Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #41 - Dante's Quiet Revolution

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #41 - Dante's Quiet Revolution

Okay, good morning. So today, this morning, we are doing the Renaissance. Specifically, we are asking the question, how the Renaissance? How did the Renaissance start? Because the Renaissance was an intellectual revolution in Europe that would ultimately change the fate of Europe. Okay, guys? The Renaissance was a reimagining of classical Greece. in a Christian European context. Okay, so what the Renaissance is going to do is combine classical Greece with Christian Europe,

and it's going to create modernity. All right, so the ideas, the values that underpin modernity, the world we live in today starts with the Renaissance. Okay, so the question we are looking at this morning is, how did the Renaissance start? start, okay? And there are lots of very different theories. And what scholars today believe is it was a perfect storm

of cultural, historical, economic trends. Okay, so let's look at the main factors. The first is the decline of Constantinople. So for hundreds of years, Constantopo was the epicenter of European culture. It is to adhere to the Roman, Greek Roman legacy. But as the Ottoman Turks start to encroach on Byzantine territory, a lot of the scholars, a lot of the major thinkers of the Byzantine Empire,

they start to shift back to Europe, and they bring with them Plato, Aristotle. So that's one major factor. The Crusades. The Crusades, remember, we discussed the last class, it was a time when Europeans encountered the Muslim world at mass. And as really, they absorb a lot of the culture and politics of the Islamic Golden Age. Then there was a fact that in Italy you had many different city-states in competition with each other. And as we discussed in many classes before, when you have that, you have something called open cooperative competition, which leads to innovation.

Also, what's really important for us to remember is that because the city's important for us to remember is that because the city's states were always at war with each other, everyone was a participant in history. Remember, if you are in an imperial bureaucracy, if you're a bureaucrat, you can sort of stand outside of history and observe history. But if you're a participant in history, then you are fighting wars. You're a participant in politics. You're always thinking about the relevance of your theory to reality. The three major city states of Italy that will give rights to renaissance are Florence, Venice, and Genoa. Venice and Genoa are known for their slave trade.

So they're trading slaves with the Muslim world. And for this trade, they're bringing back the books, the ideas, the values of the Islamic world into Europe. As well, because of this trade and commerce, these three cities become extremely wealthy, that allows them to patronize the arts. So you have the rise of a merchant elite in Florence. The family is called the Medici's. Why this is important is previous elites

were either of the warrior class or the priest class. If you're a warrior class, you win your legitimacy by fighting the battlefield. If you're a priest, your legitimacy comes from God or the gods. But if you're a merchant elite, the question then is, where does your legitimacy come from? And so because of this question, the Medelletsis are forced to patronize a lot of the arts. They will patronize the individuals including Da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo, basically the major artists of the Renaissance.

At this time, from 1305 to 1378, there are actually two popes in Europe. There's a crisis of legitimacy and authority in the Catholic Church. The Pope moves to Avianon, and therefore the Pope doesn't really have authority over Italy. You also have the rise of universities and monasteries. Universities and monasteries are places of theological debate and discussion, and they store the classics, and this is where a lot of new ideas will. come from. And then the last factor to think about is in 1440, around then, a man named Gutenberg, he will invent the printing press. And the printing press allows for the rapid dissemination of literacy and knowledge.

So what scholars believe is these various factors will coalesce into the Renaissance and Mark and intellectual revolution in Europe. Now, the thing that you will remember about my teaching in this class is, I disagree with scholarship. I think there's one factor that they're missing out, and it's the main factor in the creation of the Renaissance. I believe I will argue to you today that Dante, the Divine Comedy, is what ultimately sparked the Renaissance. While Dante, the Renaissance, this revolution, would not have been possible okay so this class I'm going to present you the scholarly mainstream argument and then I will present my argument which is that Dante is most responsible for the Renaissance okay some a basic fact that we need to remember if you

look at all the major figures all the Renaissance okay including Raphael Galileo Boccaccio, Michel, okay? The person who was born the earliest is actually Dante, okay, in 1265. So that is a good clue to suggest that perhaps it was Dante that sparked the Renaissance, that he's the secret sauce that made the Renaissance possible, okay? And throughout this class, I will make you this argument. But first let's just go over through the scholarly mainstream argument. So first of you remember that is that before the Renaissance, Europe was connected with Africa,

Asia, and the Middle East for these dense trade networks. As we discussed previously, the three main city states that are involved in global trade are Venice, Genoa, and Florence. Venice and Genoa are the ones who benefit the most in this trade because they are by the coast, and they're the ones that are most strategically located to benefit from this trade. And this trade, mainly slave trade actually, so Genoa and Venice will engage mainly in slave trade. Florence will not engage in slave trade, it will engage in wool, okay? Woe. So this is Venice, and the slave trade will engage in slave trade.

trade made Venice extremely prosperous. This is Florence in around the 15th century. Okay, so one thing to remember about Italy at this point is that it is divided into warring city-states. Okay, and as a result, they're always in competition with each other, they're always at war with each other. And as we discussed previously, this scenario will drive innovation. in Europe, mainly commercial innovation. By about the year 1000, as we discussed the last class, Europe is now prosperous and they are engaging in commercial trade.

The problem is how do you facilitate trade, right? So for example, if England has a lot of cotton and then France has a lot of bananas, what if England doesn't What bananas? Well, England and France cannot trade with each other. So the only way to get around this is by creating a currency that everyone wants. And the currency that everyone wants is gold. So in Florence, they create something called the gold Florin, which is a currency of Florence.

