Grace In Dante's Inferno

The beginning Cantos seemed to focus on God’s will and the ordering of the world, plus how humans need God’s grace and salvation to become perfect. One of the first mentions of this comes from Canto 1: “Much is permitted there that is not permitted to our faculties here, thanks to the place, created to be the home of the human race” (p. 25, lines 55-57). Dante is now able to stare directly at the sun, which if this would have occurred elsewhere, he would not have been able to. All of his senses were increased, which is shown on p. 27, when he is discussing how he had never felt a light or sound so sharp. Dante pilgrim has all these senses because he is back at the origin of humans, where without the fall there would be no corrupt nature or even possibly the gift of grace in order to have perfect nature. This would go along with what Aquinas states in Q. 109, A.3, “hence we must say that

It continues on to state that God has a form in which He creates all things and that these forms have an ordering: “In the order of which I speak, all natures incline in their diverse lots, closer to their origin or most distant from it; thus they move toward different ports over the great sea of being, each with an instinct given to carry it” (Canto 1, p.29, lines 109-114). These lines about ordering would go along with what Aquinas states on how each species has a purpose or a function and their goal is to make it to the final end, that is fitting for their nature. This end though, cannot be reached without God’s grace, which Aquinas discusses in Q.109, by stating that man cannot even perform the commandments without God’s grace. For humans, it is proper to be virtuous and act in accordance with God’s commands, but this cannot occur without the grace of God, which is shown in Cantos 1-4, through the discussion of form and