The Divine Comedy: Love in Heaven and in Hell (Kintore College talk + Q&A)
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- čas přidán 1. 06. 2024
- Kintore College invited me to give a talk on love as the driving force of human existence as part of their Philosophy and Literature program. Since many found it useful I decided to repost it on my channel, also including the Q&A section at the end.
In this talk I discuss love within the frame of Dante's Divine Comedy, C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce and Plato's Symposium.
Original video: • Jonathan Pageau: Love ...
Kintore College website: www.kintorecollege.ca
===================
Timestamps:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:00:25 - Contents & context
00:01:20 - Love in Dante's Comedia
00:12:54 - The Great Divorce & pulling others in our love
00:16:40 - Dante's story
00:25:08 - The meaning of God in the Trinity
00:28:54 - Plato's Symposium: Socrates and Alcibiades
00:31:50 - Love that ascends and descends
00:33:08 - Q&A section
00:33:29 - How can we help others?
00:36:07 - How do these loves bring us to a higher good?
00:38:33 - How do you know your love is appropriate?
00:43:00 - Outro
===================
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My intro was arranged and recorded by Matthew Wilkinson.
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All badness is spoiled goodness. A bad “apple is a good apple that became rotten. Because evil has no capital of its own, it is a parasite that feeds on goodness.”
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Corruptio optimi pessima
@@peteroleary9447 todo y nada
'Our hearts are restless until they rest in God' says St.Augustine
I´m Italian.
We spend maybe 100 hours learning the Divine Comedy at school, but, since the teachers don´t believe what they´re saying, they are never able to explain the logics of it and how it makes sense. They don´t necessarily ridiculize Dante, together with all Medieval authors for that matter, although some might, but for them it´s just opinions and history, general knowledge so that you can get a good mark and show you know stuff.
I would have payed for taking lessons like yours! Keep up the good work.
WHAT? YOU LEARN THE DIVINE COMEDY IN SCHOOL?? WOW.... The mere idea of learning The Divine Comedy IN the school would had me interested in going to school in the first place hahaha 😂😂
My native language is spanish, and I've struggled many years to find a good translation written in verse (and not in prose); but... I hope one day I could read and understand it in italian.
I did a class on The Divine Comedy at College (italian lit in english translation) taught by a professor from Genoa and it was very very enriching. Really echoed some points that Jonathan made
@@federicozabatta1612 Since the Divina Commedia is the foundational text for the Italian languages (later authors all based their language on the language of Dante, and so Italian took form), a certain time is dedicated to it both in middle school and high school.
Already seen it elsewhere. Came to say what an awesome lecture it is.
Also saw it elsewhere, came to watch again 🤣
If only Lex Frdiman would find this, he always asks what is love? Here he would find an answer.
I was just watching the original one a couple days ago.
I took AP English and could never understand symbolism they way my high school and college taught it.
For sure you have an ability to explain symbolism. 🤙
That video had a crazy ''symbolism happens'' thumbnail where Jonathan had a similar expression to the ''overly attached girlfried'' meme and then he goes on to talk about the effects of misguided love.
Man, this is so strange. I gave the Divine comedy as a present to my brother in Christmas, we started studying it, and while we where looking for videos the youtube bell notified that you launched this one lol.
Pageau using a multicoloured biro pen to symbolise the many and the one coexisting. Ascended participation in the pen hierarchy!
This talk was very insightful; I believe this insight is very important also for orthodox Christians, who think that their ‘holy’ love for God can be disconnected from their love for neighbors, especially for heterodox Christians and non Christians in general.
D a s e i n i s C a r e
Dante's writing is firmly grounded in Catholic worldview. Really this worldview is not just reflected in poetry and arts, but was highly developed sciences in medieval Europe by scholastics. Before writing Comedy, Dante spent ten years studying St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, so he knew Catholic theology inside out. For example, one of the basic tenents of metaphysics is that evil is not being per se, but privation (degradation) of being. Things are good as far as they fully instantiate the potential of their own being. Furthermore, Aquinas defines love to be willing goodness of others. God is being itself, since he is the source of all things existence. Therefore, he is also goodness and love itself. Those might be helpful to keep those things in mind when viewing Jonathan's discussions and reading Dante.
