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

[Carol Barton]

Michael (I will not denigrate you by referring only to your surname), you can twist the point in any direction you wish, but the context of the example of the child with the lighter was not responsible parenting, and you know that as well as I do. The analogy is imprecise *because* an older child playing with a lighter--having reached the age of reason, and been taught the dangers of such pastimes--would be an arsonist at worst and an imbecile at best. But this is about free will--about the way we behave, left to our devices, when we think no one is watching, and there's no one there to intervene in our disobedience. (And of course you will object that God in his omniscience is always watching--but if he intervened in this instance, Satan would be right about his eliciting "forc't hallelujahs.")

Adam and Eve were adults, equipped with right reason--were forewarned of the danger--and were capable of recognizing the potential jeopardy of their situation, as they themselves make clear in their argument in Book IX. But the fact that the Father foreknew they would fall does not mean he that either *caused* or *willed* them to do so, as you keep arguing. To prevent them from falling would be to prevent them from choosing to stand. The nature of the test was unequivocal, since Milton was constrained by the elements of the biblical narrative on which his poem was based. The point of the test was obedience. We can argue about the equity of the punishment and whether or not it fit the crime, but that severe consequence wasn't Milton's invention--and ultimately, even that is mitigated by the intercession of the Son.

You choose to see Milton's God as Empson did--as sinister, manipulative, even cruel, and that is your right. But I don't (though I don't see him as unproblematic either), and I don't think Milton did. 

Is that a reasonable justification for insult and dismissiveness, in your universe?

Best to all, 

Carol Barton
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