I agree with the above comments, but just want to comment because I love Dante and therefore I love to talk about the Divine Comedy. This is just my take on this aspect of the Commedia (although granted, it's heavily influenced by the prof who taught the class, ahem.).
The love that causes sin is not agape or Christian charity, as catholic_heart pointed out; it is love, or desire, perverted or applied to the wrong object. The souls in the Inferno/Hell are there because they "wanted" to be there, in a sense: they loved, or desired, wrongly, and so their punishment is just the fully realized manifestation of their disordered passions. The souls who are in the Circle devoted to Gluttony, for example, are there because of their excessive love/desire for indulgence, food, etc.
In the Purgatorio, we see these passions being re-ordered (or really, "un-disordered", but that's just me making up words). The souls here are being trained to love the right things, in the right way. (That is why, I think, Dante's Purgatorio is so well-ordered and well-organized. It is almost mathematical. Anyway.) Once we get to the Paradiso, the passions have been retrained and the souls (and Dante) learn to love in a more pure way (as
The love that causes sin is not agape or Christian charity, as catholic_heart pointed out; it is love, or desire, perverted or applied to the wrong object. The souls in the Inferno/Hell are there because they "wanted" to be there, in a sense: they loved, or desired, wrongly, and so their punishment is just the fully realized manifestation of their disordered passions. The souls who are in the Circle devoted to Gluttony, for example, are there because of their excessive love/desire for indulgence, food, etc.
In the Purgatorio, we see these passions being re-ordered (or really, "un-disordered", but that's just me making up words). The souls here are being trained to love the right things, in the right way. (That is why, I think, Dante's Purgatorio is so well-ordered and well-organized. It is almost mathematical. Anyway.) Once we get to the Paradiso, the passions have been retrained and the souls (and Dante) learn to love in a more pure way (as
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