Samantha and Shelbi St. Claire
Prof. Flack
Eng 6
16 November 2012
Paradise Lost: Book 3
Summary:
- ·
Speaker calls on his muse to inspire his
writings so that others may profit by them
- ·
We find out that God has been watching Satan the
entire time he has been out of heaven and plotting, and understands and knows
everything Satan is planning and about to do
- ·
God reveals his omniscient power (he can see the
past, present, and the future)
- ·
He knows that Man will fall, but decides to
allow it to happen because to prevent it would be to force Man’s obedience to
Him, which would be denying them free will
- ·
God chooses to display love and grace towards
disobedient Man
- ·
His Son asks how God can forgive sin without
justice being met, and God admits that Man needs a sacrifice to take their
punishment
- ·
His Son decides to be the sacrifice that would
wash Mankind clean of sin and reconcile them back to God again
- ·
The heavenly host (angels) praises the Godhead
for such divine and undeserved compassion
- ·
Back on earth, Satan is on a hunt to find where
Man lives, and spots the angel Uriel who is standing guard over the Garden of
Eden
- ·
Disguising himself as an innocent cherub, he
deceives Uriel into thinking he has been blissfully checking out God’s creation
and desires to see the Garden
- ·
Uriel believes this lie and allows Satan access
into the Garden where Man lives
Quote Analysis:
·
“So
much the rather thou celestial Light / Shine inward, and the mind through all
her powers / Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence / Purge and
disperse, that I may see and tell / Of things invisible to mortal sight”
(51-55).
Book
III begins with another invocation to the Muses, this time asking for
“celestial Light.” Being physically blind, Milton speaks of being denied
physical light, but he affirmed that if he had the choice, he would much rather
have spiritual light to see the hidden, spiritual things rather than physical
things. He pleads with this “celestial Light” to “shine inward” and “purge and
disperse” the spiritual “mist” that clouds his soul’s sight. Knowing that he
was about to write a very controversial book that argued with his religious
contemporaries, he was telling his readers that this enlightenment caused him
to see “things invisible to mortal sight.” He believed that such a claim would give
his writings some credibility, and hopefully would help him avoid persecution.
This didn’t work!
·
“Freely
they stood who stood, and fell who fell. / Not free, what proof could they have
giv’n sincere / Of true allegiance, constant faith or love, / Where only what
they needs must do, appeared, / Not what they would” (3.102-106).
In
this passage, Milton’s strong opinions of free will are declared through the
mouth of God. Living in a society that squelched freedom of the press and free
speech, Milton wrote many works on freedom, including
Areopagitica,
which was written in condemnation of pre-publication censorship. Even his
Puritan friends adopted this restrictive mindset in the form of Calvinism,
which essentially said that there is no free will and that God determines
whether one will be saved or not before they are even born. Milton’s God says
to his culture, “Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.” However,
Milton proceeds to back up his belief by saying that if his society is correct,
that there is no freedom of speech or will, and that whatever obedience is done
is done out of force, then “what proof could they have giv’n sincere / Of true
allegiance, constant faith or love?” (103-104). This begs the question: If a
subject only obeys because he has to and has been forced to, is he truly loyal?
·
“What
praise could they receive? / What pleasure I from such obedience paid, / When
will and reason (reason also is choice) / Useless and vain, of freedom both
despoiled, / Made passive both, had served necessity, / Not me” (3.102-110).
Milton
further proves his aforementioned point in the very next verse. According to
Milton’s God, if He forces His creation to obey, “What praise could they
receive?” (102). Yes, their heed to His commands would still be obedience, but
they wouldn’t be obeying because they wanted to. They would receive no more praise
for their obedience than one would give a robot for doing what it is programmed
to do. God cries, “What pleasure I from such obedience paid, / When will and
reason (reason also is choice) / Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled, /
Made passive both, had served necessity, / Not me” (107-111). God cannot get
any pleasure from creatures who serve Him not out of being convinced through
their reason that He is good to obey, but out of necessity, because they are
forced to. Milton was bluntly telling his readers that this idea of
predestination “despoil[s]” will and reason of freedom, making them “useless
and vain” and causing God’s people to serve because there is an outside force
causing them to, and not because they freely and willingly believe in Him.
