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.
The God of Paradise Lost is a God who foreknows all things that will occur in
time, as he necessarily must in order to be the God of Christian theology.[i]
However, the “fore” in foreknowledge is misleading because God exists within himself
outside the space of created time, and does not know “the future” from any
position within time that could be called “the past.” Rather, God sits above
the space of time and is aware of the entire time continuum as an ever present
now. Calvin says, “that to his knowledge, there is no past or future, but all
things are present” (Institutes 610).
Foreknowledge, philosophically, is a word born from the world of time whereby
creatures of time can discuss things outside of time, and though it is
therefore a broken tool in regards to God, it is a tool we must use and we are
encouraged to do so since God does so himself in Scripture.
It must be explained that even
though God has his existence apart from time, he never the less operates within
it, and from our vantage point, limited as it may be, we perceive things that
he has done before time, as well as the things done in times far past, times
past, times current, and times yet to come. God has seen fit to reveal himself
to our perceptions and to explain himself in terms that we can understand.
Since God is a creator who has created in order to possess a relationship with
his creation, a relationship that is centered on his worship, it is entirely
necessary that God explain himself in terms that we can relate to and
comprehend. Furthermore, it is not therefore moot for Milton to address the
doctrine of God’s foreknowledge, neither is it moot for me to challenge his
position. And since the timeless
God descends into time to become a character in History, I do not think it is a
mistake for Milton to have included him as a character in his poem or to
address the aspects of his interaction with it.
Since it is understood that God
knows the future, Milton makes a central aspect of his argument in Paradise Lost the assertion that God
knows future events without effectually causing them. This premise is important
for Milton, because Paradise Lost is
a proxy for the discussion at large, and “when God speaks on such controversial
topics as predestination, he expresses ideas which the poet earnestly believes
to be God’s truth” (Babb 13). By such expressions, he endeavors to assert
eternal providence and justify the ways of God to men (1.25-26). The problem
hinges on causality and responsibility. These two hinges lie at the heart of
the middle books of Paradise Lost, as
Bedford explains saying, the questions of “freedom, causality, determinism and
hence responsibility are questions to which both Milton as a poet and we as
readers are forced to offer various shifts and stratagems” (Bedford 61).
Milton’s logic is that if God caused the event, then God is responsible for the
event. Milton wants to tell us how God can, as an act of judgment, cast the
creation into bondage to sin, for sins he already knew would take place and not
be himself responsible to his own law and judgment. He must explain how man is
to be held responsible for the sin that God foreknows. Responsibility is the
issue, and Milton wants to explain who is responsible for the presence of evil
in the world. Milton’s argument is that man who sins, has been given the
ability to reason, and as Milton explains, “Many there be that complain of divin providence for
suffering Adam to transgresse; foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, he
gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing.”(Areopagitica). This is
merely an assertion, Milton is still tasked to explain how God knows what man’s
reason will produce, and it must be seen that when one embarks to explain that
God did not cause what he knows, it is not enough to simply say it.
In Paradise Lost God’s relationship to all future events, from Satan’s
rebellion in heaven and the resulting battle, to the creation and habitation of
earth and every action of its first inhabitants, including those that lead to
the fall, is that of spectator.
God says to the Son in book 3, “For man will hearken to
his [Satan’s] glozing lies,/ And easily transgress the sole command,/ Sole
pledge of his obedience; so will fall” (3. 93-95). God looks down the corridors
of time, and sees what will occur, and he then plans accordingly. His knowledge
of what will be in time is passive, like when you or I watch the news on TV.
