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

[Watt, James]

Jame Rovira and Carol Barton are on the right side of this argument I think.  J.M., being a rather bright (if not the most intelligent of all the poets in English!) person as well as a gifted poet decides to remedy the difficulty some see in the lack of a compelling Christian epic (Dante is beautiful and brilliant, but, alas, not an epic poet and, from Milton's point of view, rather crippled by his unfortunate situation vis a vis the Catholic church).  Now we have an interesting argument that with the Bible we don't really NEED a Christian epic, but that misses the point: we definitely WANT one (in the sense that it doesn't exist ... and some will argue it still doesn't). I know 'you can't always get what you want,' and so, I suspect, did Milton.  But he also knows (along with Mick) that 'if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.'  And so he tries.  And voila: he gets it.
He DOESN'T get a foolproof theodicy.  But nobody but a fool thinks that's what he was after (go back to the opening verses, friends): "a great argument."  And an argument, of course, is not a mathematical proof, nor a perfect (how boring!) syllogism. It's a summation; it's a compelling call to the jury to acquit.  So it's addressed to the heart. "Find God, 'Not Guilty'; see what follows."  The --necessary-- corollary is, "Find him Guilty and never see what follows."  Oh rats, Reason cries, why can't I have it both ways?  And never understands.  The key scriptural passages to keep at hand with all the fine points P.L. brings so resoundingly to our attention are: Matt. 7:7 "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you" & Luk 11:9: "And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."
The fun of Lit. Crit. in general and the special fun of P.L. is that if you don't go looking for an answer, you won't find one.  & that's why questions are [always!] so much more important than answers.
many thanks to you all for stirring this old brain pan once again!

Jim Watt

________________________________________
From: milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu [milton-l-bounces at lists.richmond.edu] On Behalf Of James Rovira [jamesrovira at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, November 08, 2008 4:08 PM
To: John Milton Discussion List
Subject: Re: [Milton-L] Knowledge, free will, etc.

I think Michael Bryson's post raises here, again, interesting points.  But he seems to be trying to have it both ways so winds up having it neither.  We seem to be confronted with two options:

1. Milton's "God" is a character in a fiction, not to be confused with even Milton's own conception of the real God.
2. Milton's PL is intended to be a theodicy defending the real God (as understood by Milton -- which would include his acknowledgment of the limitations of human knowledge).

But of course to uphold point two you have to compromise point one, and to uphold point one you have to compromise point two.  If we stick to point one -- that Milton's God is purely a fictional construct, with no certain relationship to the real God, even as Milton understood him -- then we cannot believe PL is a theodicy for anything but this fictiionally constructed God.

However, if we believe PL is designed to defend the real God as Milton understood him, then we have to believe the God of PL in some way accurately represents the real God (again, as Milton understood him).

If we don't keep this tension firmly in mind, what we'll wind up doing is emphasizing point one (the God of PL is fictional) when it's convenient to our argument, and then point two when it's convenient at other points, never acknowledging the fundamentally unsound, self-contradictory nature of our argument.  I think this is to be guily to equivocation on the word "God" -- which comes to mean two things: a ficitonal construct, and a real deity.

I think the way through this kind of equivocation is to keep the specific issue firmly in mind: does the God of PL, and/or the real God as understood by Milton, actively desire Adam and Eve to fall?  The only answer possible for Milton is, I think, no: an answer in the affirmative would be to defeat Milton's theodicy by making God the author of sin, and it doesn't matter if we're giving this answer for a fictional God of PL or the real God as Milton understood him.  "God" cannot be guilty of sin either way, at least for Milton.  Otherwise, what's the point of a theodicy?

Again, the elements of PL which seem to imply God desired Eve to fall are easily dealt with and have been by my previous posts.  For that matter, most of Michael Bryson's claims about the implications of some elements of PL seem to me to be easily dismissed.  Yes, we can take a worst possible reading of PL as we can of any text.  What's lacking is a reason for doing so that lies anywhere other than the predisposition of the interpreter.  Can you make the God of PL look bad?  Yes.  But then, you can make anyone and anything look bad.  So what?  Does this give us any real insight into the text or its characters?

Jim R

On Sat, Nov 8, 2008 at 11:27 AM, Michael Bryson <michael.bryson at csun.edu<mailto:michael.bryson at csun.edu>> wrote:
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.