In Paradise Lost, John Milton attempts, as he states at the very beginning of his Christian epic, to “assert eternal providence, / and justify the ways of God to men”. (Bk. 1, 25-26) One main issue that Milton addresses in his theodicy is the question of free will, which has been central to Christianity throughout the centuries. Milton believes that God is all-powerful, all-seeing, and entirely good, and yet there is evil in the world. For Milton, this is a problem. In order to solve this problem, Milton accepts the doctrine of free will. Attempting to justify God and to assert his supreme power and beneficence, Milton makes numerous pronouncements about the existence of free will, both as narrator and in the speeches of God and the angels. In his arguments in favour of free will, Milton makes a determined attempt to remove God from all blame, keeping him, therefore, unassociated with evil, and not responsible for its existence.

Although Milton tries to solve the problem of evil in a world created by an all-good God, his theodicy leaves some questions unanswered. For instance, whence did evil originate? If God were the sole creator of everything that exists, would not this imply that God created evil, and is therefore, as a result, actually responsible for the Fall? If Milton believes that God is all-powerful, why does he portray him as unable to control certain things in his creation? Finally, if God is truly all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing, and yet still allows for the Fall and the resulting reign of Death which is vividly described by the angel Michael in Book XI, how can God also be all-good, loving and merciful, unless behind it all there is a divine plan which is beyond human comprehension? Milton's arguments in favour of an all-powerful God who created human beings with the ability to sin and be punished for it sometimes seem paradoxical.

In order to support this argument, Milton hypothesizes that God has limited his own power in order to supply his human creations with the power to disobey his sole commandment if they so chose. Milton portrays God as angry and wrathful when Adam and Eve disobey, even though he made it possible for them to fall by planting the tree of Knowledge in Eden and supplying them with free will. Furthermore, Milton appears to have two opposing views in Paradise Lost. At the beginning of the story, he places all of the blame for sin and death on Adam and Eve. In the last few books, however, he makes it clear that the eating of the forbidden fruit will lead to an end far happier than that which would have resulted, had the Fall not occurred. He appears to confirm the idea of the 'happy fall', or 'felix culpa', which suggests predestination rather than free will. Milton's argument is convincing to a certain extent. However, when one begins to question again on a deeper level, his endeavour to prove that God did not cause the fall is not entirely successful.

Milton attempts to assert God's supreme power throughout Paradise Lost. When Satan and the other fallen angels lie “[c]hained on the burning lake”, Milton says that Satan would not have been able to even lift his head “but that the will / And high permission of all-ruling heaven / Left him at large to his own dark designs”. (Bk. 1, 211-213) Milton also says that Satan, “the only evil”, walks the earth “Invisible, except to God alone, / By his permissive will, through heaven and earth”. (Bk. 3, 683-685) God is obviously responsible for allowing evil free range in the world.

Milton also asserts God's omniscience. God is portrayed, in Paradise Lost, as having foreknowledge of everything that will come to pass. He foresees Satan's success in seducing Eve, and foretells his Son's role as the salvation of fallen mankind. As Satan arrives upon this newly created world, God is described as “[h]im…beholding / from his prospect high, / Wherein past, present, future he beholds”. (Bk. 3, 77-78) God tells his Son that Satan can be controlled by “no bounds / Prescribed, no bars of hell, nor all the chains / Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss” (Bk. 3, 81-83); that “man will hearken to his glozing lies, / And easily transgress the sole command” (Bk. 3, 93-94); but that “mercy first and last shall brightest shine”. (Bk. 3, 134) When God's Son returns to heaven after having dispensed punishments upon Adam, Eve, and Satan, he tells his Father everything that has happened, even though God is “all-knowing”. (Bk. 10, 227) God's statement that mercy will “brightest shine” is a hint that there is a divine plan, a reason unknown to mortals, behind what we perceive; that God knows what he is doing, and has a fixed plan.