·
“[They
cannot] justly accuse / Their Maker, or their making, or their fate, / As if
predestination overruled / Their will … / … if I foreknew, / Foreknowledge had
not influence on their fault, / Which had no less proved certain unforeknown”
(112-119).
Milton makes his
bold move against his religious contemporaries here in this passage. To his
Calvinist friends who firmly believed in predestination (that God determined
who was to be saved even before they were born and so therefore do not have
much of a choice in the matter), Milton says through the mouth of God that
“predestination [does not] overrule / Their will” and that “Foreknowledge had
not influence on their fault.” Milton ambitiously declares that no one can say,
“He made me do it, I was born this way, I was destined to do this.” Milton
risked blatant heresy by using God’s own mouth as his instrument, telling his
Puritan readers that because everything we do is done out of free will,
whatever we do we would have done whether God had foreknowledge of it or not.
·
“The
first sort by their own suggestion fell, / Self-tempted, self-depraved: man
falls deceived / By the other first: man therefore shall find grace, / The
other none” (129-132).
Milton
believed that Satan and his followers were given no mercy from God because they
were not tempted by others. They came up with their proud rebellion themselves;
a pretty astonishing feat considering God had blessed them abundantly and gave
them nothing to be angry about besides the desire to rule. On the other hand,
Eve did not rebel against God the same way Satan did because she did not come
up with the idea all by herself. Satan tempted her, and he led her into
rebellion. Therefore, God gave grace to man, and none to Satan, as it says
elsewhere in scripture: “Temptations to sin are sure
to come, but woe to the one through whom they come! It would be
better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were cast into
the sea than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin” (Luke 17:1-2,
ESV). God considers the tempter to be far more sinful than the tempted,
because the tempted would not have fallen into disobedience had the tempter not
come along.
·
“Man shall not quite be lost, but
saved who will, / Yet not of will in him, but grace in me / Freely vouchsafed”
(173-175)
Man is
saved by the grace of God and not of any good deeds or accomplishments of his
own. The only way a man can save himself is if he turns to God’s grace. This is
the only way a man can save himself and yet even in this decision he cannot
boast because in the end it is still God’s grace that saves him, not the man’s
actions. This shows the religious concept during Milton’s time that all good is
done by God.
·
“…[F]or
I will clear their senses dark, / What may suffice, and soften stony hearts /
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due. / To pray, repentance, and obedience
due, / Though but endeavored with sincere intent, / Mine ear shall not be slow,
mine eye not shut” (188-193).
God says
He Himself will clear Man’s senses and soften their hearts, and yet says that
they must be sincere in order to gain grace. Is He saying that once they seek
Him sincerely, then He will clear their senses and give them grace? Or is He
saying that He must give them spiritual enlightenment first, and then they must
respond sincerely? God almost seems to
be contradicting Himself here, because how can they repent and turn to Him
unless he softens their hearts first? But it makes sense in line with what He
has already said. It is Man’s choice to turn to God, and the moment he does,
God will not hesitate to claim him as His own. Their repentance must be sincere
and with true intent to be obedient to Him. God does not control man; man
realizes that he must be obedient to God and so decides to. Only when man has
done this, out of free will, then God will “clear their senses dark / …and
soften stony hearts” (188-89). God will give man a new heart, one of worship
and praise, and will clear their senses to give them an open mind.
·
“He with his whole posterity must
die, / Die he or justice must; unless for him / Some other able, and as
willing, pay / The rigid satisfaction, death for death” (209-212).
Man’s
sin is so great that death is the only payment for it, death referring to
eternity in hell and utter separation from God. But because Jesus was willing
to die in our place, we are offered the gift of life; eternal salvation and
living with God. We see an example of this with Adam and Eve, that because of
their disobedience in eating the fruit of knowledge they brought upon themselves
the result of sin: suffering and death. And because their eyes were opened to
good and evil, they became subject to temptations to sin further. We see more
of their fallen state in Book 5 where we see Adam and Eve’s relationship start
to fall apart. Once sin is allowed access, it can only go downhill. The only
way to stop sin is to punish it, by death. Only if someone else is punished in
man’s place, man can be made innocent again.
