Dante's Divine Comedy: Paradiso Richard Emerson

When the Pilgrim talks with Carlo Martello in the Sphere of Venus, they quickly move from purpose vs. randomness in the Universe, to the shaping forces that must originate in G-d. And Dante connects this to something as simple as why offspring are often different from their parents. The idea of Telos is working on all scales.
What starts as a simple question from the Pilgrim about why children sometimes are so different from their parents, or more specifically why virtuous people can have so viceful children, quickly ends up as a solid argument for G-d, from the basic question of whether the Cosmos is Randomly developed or not.
After the assumption that such a total randomness would create “ruin, not skillful craft“ in the Cosmos we are observing, Carlo Martello takes an abrupt step back and starts talking about human beings and citizenship, in terms of belonging to a community and thriving as person when living according to your nature, and thus playing a generative and contributing part of the community. On a smaller scale this is partly referring to Aristotle’s philosophy and thoughts that happiness comes from living “according to nature”, but it also combines the ideas of a personal “telos” or meaning/intention/purpose to the purpose on a larger scale, in this case to that of the community. For the community or society to function according to its purpose, the citizens have to be aligned with their own telos as well. And this scales upwards, meaning that for humanity to function according to its telos and purpose, there needs to be happy thriving societies that are properly aligned with both telos and the transcendent truths.
But where things further connects is the following: that for a community to function, there needs to be a variety of personality types and natures, to create a varied and thriving whole. And if children were “carbon copies” of their parents in every respect, this variety would be distorted as a lawyer would have maybe 3-4 lawyers, a king would have maybe 4-5 princes, and a baker would produce several baker children. So this is used as an argument that by necessity – offspring need to be varied to secure this variety in the community and society overall, and interestingly this is a form of purpose/telos argument for a biological reality which is very easy to observe, just looking at how different siblings can be or are from each other, in nearly every family one looks at. So to sum up this part: the purpose of communities is dependent on this variety, which then shapes reality. One might say it shapes it through evolutionary survival of those communities that do have this variety, over those communities where children were too alike their parents, not just by physical appearance, but also in terms of nature and personality.
When this is established, one can connect the dots at a much bigger scale; that this fact of differences between people and their offspring is an effect of a bigger telos for communities, societies, humanity – and also then for the cosmos as a whole, at a tiny microscopic scale granted, but indeed connected. And the implications of this perspective is once again breath-taking, as Dante thus connects your personal role and purpose and telos, to that of the fate the entire living Universe – to fulfill its richness and overall Telos. Meaning that how you live and how you choose to exercise your free Will, is indeed important and connected to the long term course of the Cosmos, through its potential ripple effects through time and space.
But in addition to this, and there is more, one might look at the interplay between purpose and biological evolution, which is a complicated field even today, to determine which way the forces are working. But if we step back to the premise – that no purpose and pure randomness is falsified through merely observing the incredible sophistication and astronomical improbability of the Universe, and even more now after the last

In the Sphere of Venus, Carlo Martello explains to the Pilgrim that all material things have both a nature and a purpose, which is reflected through the orderliness of the Cosmos. The alternative would be a collapsing reality, lying in ruins.
The essence of Dante’s argument for a First Cause and Divinity is quite straight-forward: without things having an imbued telos or purpose, the randomness in the cosmos would immediately lead to chaos and self-destruction, rather than order and self-sustainability. And in some ways – this is foreshadowing the “fine-tuning” scientific argument about the cosmos, now 700 years later. Dante simply states that a lack of purpose would not produce “arti, ma ruine” – meaning “not skillful craft, but ruin”.
From this starting point, he then moves on to the claim that if things are indeed imbued with purpose, and the blended qualities of what he calls virtues, this has to be guided by some higher or spiritual intelligences, which are what is being called Angelical Intelligences in this context. And since these intelligences have produced an ordered cosmos rather than destruction and ruin, they cannot be flawed, since that would result in the same fate of ruin in the universe. And this corresponds in many ways with the astronomical precision modern science has found in so many constants and balances at both microparticle- and cosmological scales, that are needed to prevent a collapse and self-annihilation of the universe.
The third and final step in this chain of argument is that these perfected intelligences will by necessity have a source, and this source is then what Dante calls “il primo”, meaning the “first cause”, or what is in many ways his definition of a perfect G-d as the source of all Being. And he ends up with this conclusion, from the simple premise of the necessity of purpose to sustain the material world at all. From the Italian:
Se ciò non fosse, il ciel che tu cammineproducerebbe sì li suoi effetti,che non sarebbero arti, ma ruine;Meaning: “If this were not the case [the purpose], the heavens that you now traverse, would indeed produce their effects, that would not have been skillful crafts, but ruins.” In other words, compared to the famous proof of G-d by St. Aquinas through contingency and a First Mover, Dante starts here with the empirical observation of an ordered Cosmos which without a planned structure, is so astronomically unlikely, that one could in practice conclude, that it is zero. It can not have come about by pure randomness, as some scientists today still try to claim as a logical sound argument. And once this premise is founded, a larger cosmological perspective emerges automatically, at a quite breath-taking scale. It would imply that we are somewhere in a bigger process towards something much bigger into the future, and that aligning with Truth, and the Good, will help this process of fulfillment on a scale way beyond our current capacity to understand, but with a thrilling and incredibly generative prospect of meaning and purpose, and a living Universe – which is most likely fundamentally oriented, towards the Good.

