Free Will, Eternal Providence, and Knowledge in Milton's Paradise Lost

Milton's purpose in Paradise Lost is, as he writes in its beginning, to "assert Eternal Providence and justify the ways of God to men. What does he mean, though? If we as readers are to interpret Milton's epic poem as he intended, it's important that we know what he meant by two important ideas: "Eternal Providence" and the "ways of God," and how another idea, free will, intertwines in the story with the other two ideas, and it does so in some interesting and somewhat complicated ways.

Paradise Lost deals with the Fall of man, which, interestingly, according to Milton's storyline, includes Satan and his downfall in both Heaven and Hell. Since Milton seems to be giving the story of the Fall from both angles, "Eternal Providence" seems then to be used in this narrative in conjunction with all three characters: Satan, Adam, and Eve. This Providence is the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But, I argue that God had also given all three characters the foresight not just to be able to recognize the difference between what is good and what is evil, but also to acknowledge God's secondary idea that with this given Knowledge comes consequences for both Good and Evil.

Later in Paradise Lost, Milton seems to elude to this full understanding of consequences, however brief it is (as he wrote those moments) by having Eve, once she eats the forbidden fruit off the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, momentarily question her actions, because she knows in that moment that what she did was wrong, and as a consequence she begins to wonder whether or not it is possible that Adam would find out that she ate the fruit, thus jeopardizing their trust in each other, and even cause Adam to stop loving her and perhaps find someone else, which poisons her own mind for a moment. Furthermore, though, she also questions whether or not God will actually allow her to die, now that she has eaten the fruit. She acknowledges, for a moment, "God hath said, 'Ye shall not eat / Thereof, nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die'" (Milton 9: 662-663). But, Satan knows that Eve has only the mind of a child, and therefore he knows that he can convince her otherwise of God's intent, and convinces her that "Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live" (Milton 9: 688). She knows God has seen what she has done, so she wonders whether or not she is doomed. Or, is it that death, according to what Eve thinks God believes, is only for some, but not intended for her? She eats of the forbidden fruit, but I argue that she does so purely because her mind is not yet, as Milton illustrates, able to distinguish between what are manipulative words, like Satan telling Eve that if she would eat the fruit of God, "ye shall be as gods" (Milton 9: 708), versus what are truer declarations from God, those being the underlying test of faith that runs throughout the Book depicting the Fall.

I think that Eve's questioning both Satan and God in this moment is Milton's way of asserting Eternal Providence because Eve knows somewhere deep in her heart that she must face the consequences. Otherwise, I argue that she would not jump to such vast, irrational conclusions if she did not feel as though somehow she has knowingly done wrong.

Adam, however, knows full well about the existence of consequences, partly because of what Raphael told him of "the ruin of so many glorious once" (Milton 5: 567), and therefore, once he discovers Eve has sinned, he knows consequences are coming. He says "How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost / Defaced, deflowered and now to death devote?" (Milton 9: 900-901) and later he feels shameful in front of God, the result of his knowledge of the consequences.

One of the most prevalent "ways of God" that Milton brings to light in Paradise Lost is the idea of free will, which he shows and tells of each of the three characters to have. Adam says "He [God] left it in thy power, ordained thy will / By nature free, not overruled by fate" (Milton 5: 526-527) and also adds that because of this free will, those under God's eye are perfect, though "not immutable" (Milton 5: 524). God gave each being this free will with the understanding that with it will come the possibility (and ultimately for each, the reality) that their minds "can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven" (Milton 1: 255). God allows this evil to exist not because He will intervene to make things right, but rather He, as Milton illustrates, only gives Satan, Adam and Eve the Knowledge (along with its consequences of free will), and allows things to be just, no matter the degree to which each character feels the consequences are not "right." Milton illustrates that Adam feels absolutely sure that Eve's decision to eat of the fruit was wrong, and thus he feels that they must repent. As a result of this realization, Adam's ensuing shame is the consequence.

Satan's free will was taken much further that that of either Adam's or Eve's, and Satan chose to "raise impious war in Heav'n and battle proud" (Milton 1:43) but did so "With vain attempt" (Milton 1:44) in the beginning of the epic poem, and rather than acknowledge God's Eternal Providence, Satan instead chose to try and overthrow what God had created in Adam and Eve for a second time, but failed once more, only serving to magnify his own consequences of his own free will and further make his own mind a Hell, a consequence he echoes many times throughout the poem. Interestingly enough, though, perhaps Milton was attempting to justify to readers the as-yet-unseen consequences of his wanting to challenge God after being beaten once already, when, in Book 2, the archangel Belial says that if Satan and the rest were to challenge God again, "our final hope / Is flat despair" (Milton 2:142-143). This moment seems to me to illustrate the idea of making sure the consequences of actions are always at the forefront of the mind, but Milton makes it painfully obvious throughout Paradise Lost that Satan doesn't, nor will he ever, realize this, and thus long ago left behind his own Heaven. Adam and Eve, however, manage to realize the entire scope of the Knowledge given to them, and are thus rewarded by God's grace in the final scenes of Milton's work.

Works Cited

Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Steven Greenblatt. New York: W.W Norton & Company, 2006.