Passive though it is, what God sees is certainly going to happen down to the
smallest of details, and the future and man’s actions are fixed according to how
God saw them. Milton Explains that God created Adam “sufficient to have stood,
though free to fall” (3.199), and then God says, “Not free, what proof could
they have given sincere/ Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,/ Where
only what they needs must do appeared,/ Not what they would?” (3. 103-106). If
what God has seen while watching the future must certainly occur, then all that
Adam does, Adam must do, otherwise God’s knowledge would be faulty. If God is
perfect, and has perfect knowledge, and if God knows any future events (even
passively) then those things he knows, here Adam’s actions, are without
question fixed and cannot ever be anything other than what they are. This is
contrary to God’s argument in the lines quoted above, because “all that
appears” in time is according to “what needs must be done” since God has
foreseen it. Furthermore, if
freedom is reason, and reason is but choosing, then Adam is only free from his
own perspective, not from the ultimate perspective. Adam could not have chosen any differently than he did,
since what he did choose, was already perfectly known by God. Adam was no freer
to not fall, than he was free to not exist. Without explanation of this
conundrum, then perhaps, as R.D. Bedford explains, the simplest position is to
acquiesce in the illogicality, admit the impossibility of the posited free will
and relish the comedy of the situation (Bedford 62). I am laboring to explain
that Milton cannot escape determination by making God’s knowledge passive.
Milton’s argument is that man, not God, is at fault for the fall because he
chose it himself apart from any determination and with full knowledge of the
consequences, and full ability to choose otherwise. There is a determination
though, and Adam could not, as previously explained, have done anything
different. Adam cannot escape what God foreknows. What one believes concerning
foreknowledge is crucial to ones understanding of the nature of freedom.
It
is explained, “Milton only offers “causes” as they come to hand, none of them
sufficient or decisive” (Bedford 62). The problem is not only that Milton does
not tell us what the determining forces are, but also that he says that it is
certainly not God who does the determining of what he knows; “As if
predestination overruled/ Their will, disposed by absolute decree/ Or high
foreknowledge; they themselves decreed/ Their own revolt, not I. If I
foreknew,/ Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,/ Which had no less
proved certain unforeknown” (PL 3.114-119). It is an explicit denial of the law
of non-contradiction to say that that man could decree his own revolt before he
existed and is as such an irrational assertion. Since man cannot cause what God
foreknows, and since God does not
cause what he foreknows, then from where does it all come? There must be some
almighty impersonal force, some rule, outside of God himself that is the prime
cause. If God is merely watching the Future Times Television Network, then
something else is broadcasting the program. It’s fine if Milton doesn’t want to
address this prime cause, but it must be shown that Milton’s God is not the
ultimate being in Milton’s universe. There is something else that determines
the things that God sees when he looks down the halls of time. Even if this something
is not personal, it is still something greater than God since God himself does
not have the right to infringe upon its decree. God is not here the
accomplisher of Scripture who says, “I am God, and there is none like me.
Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that
are not yet done, saying, My council shall stand, and I will do all my
pleasure” (Isa. 46:9-10 KJV). Neither is he Lord who “hath made all things for
himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil” (Pro. 16:4 KJV). He is not
the one who predestines according to the council of his own will as in
Ephesians 1, or Acts 4. God is not depicted in Paradise Lost as the great actor of history; he is rather the great
reactor of history.
Milton
has missed the point, and has hidden it from the reader amid the details and
story of Paradise Lost. The point
missed is that if one wishes to maintain a doctrine of God’s complete and
infallible knowledge, which Milton apparently does, and still have God be God,
God must be the cause of the things he foreknows. Yet, Milton has rejected the
doctrine of predestination. We cannot confuse God’s foreknowledge as it is
explained in Scripture with the mere philosophical meaning of the term (White
197). This idea expressed by Dr. White, follows the historical reformed
position concerning the Scriptural meaning of “foreknow” which points out that
God’s foreknowledge is a verb (προγινώσκω [proginosko]) not a noun and is used
in the scriptures in regards to an action God does to someone. He foreknows
persons, not things (White 198). It is not untrue to say that God knows all
things that will happen, but that doesn’t answer anything in regards to his
purposes for individuals, and “Every time God is portrayed as “foreknowing,”
the object of the verb is personal” (White 198).[ii]
God’s foreknowledge is an act of choice whereby he graciously chooses an
individual to receive the benefits of his knowing. Dr. White is here explaining
foreknowledge as it relates to God’s election unto salvation in Romans 8:28-30,
but it has application with regards to Milton and Paradise Lost, because sin and punishment as seen in the Fall are
the flipside of God’s electing and persevering graces. Furthermore, it sheds
light on the nature of God’s comprehensive decree as it relates to the purpose
of creation, salvation and the actions and choices of mankind, sinful or not.
