Ep. 61: Dante, Purgatorio, Cantos 16 – 18.

• Why does the discourse on love begin with the words of a minor character, Marco of Lombardy, rather than Virgil?
• Are Virgil’s discourses on love and free will more Augustinian or Aristotelian?
• Is love the only thing in the cosmos that does not diminish as it is shared? Light?
• What does it mean to say God is Love? Is God love?
• Is Virgil’s schematic approach to these questions an example of the limits of human reason? Is faith what is missing?
• Is Dante the poet critiquing Virgil, or are we critiquing Dante?
• Even if you claim to hate God, must you still love God in order to live at all, since whatever you love was created by God, and your love for it is ultimately directed toward God, by your free will (or “free will”) via the object of your love?
• Because God loves every thing that God created, and free will is the spark of the Divine in you?
• So – evil?