Dante, the creator of Dante’s Inferno, has created a hell that has many levels to it, with punishments intensifying as one descends. This is a place where God, the ultimate judge, sends sinners to endure a specific method of torment based on their sin. However, the sinners have absolutely no hope for escape or relief. This poses a question toward the nature of Dante’s hell and God’s attitude regarding mankind’s evil nature. Did Dante create a place of divine justice and love conveying God’s perfect justice, or did he create a picture of a cruel God that encourages torture as punishment? Throughout Dante’s Inferno, there is evidence that Dante’s hell embodies God’s absolutely cruel punishment for mankind.
     One of the severe punishments of god would be spending eternity in Limbo, an area between heaven and hell where souls dwell, deprived of the joy of eternal existence with God in heaven. Jesus took everyone that was righteous up to heaven after his death; however, the unbaptized, even those who led virtuous lives on Earth, were put into Limbo with the other sinners. These people weren’t given a chance to be baptized and learn about God, wouldn’t it seem harsh to leave them there without any hope to redeem themselves? It is absurd that they were punished for not being taught or lead to God since they didn’t have the opportunity to. Shouldn’t God punish the people who weren’t teaching and reaching out to these people instead of the innocent? The existence of Limbo contradicts the picture of divine and perfect justice and love and instead depicts a place of heartless injustice and hate.
    The punishments that God puts these sinners under are especially unforgiving. As horrible as the sins that the evil committed were, an eternity of pain and suffering without a sliver of hope presents the purest form of torture. There is no mercy for anyone once they reach their own level of hell. Throughout the torture, the poor souls are given no chance to redeem themselves or repent for their sins, and God’s punishment doesn’t intend to allow them find any sort of greater lesson or reason for why they are enduring such an intense torture. Why must their suffering be eternal?
     Although one could still argue that Dante’s hell is a place of divine justice and love conveying God’s perfect justice by claiming that the damned souls deserved the eternal punishments since God has the ultimate discretion compared to man’s much more narrow thought process, examining it further would prove otherwise. God’s ability to punish these people and our inability to see these as suitable punishment can be explained by a possible difference of morals between God and mankind. God may see man’s sin on Earth as worthy of these punishments, and since it is in man’s nature to sin, they could be naive to the true severity of their acts on Earth. However, this argument still doesn’t support the idea of divine justice and love effectively.