Comparing Dante And Aquinas On Happiness - 1377 Words

Live a Diversified Life For Dante and Aquinas, happiness does not only compose a useful life on earth but also in Heaven. Dante and Aquinas were sure that continued use of Aristotle virtues would not land any of their followers in heaven. To increase chances of one entering heaven, Dante and Aquinas developed proposed the incorporation of hope, faith, and charity into the daily virtues that people possess. According to Dante and Aquinas, possession of virtues like good temper and judgement could only lead one to live a good life but not perfect for heaven. Dante and Aquinas specifically based there philosophical thinking on four ideas; perfect ordinary happiness on earth, happiness on earth is not important as compared to happiness in Heaven, following of Aristotle virtues was not a problem to them but it could not help in trying moments, and lastly the importance of perfecting the art of love especially to people One of the major themes which Dante inferno raises is the nature of the virtues. Like the spirits of hell, the spirits that are encountered by Dante have all sinned. The spirits out there were punished because of breaking virtues which were performed by God. Virgil gives Canto X1 a candle to represent good virtues and an axe to represent bad vices. The suffering of the spirits in hell represents the measures enacted by God to ensure that there are consequences to the stipulated laws. The reference of hell to represent bad and heaven to represent good,