faith

Imaginative belief that God, heaven, hell, and divine love are real.

This packet explicitly discusses faith in Jiang's lecture framing.

Jiang defines faith as trusting that God loves us, has a plan, and can be followed through intuition despite incomplete knowledge.

Raised in class as the Christian mode tied to belief without evidence and deferred by Jiang to Dante's later treatment of Paul. Named by Jiang as the mode through which the eternal is grasped when logic cannot finish the work. A student's shorthand for absolute will because it does not require external justification.

Jiang says souls who have to pass through Purgatory reach their place in Heaven according to the same criteria that structure Paradise: understanding of God, faith, and willingness to be with God.

He defines faith as imagination: believing in God, divine generosity, mercy, and one's own mission without proof.

Jiang says Inferno's circles punish ways of disrupting the capacities for faith, love, and hope, which is why Purgatory becomes the difficult unresolved part of the cosmology.

Jiang says Dante would see love as the expression of devotion, faith, and individuality rather than a route to sexual possession.

Jiang instead says purgatorial fire hardens what is soft or inconsistent, making the soul firm in faith, commitment, and devotion.

When a student raises the case where rebellion means certain death, Jiang answers that only a faithless view treats death as the worst thing that can happen.

Jiang says faith means trusting that God gave free choice so that one can live the best possible life, and if that life is blocked, the immortal soul can continue beyond death.

Jiang calls contented slavery sinful because it shows a lack of faith and a failure to understand that human beings are here to live the best life possible, inspire others, and co-create the universe.