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Canto 12
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Paradiso, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Earthly and Heavenly Justice
Creation and God’s Providence
God’s Character and Will
Vision, Knowledge, and the Pursuit of God
Language and the Ineffable
Summary
Analysis
The two circles of lights resume their revolutions around Beatrice and Dante, singing praises to the Trinity and especially to Christ. Aquinas then addresses another one of Dante’s misgivings. As God’s love descends from God’s eternally united self, it results in differentiation. It works through the “moving spheres”—that is, through nature—to produce different kinds of people, who are all variously gifted. Nature, in turn, acts like a craftsman with unsteady hands.
In this canto, Aquinas elaborates on the doctrine of God’s providence. He begins by explaining how the universe is structured. In his view, everything descends from God’s original act of creation. Importantly, not everything is created directly from God’s hand—many things are indirectly generated through nature (for instance, the art that an artist creates). The further away one gets from direct creation, the more created things are subject to change, decay, and defect—hence the craftsman with shaky hands, whose creations definitely reflect God’s original pattern, yet depart from it through various imperfections.
Themes
God’s direct power was at work in creating the earth, creating the first man (Adam), and causing Jesus to be conceived in Mary’s womb. Aquinas says that this explains the difference between King Solomon, on one hand, and Adam and Christ, on the other. Aquinas closes with a warning against excessively hasty judgments in which one’s emotions throw their intellect off balance.
The crux of Aquinas’s argument about divine providence is a distinction between the Old Testament’s King Solomon and Adam and Christ. The latter two figures are unique because they were created directly by God (in the Garden of Eden and in Mary’s womb, respectively), so they perfectly reflect God’s intention. King Solomon was not directly generated by God in the same way and is therefore characterized by various imperfections, though still made in the image of God.
Themes