But because it is so prestigious, because it's mainly gold, everyone wants it. And so the gold Florin becomes the currency of European trade. And the family that most benefits from the status of the Floreen is the Medechi family. Okay, so this is Kasomo, basically the founding patriarch, the family. And so what he will do is he will pool the resources of rich people in Florence and to create a bank. Meaning if you're a merchant, you can borrow from this bank. And what he will do is he will set up branches all throughout Europe in order to facilitate an underwrite, European trade. Okay, and obviously he gets a cut of all this trade and as a result

the Medellegi family become tremendously wealthy and they create the Medici dynasty. From this family four popes will emerge. Four popes will emerge they will eventually take over Florence and create their own monarchy. As we discuss if you're a merchant family you have a legitimacy problem. You didn't You didn't win your wealth on the battlefield. You don't represent God. All you have is a lot of money So in order to They generalize himself they will go on a massive spending spree In order to make Florence the cultural capital of Europe. Okay, so they will first of all

Fund these massive our cultural projects The most famous church in Florence is called the Santa Maria de Foray It's still there. You guys can still visit it It's the fourth largest church in the world. It's absolutely stunning. Here's another view of the church and the city of Florence, and it's still there today. If you fly to Florence, you will still see this picture, okay? It is incredibly well preserved.

This is what inside the church looks like. All right? They will also patronize artists. The most famous artists all this time were patronized by the Medici family. So Michael Angelo actually lived with the Medici family for a while. And of course, he's most famous for a painting called The Creation of Adam, which we'll discuss. The Creation of Adam is also famous for the Statue of David. All right?

You also have Da Vinci, who is considered the archetypal Renaissance men. When you think of the Renaissance, you think of Da Vinci, okay? So these are some of his paintings. He is a remarkable genius. Here's what we call a polymath, which means that he dabbles, or he's interested in every single field of human knowledge. sciences, philosophy, poetry, art, music, everything. And it takes all these different disciplines

and combines them into his art. Okay, this is one of his most famous paintings, The Last Supper. And this painting, I will show you, is a work of genius. So later on, we will actually discuss the Last Supper. But first, I introduce it to you here. This is the School of Athens by Raphael. one of the most famous paintings in the world.

You also have Botticelli, Donatello. And again, these are the most famous artists of the Renaissance, and the Medici is patronized every single one of them. Later on in this class, we'll actually discuss these paintings. But as the Medici are patronizing art and culture in Florence, the printing press is being invented by Gunenberg, in Germany and the and the printing press it marks a revolution of literacy in

Europe okay this is a picture of what a printing shop looks like okay so think about this so the printing press first arrives in Venice in 1469 only 30 years later there are 117 printing presses in a city think of these as publishing houses all right In the first 50 years, there are 20 million volumes of books that are printed in Europe. So the printing press is a revolution of literacy and knowledge in Europe that democratizes knowledge. Everyone now has access to Plato, Aristotle, the Bible. And what they're reading are some of the major thinkers of the people.

thinkers of the Renaissance. So in terms of poetry, there are three major poets. There's Dante, there's Petroch, and there's Boccaccio. You also have Nicola Macchiapal, who we still read today. His most famous work is called The Prince. And the Prince is really one of the first political treatises in the world. The question then is, how do you best govern a state. And today we remember the prince for its strategy, for its almost

amoral strategy on how to rule a state. What we need to remember is that McAvalli himself during this time, he was a startan Democrat. He believed that the people needed to have a say over the fears of Florence. And as a result, he came in a contact with the Medici's who tortured him. But he wrote the prince in order to raise awareness about politics. He believed that if we are to have a wall-functioning republic, then everyone needs to understand how politics works. And then you also have from Florence Galileo,

who we will discuss next week. He is the father of science. So these are the major thinkers of the Renaissance. The philosophy, the value system that underpins all this artistic production is the idea of humanism. So what is humanism? And how is it different from Christianity? So these are the three major differences, guys. So let's look at them.

If you're a Christian, the Catholic Church for the longest time struggled with what is the nature, what is the idea of the idea of the world? God. Okay? And humanists concern themselves with what is the story of humans. Okay. Do you guys understand? This is the major revolution in the intellect brought on by the Renaissance. A transition from a focus on ideas to focus on stories. Second major difference is Christians always ask, how do I say, how do I say, my soul. How do I ensure that I go to heaven? But humanists ask, how do I flourish? How do I make the most out of my talents? How do I have the best possible life on earth? Okay? So the Greek word is eudaimonia. All right? So humanism is actually a return to the values and belief systems of classical Greece. Now, last major difference is Christians always ask, how can we best serve God? How can we best obey God?

But humanists ask, how do we achieve goodness? How do we make the world we live in today beautiful and truthful? Okay? So these are the three major differences that separate Christians from humanists. And what humanism will represent is a radical re-entort, sorry, reorientation of focus from the afterworld into the here and now. Okay? Christians care about what happens in heaven.

Humanists care about what happens today. How do we make the most out of today? How do we make the world a better place? Does that make sense to you guys? All right. So having said that, let's understand concretely how this transition happened. It happened mainly through art.

So the main transition to emphasize is a transition from a focus on ideas to a focus on stories. So what do I mean by that? Okay, let's look at some classical Greek sculptures. If you look at some Greek sculptures, the thing that stands out is the motion, the tension, the emotion in the sculptures, right? There's a story being told. You can almost feel that this person is alive and thinking. You can almost go into this person's character. It's a story.