·
“Thou wilt not leave me in the
loathsome grave / His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul / Forever with
corruption there to dwell; But I shall rise victorious, and subdue / My
vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil; / Death his death’s wound shall then receive,
and stoop / Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed” (247-253).
Jesus
will conquer death when He dies for man. Jesus will die and rise from the dead,
defeating death, and because of His victory we can defeat death too. We see
this also in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he says, “Oh death, where
is your victory? Oh death, where is your sting?” (1 Cor 15:55) This is most
likely where Milton gets his last line where he refers to death as having its
“mortal sting disarmed” (253). From these passages we see that Jesus not only
escaping death for Himself, but that Jesus has actually defeated death for
everyone who will put their faith in Him. This is the belief that Milton is
trying to incorporate in this verse.
·
“Well thou know’st how dear / To me
are all my works, nor man the least / Though last created, that for him I spare
/ Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save, / By losing Thee a while, the
whole race lost” (276-280).
God
loves man so much so that He will give up His only Son, who is Himself, in
order to save them. The decision is painful, but it is after all for only a
“while.” Jesus will rise again, and everyone will have the opportunity to call
on Him if they believe in Him. This is where Milton brings the Gospel into his
story and shows the great bond between God, Jesus, and man. Despite man’s
disobedience, God still loves man and is willing to do the only thing that can
be done to save man.
·
“So spake the false dissembler
unperceived; / For neither man nor angel can discern / Hypocrisy, the only evil
that walks / Invisible, except to God alone, / By his permissive will, through
Heav’n and earth” (681-685).
Satan is the first
deceiver, fooling both man and even the angels. But he can only do what God
allows him; though he has free will and holds full responsibility for his
actions, he must ask the Creator before he can do anything, and for God’s
purposes, He sometimes allows Satan to do the evil that he does, turning it
around for the good of man. It is weird that though apparently Satan comes out
as the hero in the end, the way he is described in the beginning is a very evil
and low character. Milton acts as though we can relate to Satan in his
rebellion toward the tyrant God, but how can he explain that fact that because
God is good, Satan must do evil in order to oppose God? And in doing evil, he
harms others, specifically man. This is also an act against God as he is after
what God loves the most. Regardless of how much of a tyrant we take God to be,
how does one justify pure evil? If we consider God to be so controlling and bad
based off what we know of God, then according to our own standard Satan is no
better.
Critical Perspective:
- Article
summary:
- ·
Walker argues that according to Milton in
Paradise Lost, no human action can be freely performed unless it is grounded in
reason.
- ·
Walker argues Milton’s point that obedience to
God done out of force does not gain God’s love. Therefore, only through free
will can Man properly display his true loyalty to God.
- ·
Walker discusses Stanley Fish’s claim that in
the case of the fruit, God’s command asks Adam and Eve to obey not out of
reason, but blindly, out of a leap of faith. Walker argues that since “faith”
referred to by Milton is a freely performed human action (not a blind one), it
follows that it is not independent of reason but is grounded in an exercise of
reason.
- ·
Walker proves his point by explaining that Eve
was “deceived” by the serpent. Using reason (illogical reason, but still reason
none the less), Satan argued her into believing her original reasons for
obeying God’s command were full of error.
- ·
Walker reiterates his point by analyzing Adam’s
expressed fear that a “Foe” may come to deceive them and cause them to fall
into disobedience.
- ·
Walker discusses Milton’s claim that after the
Fall, we still have free will but our reason can now be overruled by our
passions and desires, leading us to make illogical decisions and disobey God.
However, we still choose to allow our
passions to overrule our reason.
- Important
quotes:
·
“[If] Adam and Eve had refrained
from eating the fruit, and had they done so because they were forced to do so
by something other than themselves… It would be a service of necessity and
therefore not something for which they could justly be praised” (p. 147).
According to Walker, Milton introduces the idea that
blind obedience is not true loyalty in Book 3. Walker gets this interpretation
from Book 3, line 106, when God declares that man needs to have free will in
order to deserve “praise” from Him. If man does not have free will, and only
obeys out of “necessity,” according to God there cannot be any true love
between Him and His creation. This is a pivotal analysis because the issue of
free will is a reoccurring theme in Paradise
Lost, and how the characters exercise free radically changes one’s opinion
of the characters and who is the true wrongdoer of the story.