©2023 Richard Emerson
Music: "Miserere Mei" by Gregorio Allegri.

The third sphere in Paradiso, the Sphere of Venus, moves beyond the human scale and starts blending the Angelic with the Blessed Souls. And the Pilgrim expands his Spiritual experience from himself and G-d as in the Moon, to now also including other souls.
In the Sphere of Venus, Dante meets with the soul of Carlo Martello of Anjou, who would have become the King of Provence, South Italy, Hungary and Sicily. Unfortunately, he died in 1295, only 24 years old. Had he lived longer ponders Dante, his own life could likely had become a different one, including not being thrown into exile by the Donati Family in 1301/02.
The Sphere of Venus is also the sphere of the Principalities – the Angelical Intelligences concerned with territory, nations and peoples. And in this light, we have 12 opening tercets from Carlo Martello which largely covers the territories he would have inherited, had he lived longer. And there is also a noticeable difference in the relationship between the blessed souls and the angels or angelic forces in this sphere, now dancing together for the first time.
But worth noting is the level of politics for Dante’s acquaintances and friends. Carlo Martello’s grandfather was Carlo I and King of Sicily, and also the son of King Louis VIII of France, in the direct lineage of the Capetian Dynasty who ruled France as Monarchs from 987-1328. So when Dante writes about the geopolitics of popes and Kings in Europe in his time, he is to some extent writing about people he knew or had met in person, or had extensive rapports with. Which makes it even more baffling, how he spent his life from 35-56 years old out of political office, creating the Italian language, and writing the Divine Comedy summarizing the entirety of European cultural history.
Another aspect worth noting is the new maturity and firmness of the Pilgrim here in the Third Sphere of Venus. He addresses the soul of Carlo Martello with respect, reverence, but also as a confident person who feels comfortable building rapports with the blessed souls. He is no longer a newcomer in Paradise, but a devoted student and explorer of the Heavenly Realms, and one who is treated with love and respect from the souls.
And for the first time in Paradiso, something extraordinary happens after the first twelve tercets from Carlo Martello. In just two small tercets Dante describes how the Pilgrim is in joy from hearing the words of Carlo, but more than that, he is even more happy that he knows that Carlo can see this joy directly in G-d, in the place “from where and towards all Good is”.
And as a third layer, the Pilgrim is happy because Carlo can see this through his ability to deeply discern his gaze into the Divine. Meaning that Dante is describing a somewhat dramatic expansion of the spiritual experience and realm, in an almost revelatory way, that the Pilgrim is not only connected, unified or conjoined with Beatrice and G-d, but also spiritually here with the soul of Carlo Martello. The larger meaning here is hard to overstate – that the Pilgrim’s spiritual level and participation opens up a direct contact with other souls, through G-d. Which could radically change our view as Readers of the nature of the Empyrean, how all the souls are merely “projected” into spheres, and “where” inside oneself one might apprehend and experience the souls of Paradiso. Dante makes this claim in two compacted tercets, and thereby carves out a whole new idea of Paradiso – a place full of living souls that will gradually be discernible from within, once the capacity for Divine Light and Spiritual Depth keeps growing. And the soul that opens up this discovery, is a friend of Dante from his late 20s in Florence, already by then the Prince of Salerno, and titular King of Hungary.
Dante describes this in Italian:
per te si veggia come la vegg’io,grata m’è più; e anco quest’ho caroperché ‘l discerni rimirando in Dio.Meaning: “That you see this [my joy over

A conversation about the main topics and purpose of the Third Sphere in Dante's Paradiso - the Sphere of Venus. We'll meet the souls of Carlo Martello, Cunizza, and Bishop Folchetto, and explore the themes of mercy, forgiveness, love, spiritual growth, and the transition out of the earthly shadow into the higher Divine realms from the Sun and beyond.
We'll also discuss different forms of love, and how self-management of your soul can shape reality, your relationsships, and transform your perception of the world.
Hosts are Richard Emerson, and English Professor Robert-Louis Abrahamson.
Professor Abrahamson also has podcast with three seasons on Dante here: https://eveningunderlamplight.substack.com
Music: "Gregorian Chants" by Kevin MacLeod, and "Miserere Mei" by Gregorio Allegri.

A Conversation about the Sphere of Mercury in Paradiso, and how the Transcendent and Divine Truth is shining through the bigger scales of Empires, Civilizations and Humanity at large.
One of the main arguments in the Second Sphere is that on a cosmic scale, Humanity is a young species with a very recently emerged self-awareness, moral capacity, and Free Will. And over the longer time spans, we need to align both spiritually and with our Institutions and Civilizations with the Transcendent Good and Truth, argues Beatrice.
Hosts are Richard Emerson and English Professor Robert-Louis Abrahamson.
Professor Abrahamson also has podcast with three seasons on Dante here:https://eveningunderlamplight.substack.com/
Music: "Gregorian Chants", by Kevin MacLeod.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dantesparadiso.substack.com

On a cosmic scale, Humanity is a young species with a very recently emerged self-awareness, moral capacity, and Free Will. And over the longer time spans, we need to align both spiritually and with our Institutions and Civilizations, with the Transcendent Good and Truth, argues Beatrice.
Music: "Gregorian Chants", by Kevin MacLeod.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dantesparadiso.substack.com