This sculpture is actually even more obvious, right? Within the sculpture, there's a story taking place. It's almost like you're watching a movie. And what your mind does when it's looking at the sculpture, when it is in conversation with the sculpture, it is in conversation with this sculpture. Imagine what happens before and after. You are making the sculpture alive with your imagination. So that's classical Greece.

By the time we hit medieval Christianity, the very concept of art changes. It becomes more of an idea. So this is from the Carolingian Renaissance. So basically the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire. And as you can see, the artwork, it's much more static. There's not really a story here. What's being conveyed to you is an idea.

You don't really have to imagine what's going on because there's really no space for you to imagine what's going on. So the main artwork during the medieval Christian period are stained glass windows. So you go inside of church and you see pictures on the windows. And what these are are almost like visual aids. So when the priest is talking about the stories of the Bible, he's using these pictures to illustrate his point.

Because remember, at this point, most people are illiterate. Because of these stained glass windows, the effect that is created in the observer is blinding and awesome. Remember, these are windows, and they're high up in the church. So the light is coming through, it makes it. makes the pictures wholly illuminated with light, it's awesome. You're forced to send back. But it's also blinding.

Blinding just means that it's hard for you to imagine what's going on. The purpose of this artwork is to make you submit before the power of God. For you understand the awesomeness of God. Okay, does that make sense? You're not here to participate, you're here to submit. So as you can see, this is a church, you can see how the light comes in and it blinds you. And it's hard for you to really participate in the artwork. So this is the idea of medieval Christianity.

The idea that you, through artwork, you are trying to represent the eternity, the awesomeness, the mystery that is God. All right? By the time we hit the Renaissance, the attitude is completely different. This is Da Vinci's The Last Supper. And from blinding and awesome, we go to compelling and curious. What this means is, compelling means that you are drawn into the picture.

All right? Why? Because of death, meaning the picture moves backwards and it moves forwards. And because of this motion, you are drawn into the picture. Look at this table, right? Look at this table. It's not a complete table. It's too much too small for 13 people to eat. It's much too thin, right?

So what your eye believes is this table is expanding outwards. And so you are part of this picture. Doesn't make sense? And also, it's curious because clearly within this picture, there's a lot of tension. You see how these different groups are in discussion, okay? And they're all focused on Jesus. So this is the picture, the artwork of the Last Supper. And the Last Supper, which appears in the Bible, Jesus reveals that someone has betrayed

them. There's someone, his name is Judas Iskerit, he has betrayed. them and the next day Jesus will be arrested and he will be crucified and once Jesus announces this everyone becomes anxious is it me is it me am I the betrayer okay there's a lot of tension in this picture and as you can see it's a radical departure this very painting is a radical departure from medieval Christian art If you look at previous medieval Christian art below, first of all, it's much more static, it's much more organized, there's not that much tension in the picture, and what's most important

is the idea of holiness. You see this hollow surrounding each person in the picture, right? It shows you that these are divine figures. What Leonardo da Vinci has done, which is very important is he's really taking out of the human, really taking out the humanity in the picture. There are no hallows. What's left is the humanity. These are first and foremost humans,

not divine figures. So this is another picture previously. So there's much more detail, but again, as you can see, not as much tension, not as much drama as in Da Vinci's. And this is the most recent. This is the most recent. Now, in

This artwork, Judas Askeret stands out from the rest. And so that signals him as the betrayer. But in Da Vinci's work, it's not obvious who is the betrayer. Everyone is afraid that he or she is the betrayer. And what this does is it forces you to investigate. It forces you the observer to observe the details in order to figure out who is who. All right. What's amazing about this picture is the focus on human anatomy, facial expressions.

Right? You see the tensions in the neck. You see the hand gestures. So what Da Vinci believed is that the hands, the hand motions, they are a window into the soul of a person okay if you want to understand how a person thinks you see how he or she uses the hands okay and you can see how the hands are all in different motions which signifies different personalities different thoughts inside that person and again you're forced to investigate all right you can see the anxiety the stress the drama in each of the faces the

Vinci was first and foremost an astute observer of emotions, how emotions are expressed through the face, through body tension, through breathing, through the eyes. The man who is ultimately responsible for the betrayal is Judas Eskerat. And you can see how Dante sublimity emphasizes his betrayal, right? betrayal right okay so you can see how he's darker than the other individuals so

he's turning away from the light he's betrayed God by turning away from the light okay also in his hand he's clutching some civil coins okay and you can see his neck his neck his neck because of the tension in his neck okay he can't breathe everyone else is anxious you're talking but he cannot bring himself to talk so all the tension is captured in his neck all right so you see all the subtlety here right okay something really fun about the last supper is becomes the basis for a very famous book called the Da Vinci Code and then the Da Vinci Code is a very popular book no scholarship it just made for an entertainment

what it argues is that Jesus did not die sorry, Jesus died, but before he died, he married his lover, who is married Madeline, okay? And so this picture becomes one of the sources for the book. So previously, scholars have believed that this person is one of the apostles. But when you look at him, okay, it turns out she's almost a she, right? And if you look at how Jesus and this person it's stationed, it creates an M shape, right? An M can mean married. But it stands for their closeness together.

So people speculate that these two are married. And by doing this, what Dante is really emphasizing is the humanity of Jesus. Jesus is first and foremost a human. So this is interesting, guys. Scholars don't really agree with this analysis, but it becomes the basis of the DaVinci Code, which is a really fun book. All right, something that scholars do believe is the mathematics.