Charles Hodge, the well known reformed theologian says in regards to Gods
decrees, that not only does God foreordain whatsoever comes to pass (542) but
also “the Bible especially declares that the free acts of men are decreed
beforehand” (543). Hodge gives as an example the promises of God which include
things like faith, new hearts, conversion of the gentiles, the writing of his
law upon the hearts of his people, and to fill the world with worshippers, and
then rightly says that “if God has promised these things, he must of course
purpose them, but they involve the free acts of men” (543). It is not only holy
acts that are foreordained, but sinful ones as well, as is seen in Acts 2:23
which says, “Him, being delivered by the determinate council and foreknowledge
of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain” (KJV). The
reader should also consider that Peter goes on in Acts 4:28 to explain that
Christ Jesus was risen against by Harod and Pilot who did to him all that God’s
hand and plan had predestined to occur.
The
Westminster Confession of Faith explains as a summery of historic reformed
Christian doctrine that, “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and
holy council of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes
to pass” (3.1). God had knowledge of these events, because he purposed them to
be. He is himself the cause of the things he foreknows. This is referred to as the doctrine of
predestination, of which it is said, “by predestination, we mean the eternal
decree of God, by which he determined within himself whatsoever he wished to
happen with regard to every man” (Calvin, Institutes
610). It is to be seen then that Milton wishes to justify the ways of God
to men from a position that denies his predestination, and that cannot be done
consistently without denying God the ability to know the future as those who
profess Open Theism have done.
Given
the logical problems that Milton raises, and his consistency issues in his
depiction of Gods knowledge and will in Paradise
Lost as well as his open denial in the work and elsewhere of what I take by consistent exegesis to be the
biblical doctrine, I cannot agree philosophically or theologically[iii]
that Milton provides a satisfactory defense for the goodness and character of
God.
In
Paradise Lost, Satan expresses the
idea that God is desirous to bring good out of calamity (1.62-63), and we know
that in PL, we are given hope for the
ultimate redemption of mankind and the creation through the work of the Son, as
a response to the event of the fall (12.462-465). We are also given the promise
in Romans 8:28 that God is working all things together for the good of those
who love him and are the called according to his purpose. If however, things in
history did occur apart from God’s predestinating purpose, and God could
somehow perfectly foreknow all those things, we would still not have an
objective ground for trusting in the plan of God to use tragedy, like Satan’s
rebellion or the fall for good. When we say something like “God did not cause
the calamity, but he can use it for good,” we are going beyond and contrary to
what the bible teaches, and the statement undermines the very hope it wants to
offer (Piper 122). This is Milton’s very position. He denies that God causes
what he foreknows,
“As
if predestination overruled/ Their will, disposed by absolute decree/ Or
high foreknowledge; they themselves
decreed/ Their own revolt, not I. If I foreknew,/ Foreknowledge had no
influence on their fault (3.115.118).
And yet also affirms that the events of the fall are to
be used for good, and that it should bring Adam hope.
“O goodness infinite, goodness
immense!/ That all this good of evil shall produce/ And evil turned to good,
more wonderful/ Than that which by creation first brought forth/ Light out of
darkness” (12.469-473; cf. 12.451-478, N.B 12.458)
Keeble notes on the first
passage from book 3, “Its re-iterations are clearly designed to discountenance
Calvinism and to leave the reader in no doubt that responsibility for moral
acts lies squarely with the creature, not the creator” (135). While I
understand and appreciate that at the heart of Milton’s thesis, is a desire to
explain that God is not a sinner, and to remove all ideas of blame for evil, yet
it doesn’t imply only that. As John Piper explains, it is also implies that
“God, by his very nature, cannot or would not act to bring about such a
calamity. This view of God is what contradicts the Bible and undercuts hope”
(123). The exact hows of Gods
governing are certainly mysterious, but we cannot be silent where the Scripture
speaks so abundantly. Ephesians 1:11 says that God works all things according
to the council of his will, and this includes the fall of sparrows (Matt.