"L'amor che move I'm sole e l'altre stelle" that was always my favorite line.
What does it even mean
@@icarovdl (I beheld) “the love that moves the sun and the other stars”. The very last line of the poem
So beautiful.
Is that love also the thing that makes all the stars explode?
"Too much love attribute to them..."
You're talking about this realm where there is a divide between true virtue and mere beautiful vices? The pagan worships but beautiful vices, beautiful they are.
Has been a very important divide for me. So sharp and fine cut with a delicate touch.
“I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
But love's the only engine of survival” Leonard Cohen, the future. Always liked that and it stuck in my head but I never really understood. Thanks for sharing your knowledge and insight here. I’m just a nobody and to be able to get a glimpse into how some people see reality and share it with others is amazing
Isaac Asimov future tense is a book written before ww2 by a Russian that became sifi cult classic which has plenty of backstory
This was my book that helped me see other perspectives of reality
Just finished the Comedy the other day, hours later I found out it was Dante’s 757th birthday! Great video, thanks!
It seems sometimes that life is devoid of any direction, but if I take some time to check my tracks, I see, upon reflection, that I've been heading almost directly to the place where I now stand, and here are those that walk like me, and they welcome with open hands.
Sometimes I realise all at once that here is where I'm meant to be.
Those in Hell “being drunk on their love of the thing that put them there” completely explains the punishing Hellfire that burns the flesh away but also heals it.
This video seriously needs more views
Simple? Yes. Straightforward? Yes.
Most genius is in hindsight.
Profound and life changing? Definitely.
Sounds like the Sumerian story of Inanna and Dumuzi, Beatrice coming down to help Dante back up to the light.
I would LOVE to hear you talk about Wendigoon's video on the Divine Comedy.
Eye-opening, and so dense with meaning.
In the video game "Dark Souls" there is a dark spell you can use called "Pursuers" that has a very poetic in game description for itself. It says "Grants a fleeting will to humanity, and volley the result. The will feels envy or perhaps love, and despite the inevitablity trite and tragic ending, the will sees no alternative, and is driven madly towards its target". So when you use it it animates a dark sprite that looks like a body and it pursues and damages the target before dissapearing. I always liked how that idea expressed how we will commit to love in the wrong places even when we know the outcome.
An unexpected connection, but a pleasant and accurate one :)
More on Dante please.
Thanks again. It is a good lecture. And this thought seems relevant to the theme that came up in the QnA, about addiction to love.
I don’t think Dante is about tempering or even lessening love, as if that might reveal higher or more spiritual loves. Rather, the way is to combine other human faculties with love, like imagination, intuition and intellect. Then love can reach out all the more fully and, crucially, all the more freely - non-addictively, non-possessively, undefendedly etc - as the individual perceives all the more extensively how things share in divine life. All of life is increasingly known as manifesting the divine, and it's this perception that guides love.
In other words, love, insight, freedom, light all grow together - which is Dante’s experience of the dynamism of Paradise. The good news is that the direction of travel to God is always into more.
Exquisite. Thank you. God be with you.
I'm half way through and this is extraordinary. I sent it to my wife so we can connect to ideas I've been trying to relate. I've never read this book but I've been expressing something so similar. I feel a deep connection right now on a metaphysical pattern. It's a little scary, but so vastly Good and applicable to life. I get this sense of awe when you talk about this. Thank you for this talk, Jonathan Pageau... I've been expressing actual reality that I'm going through with the intention to lead to this kind of Wisdom. I keep thinking maybe I'm being overly confident in my attempts at times. I feel a rushing sensation with so much... I can't even finish what I want to say because you're explaining it as I type... It's something moving.
Thank you for this
For me, realising we are all God and love for him is love for self I discovered self love came with love for everyone else too, what a gift.
Bluntly put but this is the Orthodox view and does not really work with other sects
More on Dante please!