So if you look at where the hands and the bread are and you map it onto a music sheet, you can actually play the music. It's designed to be musical. Also, look at the configuration. It's a 3-3-1-33 configuration, okay? It turns out if you look at the Bible and you look for the passage 33-133, you get this quotation in limitations, okay, in the Bible. It says, for no one is cast off by the Lord forever.

though he brings grief he will show compassion so great is his unfailing love for he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone and so the idea here is that god will always love you god is love god is incapable of hating you okay he will always find a way to forgive you and if you remember from last semester this is the very idea of the divine comedy Leonardo da Vinci is getting this idea from Dante and this idea is the backbone of the Last Supper Jesus knows he's been betrayed by Judas Iscarat but look at him okay let's go back and look at him he's calm he's reassured he's already forgiven Judas Iskariot all right there's no hatred in him there's no anger the anger and the hatred is everyone else

Alright, so that's the last supper. And as you can see, it is heavily influenced by Dante. All right, this is the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. It has captured the imagination of millions of people. Millions of people every year will go to France, the Louvre, to stand in line just so they can spend 10 seconds to look at this picture. What makes this picture remarkable is it's secretly. alive.

When you've done I spent 16 years crafting this in a way that by just talking with it, by moving around in conversation with it, it becomes alive. So when you just look at it directly, Mona Lisa isn't really doing anything, she's just smiling. Sorry, so this, she's, she's neutral in her expression, right? But if you turn away from her, what happens is this? What happens is she starts of a smile. She starts of a smile. So your eyes play tricks on you.

When you move away from the picture, what happens is your prefer revision still picks up the picture, but the expression is different. So this is the central version. We just look at her directly. But if you move further away from her, she smiles. So what is this thing? What this is saying is the art is alive if you engage with it. Art is not meant to be blinding and awesome.

It's meant to be here and now. Only if you participate in the art does it become a lie. Only when it becomes alive does it achieve its true meaning. So this is the Mona Lisa. Let's look at the School of Athens by Raphael. The actual name for this painting is actually not School of Athens. It's actually called Philosophy. And the reason why is it was commissioned by Pope Julius II of the Vatican in order to decorate

his papal apartments. So we go inside his paper apartments today. There are four major frescoes, paintings. The first is called philosophy, and then right beside philosophy is It's called religion. So religion and philosophy balance each other out. They are dependent on each other. And then across the wall are two more paintings,

poetry and law. All right. So that's the very ideal of the Renaissance, open-mindedness, exploration, and holistic learning. All right, so let's look at this painting. First of all, at the very center are two figures. Plato and Aristotle.

How do we know? Because you're holding two books. This is Atimeus by Plato, where he discusses the realm of the forms. Remember before in class we discussed platonic philosophy, right? And how Plato conceptualizes heaven. God is the form of the good, and then form of the good will emanate concepts, truth, beauty, justice, which will then give rise to perfect forms. And so this is argued in his book Timius.

Aristotle, his most famous book is called Ethics, How to Lead a Good Life. What's amazing about this picture is you can see that these two are having a debate. So first thing is Plato is pointing upwards. What he's saying is the real world, what matters is heaven. And what Aristotle is saying, no, what matters is down here on earth. Okay? Aristotle is concerned about earthly matters. Also, look at their colors.

So Plato is wearing white and red. White symbolizes air, red symbolizes fire, right? These are spiritual colors. But Eristolo is wearing blue, which signifies water. And then he's also wearing brown. he's also wearing brown, which signifies the earth. Okay? So they're having this debate.

And this debate is, as we discussed previously, it is what underpins the debate within Western philosophy even today. Now, what's amazing is that as the two are walking, they're splitting the world into two, right? There are those philosophers who support Aristotle and they focus on earthly matters. And then there are people who support Plato who focus on spiritual matters, on discovering the secrets of the universe.

Aristotle is concerned about everyday science on uncovering the secrets of a reality. So they're split into two. And as you can see, there's death to this painting. There's a sky to the back. There are these arches. And so it's extending forward. And so we're being drawn into the picture. That's a power of death and perception.

This is Pythagoras. You will know him from Pythagoras theorem. But he's first and foremost a spiritualist. He's concerned about mysticism. He's concerned about God. This is Euclid, who is one of the adventers of geometry. And here he's focused on using science, using logic, using deduction to teach his students.

You also have, in the picture, many different personalities. You have Zoroaster, who is the founder of Zoroastrianism, the religion of Persia. You have Ptolemy who investigated how the planets move. And as you can see, Zoroaster, can you see this picture clearly? Okay, this is more clear. Zoroaster is concerned with the heavens, with spiritual matters. Ptolemy is concerned with the earth, with all reality.

So this is Raffa acknowledging that there are two different realities. There's the material reality, but then there's also a spiritual reality, and they're both important. Now what's amazing here is that Raphael, this is Raphael actually, this is self-portrait of Raphael, he will actually engage in the conversation. He will listen in. He will insert himself in the painting. Okay, now remember that Christianity focuses on the idea of humility on self-negation or removing yourself from the world

But Raphael is reinserting himself into the world and celebrating his curiosity Celebrating his humanity Okay, and where does he get this idea from from Dante right because Dante makes himself the hero of the divine comedy makes himself the focus of the divine comedy and to go back to the conversation between Plato and Aristotle, look at this, okay? This is a visual representation of the divine comedy. Because remember, in the divine comedy, Virgil and Dante are engaged in a vigorous debate about the nature of love, the nature of sin, right?

