Denver, Colo., Nov 7, 2007 / 09:11 am
Dante Alighieri wrote "The Divine Comedy" in the early decades of the 14th century. Nearly 700 years later, this epic poem remains one of the great achievements of human literature. As art, Dante's use of language is supremely beautiful. But as a deeply Catholic work, it also offers an unforgettable portrait of the afterlife, following the author as he journeys through hell (Inferno), purgatory (Purgatorio) and finally heaven (Paradiso).
Even today, reading your way through the nine circles of hell can be frightening. They're uncomfortably real. The poem's power comes not just from Dante's genius, but from his faith that fueled his skill. Dante created the imaginary specifics of his hell, purgatory and heaven, but there isn't any doubt that he believed — vividly — in the reality of the afterlife. For Dante, a good or a bad life had very different destinations.
Of course, Dante's roadmap of eternity is just one poet's rendering of what the Church actually teaches about the afterlife. Since the time of the Apostles, Christians have always believed that life after physical death is real; so are heaven and hell; and so is the Evil One. The devil, in Christian thought, may not have medieval horns and a tail, but "he" (for the want of a better pronoun) is nonetheless personal, intelligent, the enemy of God and humanity, and very real. The fact that Dante's portrait of Satan seems impossible to the modern mind does not mean that Satan doesn't exist. In fact, if you want an alarmingly reasonable portrait of hell, simply read C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce" or "The Screwtape Letters."
Thinking about the devil and damnation should play a secondary role in any Christian life. Our focus should be on God's light, not on the shadows outside it. But we'd do well to remember that while our time in this world is brief, our lives do have eternal consequences. Our choices and actions here matter. They fashion us into the kind of persons able to be happy with God forever, or unable to bear his presence. In Catholic thought, heaven and hell are not necessarily "places" any more than eternity is an endless amount of "time." These concepts help us to imagine what lies outside our experience, but they're human words with human meanings. All we really know about heaven and hell – and it's more than enough – is that heaven will be our conscious, unending, joyful union with God and all others who love him; and that hell will be the terrible pain of rejecting God, forever, because we cannot bear his love.