[Milton-L] Knowledge, free will, etc.
jfleming at sfu.ca
jfleming at sfu.ca
Fri Nov 7 14:22:21 EST 2008
May I ask, since "the Father in PL" does not appear to name anything that
exists, what we are asking about in asking what he does or does not "want"?
JD Fleming
On Fri, 7 Nov 2008 10:57:27 -0800 (PST) milton-l at lists.richmond.edu wrote:
> "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 hitherâ€), 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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James Dougal Fleming
Associate Professor
Department of English
Simon Fraser University
778-782-4713
cell: 604-290-1637
"Not always, nor of necessity, nor for the most part."
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