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

[Carol Barton]

Michael Bryson makes the same misinterpretive error that Eve does when he says that "Yahweh [is lying] at 2:17, when he says of the forbidden tree: "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." Yahweh does not say "if you swallow this, it will instantaneously kill you"--as if it were laced with strychnine. What he says is, "The day you swallow this, you condemn yourself to death." 

Michael, it may be more interesting *for you* to contemplate the possibility that God out of some perversely self-serving whim *wants* Lucifer to rebel and Eve to consume the malus, it is not consistent with Milton's theodicy to say so. Milton's deity is not one of the classical gods who "kill us for their sport." When students have raised the issue of the Father's complicity in Satan's and Adam's and Eve's respective falls in the past, and argued for an interpretation of the poem along the lines of predestination, I've used the example of a baby playing with a cigarette lighter near the livingroom drapes to illustrate the difference. My knowing that if I allow the child to continue to do that, it's likely that he will set the house on fire does not *cause* that consequence, just as my shouting a proactive, "No! Don't do that!" doesn't forcibly prevent the child from continuing to play with the lighter. The child must choose to obey me, or choose not to do so--and what ensues from his choice may be foreseeable, but that doesn't make it a necessary consequence of my failure to prevent him from disobeying--or of my foreknowledge of what will happen if he defies me. 

In the case of Adam and Eve, were God to make it impossible for them to eat the fruit, there would be no possibility of disobedience--and no possibility of active obedience--which is, after all the point of the test. When we tell our children to "just say no" to the stranger offering candy or the pusher offering drugs, we don't (necessarily) want to terrorize them with the details of what could happen if they don't listen--we want them to trust us, and to "just say no." Eve may not understand why God prohibits her and Adam from eating the fruit--as Satan suggests, from acquiring knowledge--but that too is part of the test. It's about putting complete faith and trust in a benevolent parent, and surrendering your will to the conviction that he or she always has your best interests at heart, whether you can understand the motives behind the rules you are asked to follow or not. Compare Jesus in Gethsemane, contemplating the events to come in the terror of his full understanding of the horrors of crucifixion, yet affirming "Not my will, but thy will, be done." He chooses to face the coming agonies, rather than disobey the Father. Eve, by contrast, puts her own will above God's, and above Adam's welfare--and chooses horrors she has neither the wisdom nor the insight to understand or appreciate. Like most teenagers, she lacks judgment, lacks the ability to see "the big picture," and is easily taken in by appearances, because she is driven by will rather than reason. The role of the benevolent parent is to supply that reason until the child is morally and intellectually strong enough to make good choices for himself.

Finally, as regards God's drawing his "hell-hound" to earth: in the _Christian Doctrine_, (pace Bill Hunter's good soul) Milton says that sin is not properly an action, but the negation of one--one cannot "choose" to move away from the good. On that basis, no, Sin does not have free will, any more than those who are truly reprobate do (especially since she is the reification of reprobation itself). Even Satan recognizes the equity and fundamental mercy of this in his address to the sun: "But say I could repent . . . ." He could, like Shakespeare's Claudius, choose to repent, but like Hamlet's brother as well, he is so thoroughly enamored of the effects of his sin that he could never engage in complete contrition--something like the difference between being sincerely sorry that you have offended, or being sincerely sorry that you got caught offending. That failure would enlarge his reprobation--so God is actually being merciful in hardening his heart.

I'm not pretending that these are the final answers, or even the only answers, to such questions. As Gardner suggests, that is part of the enduring appeal of Milton's poem: ultimately, each of us must work these issues out for ourselves, and take from the poem whatever it gives us. Milton's pedagogy was Socratic--I think he as more interested in teaching us how to ask the right questions, rather than in providing us with the answers.

Best to all,

Carol Barton
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