Paradise Lost

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.