I perceive the question of God’s
foreknowledge of temporal events to be critical in understanding the ways of a
good, perfect and just God as they relate to men in an obviously imperfect
world. As I have read, Paradise Lost,
I have done so asking, “What does Milton believe and teach concerning how God knows what he knows?” Reading
the work has lead me to believe that Milton does not give a full answer to that
question. Instead the how of God’s
knowledge is lost amid the details and appeal, as explanation for culpability,
to a libertarian moral freedom in humanity. This explanation, and defense of
the goodness and justice of God, is without merit if Milton does not address how God foreknows the fall, and all
other events in human history, because the nature of human freedom and God’s
governance in Paradise Lost is
dependant upon what Milton believes concerning God’s foreknowledge. Though
Milton writes Paradise Lost to
justify the ways of God to man, he ultimately cannot do so and maintain a
foundational trust in God’s control or ultimate victory because he has a theology
of God’s foreknowledge, that creates the problem he purports to dispel by making
God a mere reactor to temporal events.
