Dante’s journey in the Paradiso takes the shape of an ascent through several levels, culminating in the vision of God in the final canto. Dante’s plan for his poem gives visual shape to an important spiritual concept, one found in both classical Greek philosophy and Christian thought: the soul’s ascent to the divine.

Plotinus, the founder of Neoplatonism, taught that man was led by degrees from the love of sensible objects to the spiritual love of God, a concept that strongly influenced later Christian theologians. Closer to Dante’s time, St. Thomas Aquinas’s theology was predicated on the idea that man can pass from the knowledge of sensible objects to the knowledge of their unseen causes, culminating in God. The Christian church taught that by participating in sacraments, human beings could commune with the divine.

In her speech in Canto 1, Beatrice explains that all created things have a natural inclination to God (1: 103-142). This explains why she and Dante seem to naturally float upward to each sphere of Heaven without having to make an effort; God’s force of attraction is irresistible. Beatrice likens this force to the force of gravity as well as to an archer’s bow shooting at a target.