturday, November 10, 2018
Dante's Version of Hell and Heaven Do Not Seem Very Fair
I don't know about you, but I don't like to think that we live in a world where, if there is indeed a place of blissful afterlife (Paradise, according to Dante), individuals are not admitted due to either not believing in the "right" things on Earth or living in a period before the "right" beliefs became popular. In his "Divine Comedy," Dante paints a Universe where this is unfortunately true. Vergil, a righteous and noble man during his entire life, is not accepted into Paradise due to his lack of belief in God. Given that Vergil lived in the pre-Christian era and accordingly would have had no way of believing in all the requirements necessary to make it into Paradise, this is simply unfair. On the other hand, it's quite vicious to believe that individuals who held other beliefs even when Christianity was popular would not make it into Paradise. Most Hebrews and Muslims went to Limbo. While Limbo is by no means a bad place to be, it's upsetting and even scary to believe that one has to hold the exact correct beliefs to make it into Paradise in a world there is no way to be 100 percent sure of any beliefs.
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I guess we can say that [after] life isn't fair! Ha! Anyway, you say that someone life Vergil, who is in Limbo, did not make it to heaven because he didn't believe in God. While Vergil did live before Christianity was founded and before Jesus came to Earth to forgive us of our sins, he still lived in a society where the 10 commandments were accepted and a set of rules to live by. The first commandment is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." This is basically saying that you should believe in God and not worship any other sort of god or put anything else before Him. This is kind of obvious that you'd need to believe in God to go to heaven, which is why it is not surprising Vergil is in Limbo, the first circle of Hell. He was a good man that gave lots of people pleasure and gave great contributions to humanity through his works, but because he rejected the Truth, he was not able to enter that sort of paradise. This brings up the questions that you mentioned. Do other religions who were not Jews and not Christians go to heaven? We don't know for sure. It would be unfair if they didn't because some live very happy and peaceful lives and do good for the world. the Bible does say that those who are presented the Truth and reject it will not go to heaven, but this is vague and we are not sure if Muslims in Saudi Arabia or Hindus in India have been exposed to the word of God. We will never be sure if these people go to Heaven. This goes for the Native Americans that lived on this continent the hundreds of years before Europeans came over. Did they go to heaven for practicing their religion? Frankly, we have no idea! It'd be unfair if they didn't. Maybe God was experimenting or something with these people and with these religions. Maybe he allowed for the creation of so many to see how each one would influence humanity. Moreover, I would like to think that people who were never exposed to the Truth could go to heaven one day if they were good and never practiced any sort of evil. But for those that grew up around around the Jewish/Christian/Islamic religions, I would hope that you would need to believe in God to go to heaven. I guess we'll never know though. Hopefully, Jesus can return during our lifetime to update us on the correct beliefs needed to reach that Paradise. It certainly seems like were due up for the 2nd coming with so much conflict and hate in humanity as of recent.
Ben, while the Bible itself is pretty unclear regarding the fate of non-Christians, I was only talking about Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which does explicitly state the fate of non-Christians (usually Limbo). Regarding your comment with Vergil and the Ten Commandments, how was Vergil expected to believe these commandments over the traditional, widely accepted Pagan beliefs of his time? If a similar doctrine as these commandments were to be released right now, would you completely deny your Christian beliefs in order to accept them? I doubt it. Asking you to do this is the same as asking Vergil to reject his Pagan faith because of the Commandments.
*not my official blog post*
Interesting discourse, guys.
Firstly, haha @Ben your joke is funny.
Welllll, if we're going with the Dante's version of Heaven/Hell/the afterlife/etc. and an extremely common teaching of many religions that believe in God, God did design Heaven (and everything else for that matter). So, isn't it fair that God decides who ends up where? I think a major point of Dante and a belief of many people is that mere mortals will never understand Divine justice. Although it's admirable to try to understand these things, a lot of people in our world today trust in His will. If you could be completely certain about any aspect of God, our whole conception of Him would go poof.
In response to this thread, I would just like to add that the beliefs of Abraham and his descendants (the Hebrews/Jews) were definitely around during Virgil’s time. People had received the Word of God and the Ten Commandments, as Ben said. Those righteous souls who followed God’s teachings before Jesus (such as the Old Testament figures and Jews) did go to Limbo for a while. However, when Jesus descended into Hell, He saved those righteous souls from Limbo and brought them with Him into Heaven (see Canto IV, lines 46-63). So it is possible for Virgil to have made it to Heaven during the time in which he lived.
I was wondering where people of other religions ended up as well! I'd have to agree with you that it's kind of unfair to those who practice a religion with the same God of Christianity, such as Judaism and Islam.
Another issue that came to my mind when I thought of unfairness in the afterlife are people who did terrible things in life while driven by their devotion to God. Take Jim Jones; his love for God led him to creating a mass cult following of thousands of people, yet he in turn committed a mass suicide plot, killing hundreds of his cult members. He would spend his afterlife paying for his crimes in the deeper circles of hell, or would he get a different punishment according to his "good intentions" for bad actions?
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