08-04-2025, 07:57 AM
(08-03-2025, 04:29 PM)Chris Wrote:(08-02-2025, 04:01 AM)richard Wrote: True.
And this opens up big territories in Dante. He largely seems to relate to the original sin in Eden as the "ground mistake" we do, but not something that stains our nature by default (or forever as in some theologies).
The soul in Dante is pure and virtuous and joyful when breathed into the embryo. The potential for sin is there, and inevitably everyone will gather many stains through lived life, to later be cleansed.
But they are still additions, not internal features in the deep. (Other then as eternal potential/temptations - depending on degrees of distortion).
Just meaning: to the extent that Augustine (and Luther and Calvin) proposes "born guilt", Dante rejects this entirely. His view would be more something like: Born in virtue, but predisposed for suberbia and vice, which is unnatural, and could/should be "washed off" later, gradually.
A very different anthropology - and more aligned with the first centuries of Christianity.
That's definitely better view of Original sin, then in protestant theology. Yet fact remains, that "All have gone astray". The filth on the face is not there by default, but it's there and to wash it we need to see it first. Descend before ascend. Inferno is "only" 34% but that's still a lot.
100%. With varying amounts of work to do - but everyone has to go up the mountain.
It's interesting how Dante later also describes the condition also as having a mind that is both "enstoned" and "stained". Only Inferno could break his own "enstoned" mind.