So this is representing the divine comedy. The structure is the same as the common comedy. They're also, as they walk from Pergatory, from Infernal to Progatory, they're also talking to other historical figures as well. So this is directly inspired by Dante. Does it make sense to you guys? Okay, so this is Raphael.

So not only does Raphael insert himself into the picture, he also inserts his friend, Michelangelo, okay? This is Michelangelo. Michelangelo is known for being reclusive. He's known for not enjoying the company of others. And Michelangelo here, he's completed with another historical figure, a philosopher named Herakitis, who is also known for not enjoying the company of others.

So this picture just shows you the immense diversity of human thought and human personality. It's a sub-sugation of what it means to be human, okay? So these paintings leave us with of a fundamental question. We can now see the radical differences between Christian art and Renaissance art. So another question then is,

how did Dante spark the confident self-exploration and tri-emphant self-expression of the Renaissance? If you look at the art, it is confident. It is triumphant, okay? It's celebrating what it means to be human. And what I will show you now is, what he will do is he will re-remend, imagine our relationship with God, which is the fundamental question of Europe at this time.

Okay, so most people are grappling with three major questions, especially intellectuals. The first question is, what is God? What is the idea? What is the nature of God? The second question is, what is the nature of the relationship between God and humans? What did God create us? What is our responsibility to God? And the last question is, how can we best worship God? Meaning how can we best ensure our divinity?

How can we best ensure that we will rise to heaven? All right? So these are three fundamental questions underlying Christian society at this point. All right? So you can take these three questions and just ask one question, really, which is, why did Jesus have to die? Why was Jesus crucified? This is the crucification.

Why is it that the Son of God, the Messiah, had to die? And this idea was first understood and discussed by Paul. And Paul's idea is this. God created us and gave us paradise. This is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. But because we were arrogant, because we were proud, we want to become God. We want to eat that food from the tree of knowledge,

which would make us like God. And because we disobeyed God, God had no choice, but to banish us from the Garden of Eden, okay? And so why did Jesus have to come to earth and sacrifice himself? Because without God, we humans can only commit more and more sin so to redeem us and to beg for forgiveness from God Jesus came down and sacrificed

himself okay and sacrificed made God relent and forgive us and so now we are cleanse of our sins and now we can begin anew right that's the idea that Paul is presenting why Jesus is the Messiah and why he had to kill himself the problem is as Christianity grows and grows the divinity of Christ the divinity of Jesus expands before he was just a human who was favored by God then became a son of God but by the time of a man named Totilian who lived about the second century he argued for the Holy Trinity which is that God Jesus and the Holy Spirit are separate but equal Jesus is God okay not even a problem now if Jesus is

is truly God, then why did God have to kill himself? We can understand if Jesus is a son of God, Jesus kills himself to beg for his father's forgiveness. That makes sense. But if Jesus is God, then why did he have to kill himself? Okay. This is now causing a lot of confusion. So another Christian theologian by name of origin, okay, so this is the Trinity, right? By name of origin, his explanation is something called a ransom theory. And the theory goes like this. When we were cast off from the garden of Eden, we became subject to Satan, the devil. We became slaves to the devil.

Remember, it was Satan, the devil who tempted Eve to eat that fruit, right? And when she ate that food, she now swears allegiance to the devil. we are now slaves to the devil, we are now his property. So the only way for God to redeem us is by ransoming us from Satan, by offering something so valuable that Satan is willing to make a trade, right? So what did God offer?

God offered his life. The trick, though, is that God cannot be killed because God is eternal and perfect. So God tricked Satan. But what's really important to understand is this. Before we were slaves to Satan. Because God made this trade, we are now slaves to God. We are now slaves to God.

And this very idea will be expanded and elaborated by Augustine in order to create the intellectual blueprint for the Catholic Church. This idea of the ransom theory. All right. So remember, to see of God, Augustine will say certain things. It's really important for us to remember what he said in the city of God. Okay, the main idea is that because God ransomed us,

we are now his slaves and therefore we must obey him, we must submit. Alright, so let's go over what he says, Augustine. First thing he says is, when men lives by the standard of man, when we trust ourselves, when we use our imagination, when we use our intuition, and not by the standard of God, The Son of God is to submit to him, to obey him. He is like the devil, okay? You understand?

When we use our imagination, when we use our intuition, we are like Satan. Our core is the essence of Satan. It is only by submitting ourselves to God that we are freed from the influence of Satan. Could anything but pride happen to start of the evil will? Why did we disobey God? Why do we eat that fruit? Because we want to become God. So there's an arrogance.

There's a pride to us that is the essence of Satan. Satan fell from heaven because of his pride. If we just trust our nature, we will also fall like Satan. His was a venial transcription when he refused to desert his life's companion, even though the refusal entail companionship in sin. Eve was tempted by the devil. But Adam ate the fruit because, because of his love for Eve. Therefore, love can only misguide you. Love can only trick you. Love can only

lead you to an evil path. Do not trust your intuition, do not trust your imagination, but most importantly, do not trust your love of others, especially woman. The will derives its existence as a nature from its creation by God. It's falling away from its true being is due to its creation of nothing okay so why are we like the why are we like um the devil why can we trust ourselves because we were created out of dust we were created out of nothing all right we're an angel we're created by god and therefore we are perfect but because we're created out of dust we are inherently flawed okay so we must not trust ourselves we must refuse who we are we must deny who we are and submit ourselves to the glory that is god

all right we see the two cities were created by two kinds of love the earthly city was created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God when we love ourselves we disobey God and that's what explains the world we live in today this world is evil because of our pride because of our self-love because of love for others but the heavenly city by the love of God carried as far as contempt of self when we deny who we are When we submit fully to God, we can create a perfect world. We can achieve heaven.

