Dante #2 (Teaching)

Oliver Woods welcomes listeners to TheGreatBibleReset.com and emphasizes the importance of returning to God's law in Exodus 20-24. He argues that this is crucial for Christian nationalism and the survival of the nation. He criticizes Dante's Divine Comedy for promoting a one-world empire and a savior state, contrasting it with the biblical concept of salvation through Christ alone. Woods also discusses Dante's views on political peace, the role of reason, and the need for a temporal monarchy. He criticizes Dante for relying on Aristotle instead of the Bible and highlights the dangers of a single ruler. He concludes by mentioning his upcoming discussion on the biblical perspective of these issues and promotes his biblical commentary and bookstore. Hello everybody, this is Oliver Woods welcoming you again to TheGreatBibleReset.com, as opposed to TheGreatEconomicReset.com of Klaus Schwab. It's with the simple idea that the one thing that God requires of us at this particular time in our history is nothing other than a return to His law as summarized in Exodus 20-24. And why do I keep harping on Exodus 20-24? Because this is the lawful use of the law of God that He requires. It's the very heart of Christian nationalism, or better, the heart of what it means to be a Christian nation. This is the vital lifeblood of what it means to disciple the nations that includes both an individual and a corporate response. So I would challenge you, encourage you to read this passage every day and pray over it, internalize it. If you don't understand it, you can get my commentary at the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com. But study it on your own and study it in a group, because our very survival as a nation is at stake. We must reestablish biblical justice as defined by this summary of God's law. This is the first revelation that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, and He labeled it the Book of the Covenant. So maybe if God sees enough of us taking the law seriously like this, He will stay His hand of judgment. This passage is the very antipathy of Dante's teaching. Dante's great allegory, the Divine Comedy, calls for a one-world empire under a savior state. The Holy Roman Empire would rule city and church. According to Kantorowicz, Dante held that, and this is a quote, the curse of mankind was conquered without the intervention of the Church and its sacraments by the forces of intellect and supreme reason alone, forces symbolized by the pagan Virgil. His attacks on the Church were deserved, but Dante's alternative is just as heretical. Lasting peace and political stability could be had only by a universal monarchy with unlimited power apart from Christ. Like Aquinas and Shakespeare, Dante mixed pagan, Greek, and Christian allusions. He was a big fan of Virgil. The greatest sins in hell are offenses against political peace and unity. He indicted Brutus and Cassius who murdered Julius Caesar. They are tormented forever by Satan himself with Judas Iscariot in the lowest depths of hell. Dante's guide through hell and purgatorio is the Roman poet Virgil. This symbolizes human reason as a guide to salvation. Only after purifying himself by severe discipline in purgatory is Dante given access to heaven. His heavenly guide is Beatrice, who is the object of his unrequited earthly love. She embodies the bliss of heaven. The very idea of purgatory is relatively new at this point in Church history. The idea that man can in any way atone for his own sins or add to salvation is an assault on the sufficiency of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ. It is work's salvation at its worst. Political traitors are at the lowest level of hell for Dante because it is the unitary state in the revived Roman Empire that represents man's ultimate salvation. The divine comedy pictures a system of work's righteousness. Mankind must climb the mountain of purification or purgatorio to avoid hell and ascend into heaven. It protrudes from the exact opposite pole of Jerusalem, thus it stands opposed to salvation by faith in the atoning work of Christ alone. According to Dante, the thing that distinguishes man from the rest of creation is understanding with the capability of development. He cites the Muslim of Verus' comment on the pagan Aristotle to prove that understanding of Plato's universal forms is made practical by extension to the political realm. Thus Aristotle's politics concludes that, quote, those who are strong in understanding are the natural rulers of others, end of quote, the philosopher Kings. And by this he defines the speculative intellect as the primal goodness. By way of contrast, the Bible places many other qualities ahead of native intelligence such as ability, fear of God, love of truth, hating covenants, and