In his portrayal of God, Milton brings him down to an almost human level. God appears to be one of two powers, himself and Satan, warring in heaven. One has the sense that there is another, higher God above these two, controlling what they are doing. However, in order to write his theodicy, it was necessary for Milton to anthropomorphize God so that he could speak of the divine in human terms; it was necessary to portray perhaps, rather, the inconceivable God's shadow. There are also elements of classical literature and thought from pre-Christian eras in Paradise Lost, which certainly influenced this portrayal of God.

Even as Milton affirms that God, being all-powerful, was able to give up a small amount of his power in order to imbue Adam and Eve with free will, God's ascendancy appears diminished. When God perceives that Satan and his army are advancing, he fears for his throne, and says,

Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ
On our defence, lest unawares we lose
This our high place, our sanctuary, our hill.
(Bk. 5, 729-732)

God reacts to Adam and Eve's sin as though he could not have prevented it. He explains to the angels he appointed as guardians of the earth, upon their return to heaven, that there was nothing they could have done to stop the events. He tells them,

…be not dismayed,
Nor troubled at these tidings from the earth,
Which your sincerest care could not prevent,
Foretold so lately what would come to pass
(Bk. 10, 35-38)

In order to assert that God is not to blame for the Fall, Milton takes the power to control these things away from God, thereby making God appear to lose control over his creation for a little while. This weakens Milton's argument for an all-powerful God.

Milton also affirms that God, being completely good, created man and woman in his own image and without any flaws. The angel Raphael tells Adam and Eve: “God made thee perfect”. (Bk. 5, 524) Adam consoles Eve after the fall by telling her that God's “creating hand / Nothing imperfect or deficient left / Of all that he created, much less man”. (Bk. 9, 344-346) If God created man perfect, yet also gave him free will, how could free will be the cause of a flaw: sin? Along with free will, God implanted the ability to resist the temptation to sin. God says to his Son that he created man “just and right, /Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall”. (Bk. 3, 98-99) Furthermore, Milton says that he gave man “[p]revenient grace” (Bk. 11, 3), which makes possible repentance. Milton claims that, because God supplied man with the ability to resist evil along with the free will, he was not responsible for the Fall; that Adam and Eve made the free choice to eat of the forbidden tree even though it was within their capabilities to choose not to.

Milton outlines the doctrine of free will clearly in God's speech in Book III of Paradise Lost. He explains God's reasons for creating man the way he did and asserts that he created man, and also all his angels, with free will and the ability to resist sin, and that therefore the Fall is completely their fault:

…whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal powers
And spirits…
(Bk. 3, 96-101)

God's reason for creating man in this way is that he would have no evidence that his creatures were truly constant in obedience, faith, and love for him, and could not reward them for doing good, if free will did not exist, all was predestined, and “only what they needs must do, appeared, / Not what they would”. (Bk. 3, 105-106) Nor could God receive “pleasure…from such obedience paid”. (Bk.3, 107) Milton tries to excuse God from blame for the Fall with the argument that God, although he has foreknowledge, in no way influenced Adam and Eve to sin, and also with God's forewarning, through his angel, of Satan's malevolent intentions. God tells his Son that Adam and Eve cannot

…justly accuse
Their maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination overruled
Their will, disposed by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I
(Bk. 3, 112-117)

God tells his angel Raphael to warn Adam “to beware”, to “tell him withal / His danger” in case “willfully transgressing he pretend / Surprisal, unadmonished, unforewarned”. (Bk. 5, 237, 238-239, 244-245)

When God foresees the fall, he tells his Son that “they themselves decreed / Their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew, / Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault”. (Bk. 3, 116-118) Even though Milton's God claims that his foreknowledge did not in any way predestine the Fall, it is evident that God made it possible for Adam and Eve to sin by supplying them with free will, by allowing, with his own “permissive will”, Satan to wander unrestricted, and by planting the tree of Knowledge in Paradise. Milton says,