So again, this is the very idea for the Catholic Church, self-denial, self-negation. Now you can think about this and understand now why the Islamic world raised the head of Europe. Because in Europe, people were paralyzed. are afraid to do anything because they couldn't really trust themselves okay and but the eventually the contrast between the Islamic world and the European Christian world were so great that even the Catholic Church had to admit there were problems with the theology of Augustine okay if you ask people to deny who they are and to submit themselves completely to the power of the church it leads to

corruption stagnation and inequality okay so there are some major reforms undertaken by the church in response to this one major reform are the creation of the university system so this is the University of Paris which is chartered in 1200 this today is called the soborn okay which is the most famous university in France and in Europe basically one of the most famous professors of theology at the University of Paris is Thomas Aquinas. And the Thomas Aquinas, he's a saint in the Catholic Church. His importance is he's trying to revise Augustine

for a Europe in conflict with Islam. What he's really trying to do is he's trying to take the peer platonic world of Augustine and combine it with Aristotlian science and logic and reason. He's trying to combine faith and reason. And so he's trying to update the Catholic Church. But ultimately, he doesn't succeed. And the reason why is people don't really understand what he's trying to do. Also, Augustine has been in power for like centuries.

And so he's really become part of the culture, the milieu of Europe. He's in the air, you breathe. That's the power of culture. The man who will ultimately free Europe from the grass of Augustine is actually Dante. And Dante will do so for his poetry. For his poetry, he's going to reimagine the human relationship with God. So in the line comedy, he will make certain assertions. The first major assertion is this.

Okay, guys, let's read together. the greatest gift to the magnanimity of God as he created gave the gift most suited to his goodness gift that he most prizes was the freedom of the will okay so what this is saying is this when God created us to show his generosity to show that he is perfect to show his goodness he gave us the gift that only God can give us the gift that he most prizes which is the freedom from him right you are off God but now you are free of God you can do whatever you want all right so that's one of the central ideas of the divine comedy that what makes us fundamentally human is

freedom of the will that we can choose the life we lead right all right so let's let's study the divine comedy this is this is going to be counto seven of paradise and in this canto beatrice remember they're both in Beatrice and Dante are engaged in an intellectual discussion. The question that they're trying to figure out is, why did Jesus have to kill himself? Okay? Remember, before, Paul suggested it was to redeem us from the original sin,

and then origin suggested the idea of the ransom theory. God had to redeem us, ransom us from Satan. Now what Donet is going to do, Donate is going to do is he's going to propose a new theory and this new theory is going to radically re-imagining our relationship with God okay so so let's look at this very closely you say this is Beatrice talking to Dante what I've heard is clear to me but this is hidden from me why God wield precisely this pathway for redemption okay okay God wants to save us but why did God have to kill himself That's a question here.

That makes no sense. If you're non-Christian, it's almost impossible to explain to someone else who is not a Christian why Jesus had to die. It makes no sense. Brother, this ordinance is buried from the eyes of everyone whose intellect has not matured within the flame of love. And Petrus is making this argument, which is like, you can only understand this if you truly love someone. It's only through love that you can acquire wisdom. You can acquire empathy and imagination.

The godly goodness that has banished every envy from its own self burns in itself and sparkling so it shows eternal beauties. Remember last semester we discussed the nature of God. God is love itself. There can be no hate, there can be no envy, there can be no blemishes within the nature of God. All that derives directly from this goodness is everlasting, since the seal of goodness impresses an imprint that never alters. So God, when God creates, what he creates is also perfect.

Only man's sin an all man's liberty makes him unlike the highest good so that in him the brightness of its light is dimmed. Okay? So God is in us. God is the light that burns in us and allows us to love others. When we love others, the brightness burns. brighter the light burns brighter okay that's how we celebrate God by loving others we also have the freedom of the will okay so these are the two things that God has given us freedom to choose freedom to lead the lives we want to

to live and as well as the power to love and to imagine but these things come in a conflict when we choose to too bad when we choose to disobey we choose to commit sin we are turning away from God and therefore dampening the brightness in us okay we are purposely stuffing out the flame in us and man cannot regain his dignity unless where sin left emptiness man fills that void with just amends for evil pleasure okay so we commit sin you must make amends you must force yourself you must choose to go on the proper path and make amends but for when your nature sin so totally when it's seed then from these dignities just as from

paradise that nature parted okay sometimes you could commit a sin that's so terrible the light leaves you and that's when we disobeyed God in the Garden of Eden that sin the original sin was so terrible that Adam doomed all his progeny to darkness and they could never be regained if you consider it carefully by any way that did not pass across one of these two forts. Okay. So how do we forgive? How do we ask for forgiveness?

Okay. There are two possibilities. Either through nothing other than his mercy, God had to pardon man or of himself, men had to proffer payment for his father. Okay? So there are two ways for us to get that light back in us, to redeem ourselves in the eyes of God. The first way is if God just forgives us. If God says, I'm total, I'm perfect, I'm total perfectness, I forgive you.