more in Exodus 18.21. So Dante holds forth universal peace as the first principle for our deductions. His short chapter four in Demonarchia introduces the question, quote, is temporal monarchy necessary for the welfare of the world, end of quote, which is answered in the affirmative. The implication is that temporal monarchy is a necessary condition for the peace on earth announced by the angelic choir at the birth of Christ. As Dante is quick to point out, the alleged peace of Augustus was in fact the temporal setting into which the Savior was born. In the fullness of time, God brought forth his Son. Thus, Dante marshals the incarnation itself and the angelic pronouncement as evidence that a temporal monarchy is man's happiest mode of government. There is even a passage in Virgil that suggests this, that a boy child would be born, which many Christians mistakenly latch on to, claiming it was Christ. However, he ignores the fact that correlation does not equal causation, simply because two events happen to occur at the same point in history does not mean that they are necessarily causative one of the other. So that leads to the question, on what authority does Dante rest his political theory ultimately, the Bible or the philosopher, Aristotle? Does the Bible approve Aristotle's statement that, quote, the world is not intended to be disposed in evil order. In a multitude of rulers there is evil, therefore let there be one prince. On the contrary, Proverbs 24 says, by wise guidance you will wage war. In abundance of counselors there is victory. On the contrary, it is only the multitude of rulers that prevents tyranny, rather than a unitary ruler. Same in the courtroom as in the war council. It is all too easy for a single ruler, supposedly accountable to no one but God, to degenerate into a tyrant. Dante has not taken into account the biblical doctrine of the total depravity of man, which in practice means that a single individual cannot be trusted with total power. Moreover, a single individual does not possess sufficient wisdom in and of himself to rule wisely. Quote, in a multitude of counselors there is safety, says the proverb. Dante errs because he takes to pagan Aristotle for his source of ultimate authority instead of the Bible. Under the two kingdoms theory promoted by Dante, the so-called secular realm is removed from the authority of church council. On the one hand, the Pope allegedly leads men in matters of eternity by revealed truth. On the other hand, the emperor leads men to happiness in this world on the basis of philosophy or so-called natural law. This is reminiscent of Plato's philosopher Kings and guaranteed to produce tyranny, which by definition is rule apart from the law of God. The Lord's prayer requires us to pray for that day when God's will be done on earth, exactly as it is in heaven. One kingdom, not two. Thus Dante justifies the tragic division of church and state that stemmed from the lack of a biblical reconciliation at the castle of Canossa back in 1075. Dante and all the secular tyrants who draw inspiration from him are the spawn of that fateful abortive encounter when the Pope extended mercy to the emperor apart from justice and in a sense despised the opportunity to be reconciled and rule together with the Pope under God's law. But as interpreted by St. Augustine and others, this is apparently the same as the two swords theory in which church and state function as having equal authority under God. This is derived from Jesus' response to the disciples upon departure from the Last Supper in Luke 22.36 where the disciples respond to Jesus, Lord, we have two swords. I take it to mean at least in part that Jesus was indicating from this time forward the disciples of Christ would bear the sword of judgment in accord with the grant of authority he had just made a few sentences earlier, quote, and just as my Father has granted me a kingdom, I grant you, end of quote, in Luke 22.28. God had promised Abraham that kings would flow from his loins and Daniel had promised that the saints of the Most High would bear dominion with Christ in Daniel 7.27 and that authority was about to be secured on the cross and the resurrection had followed, but Peter misunderstood it as a sort of conquest in the garden when he cut off the ear of the servant of the high priest and Jesus restored it. So tomorrow we'll look at the biblical side of that in more detail. Until then you can get my biblical commentary on 100 of the classical authors at Kingsway Classical Academy, Keys to the Classics, A History of the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization and please visit our store at boomers-alive.com to help support the school. So thanks for being here today and we'll see you tomorrow for the climax of Dante as interpreted by the Bible.