This video is the reason in which we have again clicked the "subscribe" button. We think that, the ability to create, share, and accept The Love is what should never be relinquished; often masked as a "battle for the soul" (but the soul is a soul, not to be humanly owned; therefore it is about That Love). And if we analyze it further, even those that had never experienced or shared unconditional human love...well... deep down we truly still desire it & and to give; so where does that come from?
• this has powerful implications in relation to: then our nature is not "animal like of needing to be controlled" instead our nature is of Love
• and that may be just as difficult to understand.
Excellent study on love and Dante. I’ve studied Dante but I am amazed that there is always more layers to peel back and more depth to explore. And your final answer was a grand slam! Thank you!
Catholic writers: Tolkien, Chesterton, Sigrid Undset, Jules Verne, Alfred Doblin, Gene Wolfe, Joris-Karl Huysmans.
Do you recommend them all?
recommend Tolkien, chesterton and Jules Verne (at least)
Plenty to keep one occupied! It saddens me how much (new) rubbish people fall for in the bookstores nowadays.
shouldnt u rather decide what to read based on its own merits rather than on author's professed religion?
@@mostlydead3261 of course, no factor should be ignored
How to make someone moderate love for something that leads them to hell? In my experience, sure you can be there for them when they crash or when they reach the proverbial bottom, but I think you can also attempt some demotivating techniques even before that happens. You need to have a connection to that person and be very smart/sneaky about it, but it is doable.
One such method would be trying to distract them with something else that they might love (but which won't be as harmful as the thing that currently ruins them). Other method is to slowly destroy the idealized image of the thing that they love by showing them the disadvantages or inherent flaws that something has. I think it may work in at least some cases.
The thing is that, if some 'love' goes out of control, the moderation becomes practically impossible - it's like telling someone who is addicted to something to be less addicted. That's futile. You need to abort, divorce from a bad habit in order to regain some level of sanity first. Only then, you can start over and try to apply moderation to that something, or in many cases, leave that thing behind you forever.
Superb post, Jonathan - I really appreciate it, especially this time of year when everyone starts over the yearly cycle of life.
This is beautiful, Amen. 💛
A beautiful study of Love Jonathan - thank you for clarifying…simplifying the allegories of so much wisdom that we’ve overlooked and/or misinterpreted through much of our existence and from which we’ve seen ourselves so separate.
Love. ….Is the Presence Abiding Within and Creating All. ❤️
"love" modern day is ''lust'' [short-term, fleeting, and drama filled]
Gosh you are such a joy to watch!
This book contains great wonders
Great stuff. Thanks.
Your description of the mother in the Great Divorce is painfully accurate of my mother...
Very good Jonathan! Thank you.
The word which might be missing here or can be a useful addition to this talk and can elaborate this pursued "higher love" concept is catharsis.
Sending love from NY. Wish the best for you and your loved ones
A great talk! And a great last line :)
Jonathan, great explanation of links between lower loves to higher loves to highest love of trinitarian God of love and truth. During Q&A, your explanation of helping someone else or ourselves to be aware of and get help from slavery/addiction to someone or some thing was patient, humble, and wise. Thank you. God bless.
I have yet to listen to your video, but it comes at the perfect time as I am in the middle of reading The Comedy. Thank you.
Just finished reading the Divine Comedy. Super hyped for the video.
Thank you.
Amazing lecture!🙏
You are what you do proven in lecture form based on love and a far better description than the sanitized " law of attraction "
Yay! new video from JP!
Excellent video, thank you
Thanks!
Thank you
Check Body language of college
Grads first boarding, then leaving
what they got invited to aboard
the Navy's ship.
Halfway through and loving this talk so much. Would you please do a video about the aerial tollhouses?
Thanks
I was really moved by this talk. Listened to it twice
Same
I'd never heard of this college, but they seem like a pretty awesome place
I appreciate the practicality with which you share your experiences and perspectives. I have learned much from how you teach on the importance of this when guiding folks through themselves. There have been too many either withholding this knowledge for profit or simply not in awareness of how to guide others within. Much appreciation brother 🙏.
