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Dante's Hell, Aquinas's Moral Theory, and the Love of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Eleonore Stump
Eleonore Stump*
Affiliation:
Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and State University, Blacksburg, VA. 24061, U.S.A.
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Extract

‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here’ is, as we all recognize, the inscription over the gate of Dante's hell; but we perhaps forget what precedes that memorable line. Hell, the inscription says, was built by divine power, by the highest wisdom, and by primordial love. Those of us who remember Dante's vivid picture of Farinata in the perpetually burning tombs or Ulysses in the unending and yet unconsuming flames may be able to credit Dante's idea that Hell was constructed by divine power; and if we understand ‘wisdom’ in this context as denoting an intellectual virtue only (and not as connoting a mixed moral and intellectual one), then we might agree that only divine wisdom is capable of making something like Dante's hell.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 16 , Issue 2 , June 1986 , pp. 181 - 198
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1986

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References

1 This paper is an altered version of a lecture given to the Medieval Guild at the University of Alberta. I am grateful to the members of the Medieval Guild and to the other members of the audience for excellent discussion of the paper.

2 I have taken this translation, with some modification, from Dante's Inferno, tr. Sinclair, John D. (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1974), Canto VII, 103–5.Google Scholar

3 I have taken this translation, with some modification, from Sinclair, Canto VIII, 113.

4 I have taken the discussion of the two sorts of theories of religious morality from ‘Absolute Simplicity,’ Eleonore Stump and Kretzmann, Norman Faith and Philosophy 2 (1985)Google Scholar, 353-82. See also Kretzmann, Norman ‘Abraham, Isaac, and Euthyphro: God and the Basis of Morality’ in Hamartia: The Concept of Error in the Western Tradition, ed. Stump, Donald etal. (Toronto: Edwin Mellen Press 1983), 27–50.Google Scholar

5 See, for example, Adams, Robert Merrihew ‘A Modified Divine Command Theory of Ethical Wrongness’ in Religion and Morality, ed. Outka, Gene and Jr.Reeder, John P. (New York: Doubleday 1973), 318–47Google Scholar; ‘Autonomy and Theological Ethics,’ Religious Studies 15 (1979) 191-4; ‘Divine Command Methaethics Modified Again,’ Journal of Religious Ethics 7 (1979) 66-79; and Quinn, Philip Divine Commands and Moral Requirements (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 See, for example, Summa theologiae (ST) Ia, q. 3; De potentia q. 7; and Summa contra Gentiles (SCG), Bk. I ch. 21-5.

7 For a fuller discussion and defense of the traditional doctrine of simplicity, see Stump and Kretzmann, ‘Absolute Simplicity.’ Some of the discussion of simplicity in what follows is taken from that paper.

8 This view is argued for at length in Stump and Kretzmann, ‘Absolute Simplicity.’

9 See, e.g., De potentia q. 7, a. 6; ST Ia, q. 13, a. 4; and SCG, Bk. I. ch. 35.

10 See, e.g., ST la, q. 5, and De veritate q. 21 a 1-2.

11 For a much fuller discussion and defense of Aquinas's theory of the nature of goodness, see ‘Being and Goodness,’ Norman Kretzmann and Stump, Eleonore Divine and Human Action: Essays in the Metaphysics of Theism, ed. Morris, Thomas (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar For a study of this theory in the medieval period prior to Aquinas, see MacDonald, Scott ‘The Metaphysics of Goodness in Medieval Philosophy Before Aquinas,’ Ph. D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1985.Google Scholar

12 See, e.g., ST la, q. 5, a. 1.

13 See, e.g., In XII Iibras Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expasitio, Bk. V. L. 5; nn. 822-6 and Bk. VIII, L. 2, n. 1697.

14 See, e.g., In XII Iibros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, Bk. V. L. 5, n. 822; Bk. V, L. 12, nn. 916-17 and 931; and Bk. VII, L. 3, n. 1326.

15 Cf., e.g., In XII Iibros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, Bk. V, L 5, n. 822 and L. 7, nn. 861-4; and Bk. VII, L. 3, n. 1327. For the view that rationality (and other characteristics which are the differentiae of species) are capacities, cf., e.g., In XII Iibros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, Bk. V, L. 5, n. 825 and more generally Bk. IX, L. 3 and L. 4.