Meanwhile the heinous and despiteful act
…
Was known in heaven; for what can scape the eye
Of God all-seeing, or deceive his heart
Omniscient, who in all things wise and just,
Hindered not Satan to attempt the mind
Of man, with strength entire, and free will armed,
Complete to have discovered and repulse
Whatever wiles of foe or seeming friend.
(Bk. 10, 1, 5-11)

Milton's argument is difficult to accept. According to him, God supplies man with everything he needs to fall and to repent, knowing beforehand that it will all happen. If God is all-powerful, but is also extremely saddened and angered by Adam and Eve's transgression, this question arises: did God intend for it all to happen this way for some mysterious reason not known to man? Or did God make a mistake when he created man, lose control of his creation for a little while, and then repair the damage with the sacrifice of his Son? If God did not want man to fall, he could have prevented it from happening by not giving his angels and man free will. Milton's portrayal of God as disappointed in man and God's helplessness in the whole situation conflicts with the idea that God already knows what will happen as a result of the nature of his creation, man. Maybe Milton is not exactly blaming God for the Fall, but is, rather, actually thanking God for it.

In the last few books of Paradise Lost, it is apparent that Milton believes that out of evil, good will arise. Although Milton seems to be arguing for free will, maybe free will is one small part of a greater plan, and the Fall is actually a 'happy fall'. Milton mentions at times that God's ways are mysterious and are sometimes not supposed to be understood by human beings. For instance, the angel Raphael tells Adam not to concern himself with how the universe works: “Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid, / Leave them to God above”. (Bk. 8, 167-168) He says that Adam should not worry about knowing the inner workings of the universe, the scientific details that only the creator knows. This suggests that, similarly, there are many reasons behind the things God does that human beings cannot fully comprehend or know. The sense that comes across when reading Paradise Lost is that although at first Milton seems to be arguing fervently for free will, he hints at something else. On one level, Milton condemns the Fall, but on another level he reveals to the reader how as a result of it, we have Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension, which he describes as “the happy end”. (Bk. 12, 605)

In the later books of Paradise Lost, Milton stresses that the result of Satan's fall from heaven was the fall of Adam and Eve, which in turn will result in the salvation of man and eternal life when his Son conquers death by his own death. Adam and Eve are in deep despair the morning after they have eaten the forbidden fruit and have succumbed to lust and intemperate pleasure. However, this despair is turned to joy when God, out of compassion, sends his angel Michael to reveal to them enough of God's future plans to give them comfort. God, although firm and wrathful, is also kind to them. He says first, “Haste thee, and from the Paradise of God / Without remorse drive out the sinful pair”. (Bk. 11, 105-106) But then he says,

…Yet lest they faint
At the sad sentence rigorously urged,
For I behold them softened and with tears
Bewailing their excess, all terror hide.
If patiently thy bidding they obey,
Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveal
To Adam what shall come in future days
…
So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace
(Bk. 11, 108-114, 117)

God wants the angel Michael to console Adam and Eve with the knowledge that the state of things as it now appears to them is not the ultimate end. Milton says at the beginning of Book I that he will “assert eternal providence”. This divine care and guidance is evident in the fact that he does not desert his creatures to an eternity of suffering. Instead, through his grace, man is able to repent and be redeemed: “Prevenient grace descending had removed / The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh / Regenerate grow instead”. (Bk. 11, 3-4) The oracle delivered from God to Adam and Eve by the angel Michael, previously pronounced in Satan's punishment, is a key point in Milton's assertion of God's providence. It strongly suggests the idea of the 'happy fall'. God says: “Between thee and the woman I will put / Enmity, and between thine and her seed; / Her seed shall bruise thy head, thou bruise his heel”. (Bk. 10, 179-181) The angel Michael says to Adam,

This ponder, that all nations of the earth
Shall in his seed be blessed; by that seed
Is meant thy great deliverer, who shall bruise
The serpent's head…
(Bk. 12, 147-150)

