The Comedy explores the relationship that Dante believed to exist between God as Creator of the Universe and the human being as a creature of God. In common with all Christians, Dante held that this relationship was a personal one in which God, so far from being some indeterminate cosmic force, was known – because of the incarnation of Christ – as a distinct being, loving and conceiving purposes for each of the souls He had brought into existence. So the journey described in the Comedy concludes when – within the perfect circle that hitherto has represented divine activity – a human image is revealed and Dante finally sees God face to face:

These lines contain the simple truth around which Dante has built the entire poem: the human being owes its existence to a ‘glad maker’ (Purg. XVI 89), and achieves happiness and dignity when – returning to its origins – it contemplates God in the ‘court’ of Heaven.

However, it has taken Dante a hundred cantos to realise this truth; and when he does, its simplicity eludes the grasp of rational formulation.