Such an amazing video, i really enjoy the divine comedy and this was an excellent video about it.
Great stream. I really enjoyed it. I have originals of the divine comedy in my collection. It contains within it so many beautiful ideas such as chivalry (which you touched on w/ the unattainable woman concept).
Currently reading the inferno; this was really great insight thank you Jonathan.
Dante might have been the greatest man that ever lived.
In the last chant of the Divine Comedy, he describes his meeting with God being like dipping his face in a pool, and having it reflected back, while reading the rules of the universe "spaginage" (as if ripped off a book), and having them clear in his mind, for just an instant..
Not a God creating men in its own image, but men crating a God in their understanding of the Universe.
And the last words of the Divine Comedy are:
"E qui, a l'alta fantasia manco' possa
ma gia' volgeva il mio disio e'l velle
qual ruota ch'i ugalment' e' mossa
l'amor che muove il sole e l'altre stelle."
"And here the most powerful fantasy of mine was depleted
and despite that, I was driven to a new venture,
just like the wheel keeps on spinning,
by the Love that moves the Sun an the other stars."
This medieval man, who was a warrior by trade, whose daily business was killing other people on the battleground by sticking metal rods into them, understood that the sun was "just another star", that the laws of motion made things that are already going to keep on going, and that we all are nothing but the universe, trying to understand itself, through love, which is what moves the sun, and the other stars.
I often dream I could travel back in time and I tell him "thanks, you knew you nailed it, but you didn't know much mankind would benefit from your intuition, that we're the children of the Stars, and Love is what moves the Universe to understand itself through us."
You’re suggesting this Devoutly Pius Roman Catholic was, in fact, a proto-Brunoite pantheist, only cleverly hiding his heresy in plain sight? I don’t buy it, especially in light of his many other writings that so clearly take Catholicism for granted.
Don't underestimate the intelligence of ancient people, they are genetically capable of abstraction as you and I.
First of all, Dante refrained from publishing the last three chants while he was alive, and instructed his children to "find them" a few years later. This clearly shows that he knew what he wrote might spell trouble.
Secondly, to the gnostic, the protocristians, Paul himself, and then through Christian mystics as St. Agustin and St. Francis, the Christian scriptures were to be interpreted not as literal stories, but as philosophical revelations about the mind-nature of reality (similar to many bhuddist cutrents). It's not a stretch at all to think that Dante was just following this tradition, especially if you realise that the whole Divine Comedy is never factual, but metaphorical and philosophical in almost every passage. Why should the last chant being less than that?
I had such a hard time earning my degree. And the reason for that is that I have NO LOVE AT ALL for the material I had to study.
Very nice. I like it.
Jonathan Pageau, have you looked at the symbolism behind the Jagermeister logo?
You can understand it in this way: every quality presupposes a "source" (e.g. saying something is white means saying it shares a quality or property with the idea of whiteness, etc.). Thus, all that is good is good in relation to the absolute good, in which it participates. Therefore, sin can be understood as the "worship" of something that is good in itself over its source. That would also be the definition of obsession, which means overvaluing something which should not be as valued (and that is why it is impossible to be obsessed with God, who is the infinite source of all good). Just to paraphrase some saint Augustine! Thank you for your thought-provoking video.
I can no longer attend Dr. Jordon Peterson’s talk at DAR Constitution Hall in DC bc the mayor mandated the vaccine for all events in DC. I have three row B tickets for sale if anyone is looking for an up close and personal experience with this incredible man.
How to distinguish between Love and Self-Interest (In the classical sense)?
This hits close to home... Apathy sucks.
Curiouse if you have heard of the work of Mark Vernon. He recently published an incredible book on Dante's Divine Comedy and has literally dozens of videos on his CZcams channel discussing it in detail. Check him out!
I would really like to see Jonathan collaborate with Malcolm Guite
17:06
When you're thinking and French starts to come out in an English sentence. XD
24:09
Self-directed speech as a thought/behavior mediator! Giving a 45 minute monologue is no joke!