10:29), the rolling of dice (Pro 16:33), the slaughter of his people (Psa.
44:11), the decisions of kings (Proverbs 21:1), the failing of sight (Exodus
4:11), the sickness of Children (2 Sam. 12:15), the loss and gain of money (1
Sam. 2:7), the suffering of the saints (1 Pet. 4:19), the completion of travel
plans (James 4:15), the persecution of Christians (Heb. 12:4-7), the repentance
of souls (2 Tim. 2:25), the gift of faith (Phil. 1:29), good and adversity (Job
2:10), disaster on city’s (Amos 3:6), the pursuit of holiness (Phil. 3:12-13),
the growth of believers (Heb. 6:3), the giving and taking of life (1 Sam 2:6),
and the crucifixion of his Son (Acts 4:27-28) (Piper 123).
The
theology of Paradise Lost undercuts
the hope it offers because it denies God’s ability to use the events prior to
the calamity to stop the calamity itself. If God could use the events of 9/11
for good, why didn’t he use the events prior to 9/11 for good, namely to stop
the attacks? If God can use the fatal car wreck of your friend for good, why didn’t
he use the uncountable events prior, like the starting of the engine in the
driveway, for the good of your friends life? Furthermore, if God didn’t use the
events of getting into the car and starting the engine for good, how can you
have hope he will use the event of the wreck for good? As soon as you object
that God’s purpose for the death of your friend must have been greater than any
purpose he may have had for saving his life, you’re talking about preordered
purpose, and are arguing my point. The Bible teaches that the Lord could have
restrained evil (Gen. 20:6, Psa. 33:10). Yet it was not his plan to do so.
Piper goes on to say, “Let us beware. We spare God the burden of his sovereignty
and lose our only hope.” And, “Without the confidence that God rules over the
beginning of our troubles, it is hard to believe that He could rule over their
end” (126).
Though
I stress the point Milton stumbles over, that God causes what he foreknows, I
do not attribute sin to God’s account, or remove responsibility and punishment
for sin from the account of man. The Westminster Confession goes on to say
concerning God’s decree, that though he unchangeably ordains all things that
occur, he does so “as thereby neither is God the author of Sin, nor is violence
offered to the will of creatures; nor the liberty or contingency of second
causes taken away, but rather established (3.1). The point made by the WCF is that God ordains means as well as
ends, and there is compatibility between the will of God and the will of man,
as is clearly seen in Genesis 50:20 and Isaiah 10:5-16. According to N. L.
Rice, “Free agency is nothing more or less than acting without compulsion, in
accordance with ones desires or inclinations” (Rice 75). So I take it that the
will acts according to its desires, man is free to choose according to those
desires and God is just for condemning man for the wicked intentions of his
heart (Isaiah 10:12). The problem occurs when, as Calvin explains concerning
Pighius, one confuses coercion with necessity. Necessity does not mean external
coercion, and the will of man is therefore “free in the sense of not being
coerced or forcibly moved by an external impulse, but moving of its own accord”
(Calvin Bondage 68).