This “great deliverer” will be God's Son, “of Kings / the last, for of his reign shall be no end” (Bk. 12, 329-330), whose “Godlike act” will “bruise the head of Satan, crush his strength / Defeating Sin and Death”. (Bk. 12, 430-431) This suggests that the perception of things Milton gave in the earlier books of Paradise Lost was not a complete picture. If God lost control of his creation briefly, then salvaged it, Milton's argument would not hold, as God would no longer be all-powerful. Therefore, it is necessary to conclude that Milton either accepted the idea of the 'happy fall', or else that his argument for free will and a blameless God is not entirely successful. Milton brings the reader down with Adam and Eve as they fall. The reader is seduced by Satan, who is so vividly and powerfully portrayed by Milton, along with them. When all hope seems lost, Milton brings in the oracle, which renews hope and brings with it the understanding that there is a divine plan beneath the surface appearance of things.

Adam confirms the idea that good will come out of evil when he tells Eve that he feels certain that his prayers to God were heard, and that his memory of the promise that Eve's seed will bruise Satan's head reassures him. He says to Eve,

…the bitterness of death
Is past, and we shall live. Whence hail to thee,
Eve rightly called, mother of all mankind,
Mother of all things living, since by thee
Man is to live, and all things live for man.
(Bk. 11, 157-161)

Eve then says, “infinite in pardon was my judge, / That I who first brought death on all, am graced / The source of life”. (Bk. 11, 167-169) The idea of the 'happy fall' can also be clearly discerned in Eve's later speech:

O goodness infinite, goodness immense!
That all this good of evil shall produce,
And evil turn to good; more wonderful
Than that which by creation first brought forth
Light out of darkness! Full of doubt I stand,
Whether I should repent me now of sin
By me done and occasioned, or rejoice
Much more, that much more good thereof shall spring
(Bk. 12, 469-476)

Milton concludes Paradise Lost with the comforting assurance that “the promised seed shall all restore” (Bk. 12, 623) as Adam and Eve leave Eden, with “providence their guide”. (Bk. 12, 647) The happy ending that Milton predicts, and the consolation God offers to Adam and Eve through his angel, suggest that all of the events - the fall of Lucifer and its resulting consequences - were still under the his care and control, even if they appeared not to be.

Milton set out to “justify the ways of God to men”, and he did so, although in a different way than he may have intended. The idea that comes across in Paradise Lost is similar to that Saint Paul professes:

For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might
have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the
wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his
judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath
known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?
Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed
unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him,
are all things: to whom be glory for ever.
(Romans 11:32-36)

In Paradise Lost, Milton attempts to absolve God from blame for Lucifer's rebellion, his resulting fall from heaven, and Adam and Eve's fall from Paradise. However, Milton's argument does not solve the problem of the origin of evil. God himself created Lucifer. As with all his creatures, Milton says, he gave his angels free will, and therefore, Lucifer is entirely to blame for what happened to him. However, if Milton argues that God is omnipotent and omniscient, the sole creator of the universe, it is logical to conclude that he must have created evil as well as good. It doesn't make sense that an all-powerful and good God would depend on the worship of his creatures, and even go so far as to test them by supplying free will to make sure they are really faithful and not just obeying because they are forced to by predestination. As Saint Paul said, “of him, and through him, and to him, are all things.” If God did not create evil, then one would have to assume that another God exists, who created it, which conflicts with the Christian doctrine that there is only one God. Milton's argument for free will does not absolve God from blame; rather, there is no question of blame in the 'happy fall', which he confirms in Paradise Lost. 'Evil' can actually be seen as 'good' in disguise. As Saint Paul said, “how unsearchable are [God's] judgments, and his ways past finding out!” For reasons beyond man's understanding, God has made things happen the way they have: “God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all”.

Josepha Anne Morbey
March, 2002