Reading Dante's Divine Comedy from start to finish under the guidance of an expert has been an amazing experience thus far. In class we have covered up to Paradiso XIII, and I have recently had somewhat of an epiphany if I may use that term. While the class has been thought-provoking and the text itself interesting and engaging, I have not until now come away from a class with such feelings. Throught my university experience I've felt that a class isn't really good until I've had one of these moments. So I'm happy to say that my Dante class is good!
After that bit of preamble, I'd like to share some thoughts that have been taking root in my mind resulting from the explication of Canto X of the Paradiso. Throughout the Comedy there has been the recurring theme of light, and light vs. dark, and sight vs. blindness. We see Virgil, a pagan, blindly leading Dante, a Christian, by the light of his understanding, which, because it is pre-Christian, supposedly is of no use to himself...but as a Christian, Dante, and the common pilgrim, can use the light of the ancients to better understand Christian values and truth. We see the darkness of Hell contrasted with the light of day (and the dark of night, mind you) of Purgatory, which in turn is contrasted with the brilliance beyond any known earthly light, found in Paradise.
And now we come to Canto X; we are within the Sphere of the Sun, which is effectively a preview of the Empyrean in which dwells God, whose brilliance shines out eternally. So Dante uses the light of the sun, as we mere mortals understand it, to explain the light (if it may be called "light," a word of human language, describing human experience...) of God, which will be encountered at the end of the Paradiso. And, in the same way that we cannot know or fathom the light and love of God, so also can we not fathom the absolute truth of God.
Now, the idea, which was so revelatory to me, is that if you consider how the sense of vision works, it is the only sense requiring the help of a third party, namely light. That is, we can smell, taste, feel, and hear in pitch darkness, but we cannot see without light. Transfer this idea to the human search to find and understand truth, absolute truth, or the will of God, if you will. This is when the light bulb flashed in my brain (pardon the pun). Just as human eyes cannot see an object without the assistance of light, so cannot human intellect understand truth without the assistance of God, or "the good." According to Dante, therefore, humanity needs divine intervention in order to understand anything. This does not lessen the value or complexity or depth of the human intellect, just as the fact that our eyes need light to see does not in any way diminish their complexity and worth.
And so, the Sphere of the Sun foreshadows the Empyrean; it is the Empyrean in the shadow of humand understanding (though the sun is not in the shadow of the earth--it is in fact what causes the earth to cast shadows on the first three spheres...). And in the Empyrean, Dante will encounter God, and thus the Trinity: Father, Son, and Ghost, all shining, three in one, and allowing humans a glimpse when and if it's willed.
And this is why I love Dante.
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Plato makes a similar, albeit non-theistic, analogy in The Allegory of the Cave. This understanding of light is deeply ingrained in our culture –Illumination Mea, Domine; In Lumine Tuam Videvimus Lumen, &c. Anselm of Canterbury's fides quaerens intellectum ("faith seeking understanding") and creto ut intelligam ("I believe, that I may understand"), also echo this reliance on light to see things clearly.
Needless to say, the analogy is very appropriate of G-D.
Plato believed that "the Good", via the agency of which we saw things with greater clarity, was –is– the only thing that fully exists. When I read this I thought to myself: "Ah, it makes sense that now, at our present fallen state, we exist as shadows. But Christ, through his regenerative power, is bringing us closer to true existence."
One last note: it is not true that sight is the only faculty that is enabled by something external. Without matter, for instance, we would not hear. Contrary to those hollywood movies that show rockets making fearsome noises in space, there is no sound in space (as there is no matter to vibrate). But this fact takes the analogy you stated one step further. There is a relationship between light and matter, neither of which can be created or destroyed. Moreover, without these, man would be blind, deaf, and unable to obtain.
G-D is the canvas on which we may have our being.
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