Sanctuaries such as the newly completed Rome Italy Temple exist in order to ensure that the scenario envisioned by Dante in his \u201cInferno,\u201d wherein good and even great people are barred from heaven by the mere fact that they (inescapably) lack Christian baptism, does not in fact occur. Of course, individuals may still \u201close\u201d God in Ibn Tufayl\u2019s sense. \u00a0(Image from LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
In my Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R class, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R, we\u2019re still reading the twelfth-century fable about a brilliant autodidact on a desert island that is the centerpiece of Lenn Evan Goodman,\u00a0Ibn Tufayl\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale\u00a0<\/em>(Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). \u00a0Here\u2019s a beautiful passage from it:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
If there is a Being Whose perfection is infinite, Whose splendor and goodness know no bounds, Who is beyond perfection, goodness, and beauty, a Being such that no perfection, no goodness, no beauty, no splendor does not flow from Him, then to lose hold of such a Being, and having known Him to be unable to find Him must mean infinite torture as long as He is not found. \u00a0Likewise to preserve constant awareness of Him is to know joy without lapse, unending bliss, infinite rapture and delight. \u00a0(137)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Latter-day Saint conception of Hell is, I think, rather like Ibn Tufayl\u2019s notion of a state of \u201cinfinite torture\u201d caused not by the deliberate torments and malicious imps of Dante Alighieri\u2019s medieval Inferno<\/em> but by separation from God and the divine. \u00a0In fact, Dante\u2019s \u201cLimbo,\u201d the first circle of his imagined Hell, is much more to the point.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
(I cite from\u00a0Allen Mandelbaum, trans.,\u00a0The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri: Inferno<\/i>\u00a0[Toronto and New York: Bantam Books, 1982].)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Upon entering (fictionally) into the next world, Dante was astonished by what he saw:\u00a0 \u201cI should never have believed,\u201d he wrote in his\u00a0Inferno<\/i>, \u201cthat death could have unmade so many souls\u201d (canto 3, lines 56-57). \u00a0Strikingly, despite his obvious admiration for Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, the great Islamic philosophers Avicenna and Averro\u00ebs, and the chivalrous Muslim military hero Saladin, Dante felt obliged to place them all in Hell (canto 4). \u00a0Even his guide, companion, and \u201ckindly master,\u201d the Roman poet Virgil, was eternally barred from heaven.\u00a0 Virgil explains the reason to Dante as follows, at canto 4, lines 33-41):<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019d have you know, before you go ahead,<\/strong><\/span>
\nthey did not sin; and yet, though they have merits,<\/strong><\/span>
\nthat\u2019s not enough, because they lacked baptism,<\/strong><\/span>
\nthe portal of the faith that you embrace.<\/strong><\/span>
\nAnd if they lived before Christianity,\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span>
\nthey did not worship God in fitting ways;<\/strong><\/span>
\nand of such spirits I myself am one.<\/strong><\/span>
\nFor these defects, and for no other evil,<\/strong><\/span>
\nwe now are lost and punished just with this:<\/strong><\/span>
\nwe have no hope and yet we live in longing.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 In my Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R class, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R, we\u2019re still reading the twelfth-century fable about a brilliant autodidact on a desert island that is the centerpiece of Lenn Evan Goodman,\u00a0Ibn Tufayl\u2019s\u00a0Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale\u00a0(Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). \u00a0Here\u2019s a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2001,1998,2902,1679,440,656,2905,2899,641,2436],"class_list":["post-69607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ascension","tag-ascent","tag-baptism","tag-baptism-for-the-dead","tag-dante","tag-ibn-tufayl","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-salvation-for-the-unevangelized","tag-temple","tag-work-for-the-dead"],"yoast_head":"\n
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