[Milton-L] Knowledge, free will, etc.

[Michael Bryson]

"Regarding God’s wanting Satan to succeed,
obviously the narrative of Gen. 3 requires that
PL’s Satan tempt Eve, so PL’s God must allow
Satan to do that. Perhaps PL’s God even wants
Satan to do  that. But we need to draw the line
there and say that God does not want Eve to eat the
fruit."

Interesting. Why need we do so?

The narrative of Genesis 2 and 3 may very well
require a number of other things from us. Things
that I gather some on this list would not like to
have required of a reading of PL.

Adam and Eve do not die in the day they trangress
the prohibition. Adam lives 930 years. Adam and Eve
do (if Yahweh is to be credited at 3:22) "become as
one of us, to know good and evil"--much as the
serpent (who it must be pointed out, is not
Satan...such a conflation occurs only much later)
promises at 3:5: "God doth know that in the day ye
eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye
shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." The
serpent does not lie about this. If anyone does, it
is Yahweh at 2:17, when he says of the forbidden
tree: "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die." They do not die: in fact Yahweh's
concern is to prevent them from having access to the
tree that would erase the most crucial remaining
distinction between humans and the gods (rather
after the fashion of the refusal of the gods to
grant immortality to Gilgamesh, and the cruel--even
fated--way that the plant of restored youth is taken
from his grasp as well: humans are not intended to
be immortal in any of these NME tales--such is
reserved for the gods alone). Yahweh's playing out
of this pattern is clear at 3:22-24:

"and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also
of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the
garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he
was taken.So he drove out the man; and he placed at
the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a
flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the
way of the tree of life."

I would argue that it is clear that Yahweh in
Genesis does not want mankind to eat from the Tree
of Life, as he takes specific and immediate steps to
prevent such a possibility (steps notable by their
absence in the case of the Tree of Knowledge).
Perhaps this is reflected in the Father of PL as
well. But why do we "need" to "draw the line" and
say--put beyond all possibility of question and
or/debate, actually--that the Father in PL does not
want Eve to eat of the fruit of the "forbidden"
tree? Keeping the option open is far more
interesting in my view.

Michael Bryson

---- Original message ----

  Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2008 13:16:46 -0500
  From: Michael Gillum <mgillum at unca.edu>
  Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Knowledge, free will, etc.
  To: milton-l <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>

  Regarding Sin’s compulsion to move toward Earth,
  isn’t this pretty much Aristotelian physics,
  where things move toward their natural places,
  just as Dante, once purified at the top of
  Purgatory, rises spontaneously to Paradise? Like
  moves toward like because of a “connatural
  force” analogous to gravity. Then, Death is
  moved by his own hunger and the scent of prey.
  Regarding God’s agency (“I called and drew
  them hither”), is this drawing by means of a
  special decree, or is it the operation of natural
  law? It seems to me that, insofar as he can,
  Milton attributes the consequences of the Fall to
  the operation of natural law rather than to
  God’s particular decrees of punishment.

  Regarding God’s wanting Satan to succeed,
  obviously the narrative of Gen. 3 requires that
  PL’s Satan tempt Eve, so PL’s God must allow
  Satan to do that. Perhaps PL’s God even wants
  Satan to do  that. But we need to draw the line
  there and say that God does not want Eve to eat
  the fruit.

  Michael

  On 11/7/08 12:06 PM, "Mitchell M. Harris"
  <mitchell.harris at augie.edu> wrote:

    I'd disagree, Campbell. Raphael does say it is
    "higher"--"Differing but in degree, of kind the
    same" (5.490). As for how Satan knows the tree,
    Jim Rovira's post is spot on.

    I also want to join Marlene and Michael in
    saying that God clearly compels Satan to do what
    he does, but I want to qualify that claim by
    arguing that he compels him by way of his decree
    regarding free will. Milton best expresses this
    theological idea in Christian
    Doctrine--specifically in the nuanced moments of
    his sections on God's decrees, predestination,
    and election, and the hardening of hearts.
    Satan's compelled will (which, according to
    Christian Doctrine, still is a free will),
    however, clearly does not negate that Adam and
    Eve's free will can remain intact so long as
    they obey God's command.

    I think these concepts (God's decrees,
    predestination, election, etc.) are expressed
    more cogently in Book 10 when Sin has some sort
    of inner feeling that compels her to leave Hell
    and start building the road to earth with Death:

    Methinks I feel new strength within me rise,
    Wings growing, and dominion giv'n me large

    Beyond this deep; whatever draws me on,
    Or sympathy, or some connatural force
    Powerful at greatest distance to unite
    With secret amity things of like kind
    By secretest conveyance. (10.243-49)

    Later, however, God reveals that it is he, in
    fact, who called them to this work:

    And know not that I called and drew them thither
    My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
    Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed
    On what was pure . . . (10.629-32)

    So in this instance, Sin does not have free
    will, because God had decreed that on the day
    Adam ate of the fruit, he would sin and die.
    But, once again, he never decreed that Adam and
    Eve had to eat the fruit.

    Best,
    Mitch Harris

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