Dante and Anglicanism
By Dr. Roberta Bayer
Dr. Bayer is Associate Professor of Government at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. Dr. Bayer has edited a book entitled Reformed and Catholic: Essays in Honor of Peter Toon, the magazine, Anglican Way for the Prayer Society of the USA, and published numerous articles, most recently on the thought of theologian Eric Mascall.
It is my memories of the deep learning shown by the Reverend Dr. Robert Crouse in his lectures on Dante, and my own study of Dante over the years, that account for why I am still an Anglican. Teaching Dante with the help of Dorothy Sayers’ magisterial commentaries upon the Divine Comedy has led me to see a complex and impenetrable interrelation between Dante’s great work and my own attachment to the church. Some might say that the interrelation is seen in English metaphysical poetry. From George Herbert and John Donne to T. S. Eliot one sees, as in Dante, a metaphysical expression of faith. But I would like to think that it is not just his poetry, but Dante’s theology itself, that appeals to the Anglican imagination. The wealth of English translations of the Divine Comedy made from the 18th century onwards, by prominent churchmen as well as laymen, suggests that the appeal lies in not just the poetry, but the theology.
Possibly Dante’s Augustinian treatment of memory resonates with Anglican theology, but I contend that it is his treatment of the nature of Faith itself. Dante, following Peter Abelard, defined faith as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen”. (Hebrews xi.i). Contemporary Christians find this definition surprising because it presumes faith gives ‘evidence’, in the Vulgate of Dante’s day ‘arguments’, for things unseen. Following the ‘scientific revolution’ which brought in its wake not only a revolution in our knowledge of nature, but also of ourselves, educated people lost the connection between intellect and faith. We have explored the universe it is said, and there is no God. It is said that there are no ‘arguments’ for faith, only a preference – possibly faith is a psychological crutch. However, the Book of Hebrews does not suggest that – rather faith is a knowledge. In the Heaven of the Fixed Stars of the Paradiso, Dante remarked that his faith was based upon Holy Writ, which was the foundation for his hope in eternal life, and that faith was proven by arguments in the Creeds and from philosophy. Not all evidence comes from the senses, there is also proof of unseen truths.
The ancient philosophers said that there is a natural desire to know God that lies deep within human nature. In Augustinian terms, this is a reality hidden in memory. Knowledge given in Scripture of the revealed nature of God is a learned thing which is a kind of remembering. Assent is prompted by grace, but nonetheless it is assent to a thing known.
The study of philosophy, the pursuit of that desire to know, was said to be a preparation for the study of theology. Augustine’s study of Neo-platonic works demonstrated to him the existence of God, and for the Scholastic philosophers known to Dante, Aristotle provided more arguments. For well over a millennium and a half Christians held that the study of philosophy and theology formed a continuum, upholding the faith in different ways. The Book of God’s Works, natural revelation, and the Book of God’s Word, special revelation, are different means by which God reveals himself in the world.
In the century following Dante’s death, however, universities first divided philosophy and theology into separate intellectual disciplines. Knowledge became specialized. For Dante, however, in the heaven of the sun there is unity; the theologians and historians and grammarians and logicians and natural philosophers dance and circle each other in friendship. Plato and Aristotle are in Limbo, yet all human learning which contributes to faith is redeemed. To Dante the intellect sought but one reality, God.
Faith is an assent to reality, both supernatural and natural, to God’s Word and God’s Works, as Protestants say. The fact that clergy, learned in the natural sciences, within the Church of England, still seek to show the unity of God’s Word with God’s Work by reconciling the latest discoveries in science with the faith is a mark of that medieval desire to see God as the source of all reality. This was the very essence of the Anglican Reformation; to hold a unified vision of all creation, all aspects of human intellectual and political life, within the Christian faith. The Book of Common Prayer and the Formularies give us knowledge of reality. Dante held that the two Testaments, Old and New, are the very substance of faith, and Anglicans hold the same. The Book of Common Prayer makes Scripture central to the rule of faith, and the Creeds give that substance. And we like Dante still hold that in heaven all truth is one, however limited our earthly perspectives. We may explore the universe and draw our conclusions, but that is just the first task, the second is to show how that knowledge gives evidence of things unseen, as did Plato and Aristotle, and that is the essence of the life lived in the knowledge of the Christian faith.