Because that's what I do, I forgive you. To show mercy. That's one possibility. But when he does that, the problem is we've learned nothing. We haven't grown. Okay? Another possibility is if we figure out a way to redeem ourselves, if we make amends, if we give God all the gold in the world,

Okay, but because our crime was so great, because we denied the love of God, nothing we do. There's nothing we could give God that would redeem us from our sin. That's a conflict here. That's a paradox. God cannot forgive us because if he did so, we would not grow and learn. And there's nothing we can do to redeem ourselves in the eyes of God because our crime are so great. So that's the paradox. man his limits could not recompensate for no obedience, no humility

he offered later could have been so deep that it could match the heights he meant to reach through disobedience. Men lack the power to offer satisfaction by himself. We want to kill God. That was the original sin. We wanted to eat that fruit, become God, and then kill God

and become God itself. That's the greatest crime. So how can you redeem yourself? How can you ask for forgiveness? if the crime is to kill God, right? For God so great a generosity in giving his own self that men might be able to rise than if he's simply part of. So for thousands of years, God had to think of a way

to redeem us, to forgive us, but at the same time ensure we would not do anything like this ever again. Okay? And the path he chose was to sacrifice itself. for every other means fell short of justice except the way whereby the son of God humbled himself when he became incarnate. So I'm going to use a metaphor

to explain this idea. It's not a great metaphor but I think this will illustrate what Beatrice is saying here about God. Let's just have a daughter named Eve. I have a favorite dog named Johnny. I love Johnny and I love Eve. I love both, okay?

And I say to Eve, Johnny is my favorite dog, you're my favorite, favorite daughter. I love you both. Eve, because she's young and she's stupid, she decides, I only want my father to love me. So Eve purposely kills my dog, Johnny. All right? Now, what do I do? I'm Eve's father. If I just say, Eve, don't worry about it. You're young. It was a mistake. Eve is probably going to go hurt someone else. Right? I have to teach her lesson. But if I hit her, or I punish her, then that might suggest to Eve, I don't really love her. It doesn't make sense.

That's a paradox here. That's a conflict. And so what I choose to do after many weeks of intense thinking is I choose to punish myself on behalf of Eve. Okay? I take a bat and I hit myself or I take a whip and I hit myself. And then my hand is bleeding. and Eve watches this. You can see that when Eve sees this, she has to cry.

She has to cry and feel remorse for what she did. And she also cries because she knows, I truly love her. Okay? So that's what features is saying here. God loves us so much that he's willing to do everything in order to teach us to be better human beings. That's the power of God. all right all right so the conversation continues and this story makes sense but it's also going to create a lot of problems okay one major problem is if God

created us and God loves us why are we making mistakes why are we dying why are we in pain okay and this is what Beatrice says you say I see that water set fire and ear and earth and all that they compose come to corruption and endure so briefly okay so in this world there is death there's dying there's pain there's suffering why is that and yet these two were things created if what has been said above is true then these things never should be subject to corruption if whatever if whatever god creates is perfect then things shouldn't die right brother the angels in the peer country where you are now these may be said to be created as they are in all their being okay

yes it is true that God created everything in this world but there's a problem there's a difference whereas the elements that you have mentioned as well as those things that are made from them receive their form from a credit power the matter they contained had been created just as within the stars that wheel around them the power to give form had been created the rays and motion of the holy light draw forth the soul of every animal and plant from matter able to take form okay so what this is saying is this god did not create animals and plants god create the laws of the universe you create the atoms the essence i would give rise to animals and plants and so they're not

perfect okay the laws are perfect the holy light is perfect but not the creation from the holy light And this creation was meant to die so that new creations can come out, okay? Right? When an animal dies, the atoms break away, and then a new form comes into being. That's the law of the universe. So that's perfect, but not the animals and plants are perfect. But your life is briefed forth immediately by the chief good who so emmeres it of his own self that it desires him always. Okay, so another question then is, if animals and plants aren't perfect,

What are humans then? So, okay, and this is what she says. So reasoning, you can also can do your resurrection. You need but remember the way in which your human flesh was fashioned when both of the first parents were created. Okay, so this is the trick. You have to remember this. Animals and plants are created from the laws of the universe,

which God created. angels are created by god uh himself and therefore the angels are perfect we humans have a dual nature we are both created from the laws of the universe and we are both created by god itself all right because when god created adam god created him from out of dust okay but then what god did was breathe life into him so the essence of god is within Adam and therefore us our bodies are mortal but our souls are immortal our souls have the essence of God which is love the more we love the more the light burns in us and as light burns in us it will allow for our resurrection okay because the

matter will regenerate the soul is eternal okay So that's what Dante is saying here. The best way to celebrate God is by loving others. When you love others, you're activating your imagination. You are learning wisdom, you are gaining experience, and that will only cause the light to grow, okay? So even though, going back to the story of Eve and my dog, even though I'm hurting myself, okay,

I am using my tremendous imagination in order to come up with this plan in order to redeem my daughter and because of this imagination i'm developing wisdom and this light in me grows stronger right so that's a purpose of life the purpose of life is to celebrate god by celebrating god in you by loving someone else so wholeheartedly that your imagination your wisdom grows and grows so that your soul becomes in eternal when it becomes eternal it will always be resurrected in the world and your soul will remember the love inside you and it will continue to grow and grow okay this is why God created us because if God if you're perfect okay if you're

perfect you are incapable of imagination by definition right because you make you can make no mistakes because we are we are the dual nature we are both body and soul we can make mistakes We can ear. And in this process, we develop experience and wisdom, which allows us to love and have imagination, and to have wisdom. All right?

