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

[Michael Bryson]

A "misinterpretive error"? I take it that my error
is in failing to read the character of Yahweh in the
way Carol Barton outlines below...if so, I will
stand in my "error." There is no indication, so far
as I can tell, that Yahweh has any such fine
distinctions in mind as are involved in claiming
that Adam and Eve will condemn themselves to death.
And as for Yahweh treating human beings like sport,
I offer Job, and the story of the lying spirit at
1Kings 22:20-23 (among a number of other examples).

Milton's creation--the Father--is another matter
entirely. He quite clearly does have such
distinctions in mind. But then Barton says the
following:

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."

Neither when I make a point about Yahweh, nor when I
make a point about the Father in PL, am I making a
point about "God." Who or what is "Milton's deity"?
I do not know. In Milton's own words,  “God, as he
really is, is far beyond man’s imagination, let
alone his understanding” (YP 6:133). What I do
know is Milton's poetic creation, and to deny that
that creation is at least partially modeled on
"classical gods" (whether or not imagined in terms
of a quote from King Lear) seems to me an untenable
claim.

And it is perfectly consistent with Milton's
theodicy to say that the Father may (or does) want
Eve to fall. The Father, a literary character after
all, is not what is being defended in that theodicy.

And while Barton's classroom example is certainly
colorful, any parent who lets a baby play with a
cigarette lighter, and near the drapes at that (and
then not only does not physically prevent them from
continuing, but blames the baby--and the baby's
"free will"--for the disaster that ensues), ought to
get a visit from Child Protective Services. That
example may serve to silence students (if that is,
as it seems, its intent), but it doesn't tend to
make the Father look so good by analogy.

And the following example simply boggles my mind:

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.

Let's not mince words here. When a parent tells a
child to "just say no" to the stranger, it is
because the stranger may very well be a threat to
the child's life (rape and murder being so often the
horrific consequences of a failure to say no). What
"benevolant parent" who asks a child to surrender
his or her will "to the conviction that he or she
always has your best interests at heart" either
provides, or merely sits back and watches the
progress of, the very "stranger" that is such a
mortal threat to the child? The parent that would do
that is possibly evil, possibly psychotic, possibly
some combination of those things. But what that
parent is not is simply and unproblematically
benevolant. Again, the Father is not coming off well
here by analogy.  Is that, ironically enough, the
point? Because I cannot imagine--at this early AM
and precaffeinated hour--more effective
illustrations to make my point about the Father.

Michael Bryson

P.S. A final point: when the Father sends Raphael
down to talk to Adam (5.224-45), it does not seem
that he is sending Raphael to warn Adam so that Adam
will "just say no." It looks very much as if he is
sending Raphael to warn Adam so that Adam will have
no excuse: "This let him know, / Lest, wilfully
transgressing, he pretend / Surprisal, unadmonished,
unforewarned."

Calvin makes much the same point about rendering man
inexcusable in the Institutes (3.2.11): 

"I know that to attribute faith to the reprobate
seems hard to some, when Paul declares it the result
of election [cf 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5]. Yet this
difficulty is easily solved. For though only those
predestined to salvation receive the light of faith
and truly feel the power of the gospel, yet
experience shows that the reprobate are sometimes
affected by almost the same feeling as the elect, so
that even in their own judgment they do not in any
way differ from the elect [cf. Acts 13:48].
Therefore it is not at all absurd that the apostle
should attribute to them a taste of the heavenly
gifts [Hebrews 6:4-6] and Christ, faith for a time
[Luke 8:13]; not because they firmly grasp the force
of spiritual grace and the sure light of faith, but
because the Lord, to render them more convicted and
inexcusable, steals into their minds to the extent
that his goodness may be tasted without the Spirit
of adoption."

In that moment from Book 5, the Father seems rather
like Calvin's conception of deity...

---- Original message ----

  Date: Sat, 08 Nov 2008 10:05:31 -0500
  From: "Carol Barton" <cbartonphd1 at verizon.net>
  Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Knowledge, free will, etc.
  To: "John Milton Discussion List"
  <milton-l at lists.richmond.edu>

  

  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
  >________________
  >_______________________________________________
  >Milton-L mailing list
  >Milton-L at lists.richmond.edu >Manage your list
  membership and access list archives at
  http://lists.richmond.edu/mailman/listinfo/milton-l
  > >Milton-L web site: http://johnmilton.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.richmond.edu/pipermail/milton-l/attachments/20081108/8d3b595e/attachment-0001.html