·
“Free obedience, God also suggests,
is obedience that is chosen… Given
that the free obedience God requires is chosen,
it must involve some kind of exercise of reason” (p. 147).
Walker here is drawing from multiple passages to obtain
this final analysis that if free obedience is chosen, it must follow that
reason governs obedience. Walker brings up this analysis of Paradise Lost in answer to Fish’s
argument that in some cases (such as the case of the fruit), one must obey out
of faith, not out of reason. Walker sees no reason to draw such a contradictory
theory, because of certain passages such as when God affirms His strong opinion
of free will when He says that “will and reason” are inseparable (3.108), and
that He requires “[o]ur voluntary service” (5.526-34). Walker concludes from
these passages that Milton considers any obedience to be a choice (and choice
must always be governed by reason). Therefore, if obedience is done out of
faith, then the faith itself is the reason behind the obedience, or there are
reasons behind the faith. Either way, Walker finds that any action done
includes an “exercise of reason,” which makes the actions chosen, so obedience
done out of faith is obedience backed up with reason.
·
“To ignore the dictates of reason…
would be tantamount to telling them to give up their inner freedom” (p. 149).
Walker claims that to obey without reason is to give up
one’s “inner freedom,” which would assume that true freedom is to obey based on
Reason. People normally believe Christianity, God, and the “thou-shalt-nots”
that go along with religion to be restricting and enslaving. They are right,
but only if they follow their religion blindly, as a robot who obeys its master
with no reason. But if one’s obedience and belief is dictated by Reason (as in,
the one obeying has explanations that they are convinced backs up why they
believe what they do), then, in fact, obedience is actually freeing. If we are
convinced of what we believe in, the world is more concrete, our goals are
clear, and life is less of a scary mystery. In the case of Adam and Eve as told
by Milton, they never give us this “inner freedom,” but have reasons why they
obey God and why they didn’t obey Him.
·
“Man is free to act insofar as he
submits to reason rather than passion and desire” (p. 151).
Walker explores Milton’s reason for
why we do not reason with ourselves as we ought. After the Fall, mankind’s free
will to reason is overruled many times by passions and desires that cloud our
senses and result in stupid choices and disobedience to God. Walker takes this
idea further by comparing these passions and desires to political rulers that
“usurp” our reason’s rightful rule, put it in “subjection” to these passions,
and even demand “servitude” from Reason (p 150-1). Milton perhaps had further
reasons for using such strong, political expressions, because he was very
passionate when it came to how a king should rule. He disagreed greatly with
King Charles I, who refused to listen to the counsel of Parliament and
considered himself to be king by divine decree, thus putting his law above
man’s. Milton could perhaps have irrationality in mind when he refers to these
enslaving Passions. He could be comparing these wild Passions to a tyrant who
irrationally overrules Reason (such as listening to Parliament), leaving his
subjects to hold their own “lives and
estates by the tenure of his mere grace and mercy, as from a god, not a mortal
magistrate” (The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates).
·
“The Fall is not essentially a
failure of the will but a failure of that faculty upon which the freedom of the
will depends. As Joan Bennett puts it, ‘Eve’s failure comes in not reasoning
long or hard enough, and in not calling upon the collaboration of another reasoner”
(p. 155).
Here Walker finds two explanations for why Eve fell into
temptation: she did not reason “long or hard enough,” and she did not seek the
advice and mental strength of someone else before she made her decision. As
Walker puts it, sin did not originate because of internal weakness on Eve’s
part (“a failure of the will”), but because she allowed Satan’s reasons to
overrule her reasons without thinking carefully on them first. However, even if
Eve genuinely was convinced that Satan was in the right, she needed to seek her
husband’s counsel before flagrantly disobeying their Maker’s law. As the saying
goes, “Two heads are better than one,” because one person might see things
differently than the other may see them. We need to stick together in case one
of us gets deceived, because the other can bring us back to Reason.
