Surname 1

Name of Student;

Name of Instructor;

Institution;

Course;

Date of Submission;

 The Suffering of Hell and Purgatory Are Bound up with Divine Love

Many beliefs are surrounding what every human being anticipates after leaving earth.

Some of the opinions are justifiable, while others are not. Some people claim that there is no hell

or heaven. Once someone dies, that is the end of science that goes on in his body. They probably

believe that there are no souls in the human body. It is just some pack of cells stuffed together to

perform various functions. Other people believe in the existence of an afterlife. In many cases,

particularly the religious type, they believe in a God who provided them with life and will

eventually console those who believed in him (Peterson, 24). I think that it is better to accept the

existence of eternal fire and live according to the principles learn to avoid it instead of ignoring

the calls to salvation while on earth, and after you die, you find out that hellfire was real. I

presume you know the most painful things to humans.

The poem “the divine comedy” by Dante is one of its kind. It is a belief that these who

primarily encountered it in its first-hand copy believe. Dante tried to explain one of the major

concerns of human beings about their actual ending. The poem describes a pitcher of what

human beings should anticipate once they die. The poem is called the divine comedy because it

connects the mistakes done by humans to their prescribed punishments. Dante assigns penalties
 Surname 2

to prominent mistake makers that society can relate with. For instance, he assigns a punishment

to Judas Iscariot for committing suicide and others as well.

The poem was written in the fourteenth century and was the first poem ever to be written in the

Italian language. The plot of the poem is about how Dante was able to climb mount purgatory.

Purgatory is believed to be the period when a person dies and awaits to discover his destiny. In

this case, Dante described this period as a process where everyone from the living passes through

a concentric channel that sieve of those who qualify to proceed to the next level of examination.

He says that some people can pass through the process while others remain there because of their

mistakes.

The night before Good Friday, Dante losses himself in a woody forest inhabited by dangerous

animals. It symbolized the way Dante was lost in sin and was unable to find his way into

salvation. In that state, he meets Virgil, who walks him through Hell. From Dante's description

of the place, we can note that there are different levels of the unpleasantness of Hell. There are

nine levels, and at each level, there is a category of people who fit for the punishments of the

place. One level of interest is the circle of Limbo. Dante tries to justify those people who never

had the opportunity to be Christians. For instance, those who were there before Christ and those

who chose to be Pagan even after the existence of Christ. He goes on to describe the other

levels, including the center of Hell, where he says that it is reserved for the devil (Satan).

Another area of concern is the level after the center of Hell, where he describes the punishments

for those who repented late and those who waited for too long to repent (Stephen, 125-142). He

says that the late repentant will be detained at that level for as many years as they lived on earth

before finally meeting God.

 Surname 3

Dante also describes the levels associated with those who were blameless on earth. He mentions

the nine spheres that come after one has passed heaven "Paradiso." There are those individuals

like king Solomon who fed the world with knowledge. He considers them as wise and places

them in the fourth sphere symbolized by the sun. Others who were warriors of faith like

Abraham are placed in the sphere, Mars.

From all the descriptions of the kind of punishment human beings should anticipate, it is

clear that Dante advocates for a divine love that people should accept once they die. The divine

love also includes punishment for those who failed to believe in God and those who believed but

did not stick to the principles of the belief. Even from the teachings of the Bible, King Solomon

writes that the rod shall be for the unruly child. Dante justifies the fact that there is punishment

for the human beings that God created. For the point where Dante overrules some of the bible

teachings when he bases his arguments from it, I tend to disagree with him. Saying that there is

punishment for even those who believed late in Christ is unjustifiable. What then would he have

reported on the case of the promise that Jesus made on the cross to the thief that repented? Will

he be justified when he assumes the teaching of Jesus on repentance?

Dante's claims and comedy remain relevant only to the people of the past. Although his claims

are a beautiful description of what we should anticipate, they contradict the very source that he

obtained the information. It is good to have goals; however, destinies are determined by the sole

creator and cannot be compromised. Those that have been hidden from man should remain

hidden.
 Surname 4

References;

Bell, Jeremy. "Aquinas and the Possibility of a Probable Reasoned Argument for the Existence

of Purgatory." Purgatory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017. 199-218.

Kershnar, Stephen. "Hell and punishment." The Problem of Hell. Routledge, 2016. 125-142.

Peterson, Mark Edwin. "Two Brass Mites of the Widow": Saint Bridget of Sweden and the

Terrors of Hell." The Hermeneutics of Hell. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2017. 9-26.