16 See, e.g., In XII Iibros Metaphysicorum Aristotelis expositio, Bk. IX, L. 8, nn. 1856, 1860, 1865.

17 Cf. SCG Bk. I, c. 37-39 and Bk. Ill, c. 6-7, 11-12, and 38-39; and De veritate, q. 21, a. 3.

18 By ‘has actualized’ here I mean something like ‘has acquired the disposition to operate in accordance with reason.’ According to Aquinas, the function of anything is derived from its characteristic form, which is its first perfection; its function or operation is its second perfection. In the case of man the function derived from the form is living according to reason, and virtue is a disposition to act in accordance with reason. Cf. x Iibros Ethicorum Aristotelis expositio Bk. I, L. 10. See also ST Ia llae, q. 55, a. 1, where Aquinas describes a virtue as a habit which is the perfection of the rational power proper to human beings. And in ST Ia llae q. 49, a. 2, he defines a habit as the determination of a subject in regard to the nature of a thing. Moreover, nothing in the locution ‘has actualized its specific capacity’ should be taken to mean that a moral human being is so solely in virtue of his essence. On Aquinas's view, the disposition to act in accordance with reason is accidental to a person (because it is a habit and thus a quality) and added to his essence. Cf. De veritate q. 21, a. 5 and ST Ia llae, q. 49, a. 2.

19 For more of Aquinas's discussion connecting a thing's goodness and its species, cf. ST Ia, q. 5, a. 5 and De veritate, q. 21, a. 6.

20 Cf. ST la llae, q. 71, a. 2.

21 Cf., e.g., ST la, q. 5, a. 3, esp. ad 2.

22 This example is misleading because, of course, in any ordinary case killing a dog involves in fact a transformation of being; something inanimate is produced in place of something animate. To show that there is a destruction of being in such a case requires arguing that there is a hierarchy of being such that in the transition from animate to inanimate being is lost. Aquinas clearly does hold such a view; see, e.g., SCG Bk. III, c. 22.

23 Cf., e.g., ST Ia Ilae, q. 46, a. 4 and q. 48, a. 3. and esp. Ila Ilae, q. 158, a. 1 and a. 2.

24 Cf. ST Ia, q. 20, a. 1 and Ia Ilae, q. 27, a. 2.

25 Cf. ST Ia, q. 20, a. 1, a. 2, and a. 3.

26 Cf. ST Ia, q. 20, a. 1 ad 3, and a. 2.

27 ST Ia Ilae, q. 71, a. 1 and a. 2. 0. also ST Ia Ilae, q. 58, a. 1, ad 3; Ia Ilae, q. 55, a. 1 and a. 2 ad 1 and q. 56 a. 1 and a. 4.

28 ST Ila Ilae, q. 158, a. 1 and a. 2.

29 ST. Ia, q. 20, a. 1 ad 3; Ia llae, q. 26, a. 2.

30 ST Ia llae, q. 28, a. 1 and q. 26, a. 2; and Ia, q. 20, a. 1.

31 ST Ia llae, q. 28, a. 2.

32 ST Ia, q. 20, a. 1.

33 ST lla llae, q. 26, a. 2 ad 1 and q. 27, a. 3; cf. also Ia, q. 20, a. 4 and Ia llae, q. 27, a. 1.

34 ST. Ia, q. 64, a 2.

35 0. ST Ia Ilae, q. 3, a. 1, a. 2 ad 4, and a. 4 ad 5.

36 The exceptions include, for example, the virtuous pagans and unbaptized babies.

37 ST Ia Ilae, q. 71, a. 1, and a. 2, and a. 3.

38 For Aquinas, what a person needs to will in order for God to save him is, in general, just the free act of will cooperating with God's grace, which does the work of sanctifying him. For a discussion of Aquinas's views on the role of grace and free will in God's redemptive work, see my ‘Atonement According to Aquinas,’ in Philosophy and the Christian Faith, ed. Thomas Morris (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, forthcoming).

39 This position will be disputed by those Thomists who believe Aquinas sees God only as determining and never determined. For some argument against the attitude of such Thomists, see my ‘Atonement According to Aquinas.’

40 To explicate Dante's idea fully would go beyond the scope of this paper, because it would require a consideration of retributive punishment in hell and its compatibility with divine justice, as well as an evaluation of the doctrine that the damned in hell never repent of their evil and so never leave hell for heaven. As far as I understand it, Dante's idea seems to be that the retributive punishment the damned endure is a positive good for them, contributing to whatever spiritual health and well-being they have, and that something in the nature of the human state after death rules out the possibility of any spiritual alteration on the part of the damned. But to do justice to either part of this Dantean idea would require at least another paper; and furthermore, no matter how the evaluation of these doctrines turns out, Dante could, I think, abandon either doctrine and still preserve the essence of his idea of hell. So in the brief discussion of Dante which follows I will leave these other considerations to one side and focus just on the ways in which the Thomistic theory of morality and account of love support Dante's claim that his hell is founded on God's love.

41 I am grateful to Diogenes Allen, Mohan Matthen, Scott MacDonald, and Peter van Inwagen for thoughtful comments and questions on an earlier draft of this paper. I'm especially grateful to Norman Kretzmann for numerous helpful suggestions, and I'm indebted to John Crossett, whose efforts on my behalf made this paper possible.