It is not unjust or wrong for
God to decree calamity from the good intentions of his heart, which may
include, among other things, judgment and mercy. And it is not wrong for God to
exercise justice on the king of Assyria in Isaiah 10 for the intentions of his
heart even though he was doing what God had purposed beforehand, and was called
by God, “the rod in my hand.” God’s purpose for Joseph was no less good because
it occurred through the sin of his brothers, and his brothers were no less
culpable because God had ordained it (cf. Gen 50:20). Arthur Lovejoy,
explaining the paradox of the fortunate fall in Paradise Lost describes the conflict expressed by Adam in 12.462
ff. wherein he is torn between sorrow and joy for his sin since it was evil,
but by it great good is coming. Though sin against the infinite God is
eternally lamentable, and deserving of eternal punishment, “No devout believer
could hold that it would have been better if the moving drama of man’s
salvation had never taken place; and consequently, no such believer could
consistently hold that the first act of that drama, the event from which all
the rest sprang, was really to be regretted” (164). Interestingly, Empson,
addressing Lovejoys essay and the fortunate fall explains that Milton expected,
in his “adventurous intelligence,” this paradox to give a real justification of
God (190). The Fortunate Fall “set him free to insist, with harsh and startling
logic, that God was working for the fall all along” (Empson 190). This fortunate
fall is not a problem for us, and requires no harsh or startling logic, because
we (that is, historical reformed Christians) believe that God created for the
very distinct purpose of glorifying himself through redemption, which would
occur to beautify the creation through a disastrous fall. Like coal being made
into diamonds through extensive heat and pressure.
The drama of salvation is not a
response from God, either outside of time as God looks down upon it, or within
time as the events take place. The God of Scripture is an eternally good and
eternally purposing God. While one can appreciate the characteristically
puritan nature of Milton’s theological enterprise (Keeble 136), it is this
purpose, this predestinating will that is Milton’s stumbling block and though Paradise Lost is a masterpiece, it
cannot satisfactorily answer its own question while maintaining such a
commitment to the libertarian freedom of man at the expense of the absolute
freedom of God.
Bibliography
Babb, Lawrence. The Moral Cosmos of Paradise Lost.
[East Lansing]: Michigan State
UP, 1970. Print.
Bedford, R D. "Time,
Freedom, and Foreknowledge in Paradise Lost." Milton Studies
16
(1982): 61-76. MLA International
Bibliography. Web. 06 Nov. 2012.
Calvin, John. The Institutes of the Christian Religion.
Trans. Henry Beveridge.
Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2009. Print.
Calvin, John. The Bondage and Liberation of the Will: A
Defense of the Orthodox
Doctrine
of Human Choice against Pighius. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2002.
Print.
Empson, William. Milton's God. London: Chatto
& Windus, 1962. Print.
Hodge, Charles. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1952. Print.
Keeble, N. H. "Milton and Puritanism." A
Companion to Milton. By Thomas N. Corns.
Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 2001.
124-40. Print.
Lovejoy, Arthur O. "Milton and the Paradox of the
Fortunate Fall." Critical Essays on
Milton from ELH. Baltimore,
MD: Johns Hopkins, 1969. 163-81. Print.
Piper, John. Life as a Vapor. Colorado Springs:
Multnomah Books, 2004. Print
Rice, P. L. God
Sovereign and Man Free. Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle, 1985. Print
Ware, Bruce A. God’s
Lesser Glory: The Diminished God of Open Theism. Wheaton:
Crossway, 2000. Print.
White, James R. The
Potter's Freedom: A Defense of the Reformation and a Rebuttal of
Norman Geisler's Chosen but Free. Amityville, NY: Calvary Publ.,
2000. Print.
Notes
[i] It is
important to include here a reference to Open Theism, which maintains that
God’s knowledge is “open.” That is, though he can guess, he does not know
perfectly the future since it would then be fixed according to his knowledge
and hence, for God as well as for us, the future is open and not foreordained or
foreknown (Ware 18). Open Theism teaches that God is actively learning and can
even be, though probably isn’t, surprised by events as they occur in time. Open
Theism is a movement within Christianity, but is in this writer’s opinion, a
sub-Christian, even anti-Christian, school of doctrines.
[ii] Dr. White
explains that, “The verb προγινώσκω (proginosko) is used three times in the New
Testament with God as the subject: Romans 8:29, Romans 11:2, and 1 Peter 1:20.”
He says further that, “obviously, passages that have humans as the subject
would differ, substantially, in their meaning, for God’s knowledge is vastly
different than man’s” (198).
[iii] All
knowledge is God’s knowledge. That is, God created the world we study, so any
branch of study only serves to reveal what God has created as truth. So when I
say this, I only mean to make a distinction between areas of study, not to hold
them up as mutually exclusive.
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