I know this is kinda random, but could you talk about the symbolism of beards, hairstyles, and body hair in general? I've been contemplating this recently.
I’ve been told Greek has seven words that are translated into English as “love.” Would love to know Latin words for “love” used in the Divine Comedy and in Virgil. Doubt Dante knew Greek, although Ravenna was previously a center of Orthodox Christianity centuries before.
How do we reconcile this with "God is Love"? If love is a care/attention that can be directed towards bad or good, then can we say God IS this same potential of moving towards the bad just as equally as the good? Or isn't the Christian idea of God such that He is that who He is ("I am that I am"), but also considered perfectly *good*? Or is it better to think of it as He is the neutral ground/source of this directed energy? God being described as "good" is the only piece here that I'm having some trouble with.
I would also argue that finding rest in a bad habit, such as smoking, is not actually finding true rest in the thing/what you love. It's a coping mechanism trying to make up for the thing which you lack and are desperately seeking to find rest in, and actually moves you further away from the intended goal/desire because it ends up being an impediment (to health, intimacy, etc.).
Have you done a video on the history of the trinity and its symbolism?
Would the liturgical cycle of the week (or even the year) be a solution to the smaller loves? Six days of the week, we pursue certain goals and on the seventh day we are given the higher purpose as a sort of rest from the pursuit of the lower goods and realize the highest good.
If this is true, what is then the difference between the seventh and eighth day? I'm aware that the Resurrection is the eighth day and has connotation of infinity, but how does it fit into the continuation (or fulfilment) of the realization that comes from the seventh day?
27:40 True love
agape love is the phrase you're looking for
that ending lol
Is there is a connection between that aeeneas the one who was a Trojan and a ancestor of the founder of Rom. Was the son of venus the goddess of Eros. So in a way the Roman's believed that Rome was founded by descendents of Eros.
Why is the Christian God divided in three parts and not four or five for example? Why is this division based on three the best option for God's existence? (this is connected to the discussion at 00:25)
👏👏👏
Jonathan, you could talk to Mark Vernon. He has a series of meditations on each canto, which he has also published as a book. He is a somewhat of a mystic.
came here to say this. he's an ex anglican priest and liberal eclecticist which on paper doesn't work for me but i love him and what he says and he holds jonathan in high regard from what i can tell
Can you get on Odysse? It’s a better experience overall. It will mirror your CZcams channel.
Love is a divine bucket brigade. Dante is the water in a bucket. Virgil, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Beatrice, St.Luzia and the Virgin Mary are passing the bucket upward toward God which is a unquenchable fire.
7:36 Lacan's cynical take on this force he calls "Jouissance".
why do u consider it "cynical"?
u were asked something.. either be prepared to elaborate, meaning write what u know about, or refrain from writing..
🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯
Misdirected love is hell.
Ehhhhhh mais que c'est pas beautiful ca! Il commence encore avec des video! Bien j'ais bien hereaux la! :D
Question la; peux tu fair une video de la chien aux l'istoire de Tobit? C'est une constant thorn in my side ce chien la. Je trouve ca bizzare.
I feel judged
I say "i have a ferrari but no gas' I lack caring in my life, it was destroyed, no one cares, and if I do anything i'm punished
15:05 drug evangelism
seems rather a conflation of 'need', 'desire', 'lust', 'care', 'common (and uncommon) sense', and 'love'. they cannot all be lumped under the banner of 'Love'. your initial example of our moving towards the fridge because we are hungry in support of your of your argument is rather weak if not misdirected. and not everyone in Dante's Inferno is in Hell due to an improperly aimed (or over-zealous) love. is the presence there of Judas Iscariot because he 'loved' money too much..? what about the presence of evil or criminal behaviour, or just 'bad behaviour.. some things simply have no 'love' in them at all; misdirected or otherwise.
I'm sorry, you need a better understanding of your concept. Before you try to explain it to others. It's a wonderful idea though.
Others understand his idea just fine, thanks.
Thanks