Sacrifice

When asked whether sacrificial unhappiness means weak connection to God, Jiang answers yes, creating an immediate tension that another student tries to resolve by distinguishing happiness from faith or devotion.

Jiang says a vow of poverty means complete social isolation: you cannot marry, cannot have children, and must sacrifice ordinary family life.

Jiang recounts Jephthah's vow as a promise to offer the first person through his door if God grants victory, which results in his daughter becoming the fatal object of the vow.

Jiang agrees that Jephthah's daughter is the hero of the biblical story because she willingly sacrifices herself so her father can keep the vow, and he says that nobility elevates her to paradise.

Jiang says the real theological reason Jesus must be human as well as divine is that crucifixion only functions as sacrifice if Jesus can truly die, making redemption meaningful.

Jiang says the free-will choice from the Justinian canto leads directly into Dante's next question: why Jesus had to sacrifice himself at all if salvation is supposed to restore justice.

A second classroom answer says the willingness to sacrifice one's son is the largest possible representation of divine love, and Jiang says that love logic is close to Dante's explanation.

Jiang says the Christian puzzle is that God's anger at humanity after the Fall is understandable, but it still makes no intuitive sense that an innocent Jesus must sacrifice himself to answer that anger.