All right. So let me use an everyday example that you've experienced in order to illustrate this point. Let's think about two teachers. A teacher who loves his or her students and a teacher who does not love his or her students. What's the difference? All right.

So there are three major differences. The teacher who loves students or is asking himself or herself, are my students learning in my class? Are they growing as people? Whereas another teacher might be like, are my students getting good grades? All he or she cares about are test scores, right? That's the first major difference.

The first teacher who loves you cares about what is happening inside you. What? The teacher who doesn't love you only cares about pleasing parents. Okay? Second difference is this. who loves you are asking are my students working hard okay because only by working hard can you learn the second teacher is asking students do students like me okay this teacher wants you to write a good good evaluation at the

end of semester okay right and then if you write a good evaluation but teacher might get a race or some reward right and then the last difference and this is the most important difference is this a good teacher who loves you is always asking am I growing personally and professionally am I going as a person all right because if you're growing then I'm growing and if I'm growing then you're growing that's the power of love okay you love others you're actually loving yourself and that's how God designed it but if you're a teacher who does not love and you always asking how much money am I making that's how you measure

your success in life am I making a lot of money if I'm making millions of a year then that means I'm the best teacher in China okay but a really good teacher who's capable of love who loves teaching who loves his or students is always asking am I going because if I'm growing then I know my students are growing so that's so that's what Dante is saying here about love meaning that we have the intuition we have the power to know true for ourselves because God made it made us this way okay so So something I want you to remember from this class is the Italian Renaissance was really just another, it's reimagining the Greek civilization, okay?

And as, and these are the two major periods of tremendous creativity in Western Europe. All right, so let's look at the similarities to understand how creatively happens in civilization. Okay. So the first similarity is classical Greece had open cooperative competition. So ideas could flow freely. That's the first major similarity. Second major similarity is in classical Greece, they transitioned from linear B, which is very complicated ideological language to the alphabet.

The alphabet just transcribes the spoken word into the written word. This allows for massive literacy. see and a transfusion of knowledge in Greece. And the idea here is, if you're truly to be a creative society, you must be egalitarian. You must allow anyone to learn everyone to express his or her ideas, which is what the Renaissance did, okay? The Italian Renaissance were supported by the fact that

they transitioned from Latin to the vernacular, the spoken language. It was Dante who allowed this transition to happen. Okay? Dante purposely chose not to write in Latin, even though Latin was the official language of the ancestral class in Europe at this time. He purposely chose to write in Tuscan, which is a local language. And because he did that, he made Tuscan, first of all the official language of Italy, they still speak it today, but it also makes the divine comedy accessible to common people, which was the intention. Okay? And the third similarity, and this is the most important is the perfect storm of factors don't really matter unless you have a great poet a great

thinker a great intellectual to create the spark to ignite your civilization okay so in Greece they had Homer and we today we can think of Homer as the father of civilization in it in the Italian Renaissance you had Dante you can think him as the father of modernity the values that he creates the values that he expresses in the common comedy will become the basis for modernity, especially the idea of individuality, of humanism, right? What's the individual? An individual is someone who celebrates himself and pursues his or her curiosity to explore

the world and its process create goodness in the world, to create truth and beauty. This is the idea that will underpin the Renaissance and which still underpins Western modernity today so that is my argument to you okay great so the ultimate message the ultimate secret of the universe I want you to remember okay and both Homer and Dante expressed this in the poetry is this love is the unifying force of the universe okay love is God God is love it's what unites everyone okay by loving someone else you can become that person that person can become you and the imagination is the animating force okay what gives life to the world is not God

but our imagination by imagining the world the world becomes alive so the greater imagination the more alive our imagination becomes and this idea is most visually expressed in the painting the creation of Adam by Michelangelo okay This is Michelangelo, the creation of Adam. And so this goes back to the story of how God created Adam. God created Adam out of dust, and he breathed the essence of life into Adam. Now, there are two ways of looking at this painting.

There are two ways of understanding the title, the creation of Adam. You can first understand it in the typical way, which is that God created Adam and that they are equals. You can see that these two worlds. the Adam and God they're almost equal we are equal to God but they can change perspective you can say the creation of Adam really means God is Adam's creation God is what we created from our imagination all right now you can see God is

surrounded by his angels okay but you take them away and what do you have behind them guys this is a picture of the human brain Right? Do you see this? Okay, this is a stem, okay? And this is the human brain. Okay? You take them away and hidden behind it is the human brain, right? Which means what? Which means that God is an emanation from our imagination. Okay? Not the true God. The true God is like light itself, right? Love itself, okay? But this God has given us a capacity to imagine. So we've imagined another God to, to, take place of the real God. Okay, you understand? So the real God is a human imagination, the human brain, the human mind. That's what gives life to the universe, okay?

So this, if you think about it, it is a radical revolution in human intellectual history. You guys, do you know where this painting is? This painting is on the top of something called the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. It's at the very heart. of the Catholic Church.

So what Darnan has been able to do is to show an empire peacefully for the power of poetry, for subtlety, for the power of love. Donning was able to influence Michelang who was able to take his ideas and implant his ideas

within the very heart of the Catholic Church and thus reinvent the Catholic Church. That is the power of love, that is the power of imagination. Right? Great. Okay, any questions? Okay, so think of some questions.

Next class, we will do the Protestant Reformation, okay?