Beatrice asks the company of the blessed to grant Dante a taste of their feast. Three souls detach from the group and circle Beatrice like comets of joy; then a larger group circles the inner three. The greatest of the three addresses Dante — Peter, the rock on whom Christ built His Church. His examination of Dante is formal, the structure of a doctoral disputation: what is faith? Dante answers from Hebrews 11:1 — faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Peter probes: why is faith called substance? Because on it the entire superstructure of Christian hope is built; it is the foundation, the substance underlying all that follows. And why evidence? Because without faith, no demonstration of the truth it contains is possible — it is the lens, not merely the conclusion.
Peter asks: from where did you receive this faith? From the Scriptures. And why should you trust the Scriptures? This is the hardest question — the circular one that every skeptic raises. Dante's answer is elegant: the miracle of the Church's existence and spread — twelve poor, unlettered men who converted the world without wealth, without weapons, without anything but witness — is itself the greatest of miracles, greater even than the miracle of the Resurrection it proclaims. If the Resurrection were false, an extraordinary miracle would be required to explain how the world came to believe it. No other account of the Church's origin makes sense. Peter circles Dante three times, singing, embracing him like a father who has found a son worthy of trust: "Grace be to God who grants you such favor."