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  • Essay / Free will in paradise lost and in the Bible

    Although God claims otherwise in Milton's Paradise Lost, it seems certain that it was God's will, not Satan's cunning efforts, that ensured man's inevitable fall. Realizing that Satan was the physical manifestation of evil, God allowed Satan and his minions to persist in Hell unconfined; He made no effort to ensure that the follies of his fallen angels did not pervert the perfection of his newly created beings on Earth. Furthermore, God certainly foresees everything that will happen in the future. He is aware that Lucifer will disobey him just as certainly as he is aware that man will follow the example of Satan's intervention in the garden. Milton's God is a subtly tyrannical force who demands justice from his subjects when they fail to offer him their uncompromising love and adoration. Yet it seems clear that the blame cannot lie with any being other than God. This becomes evident if we recognize the fact that when God declares that He created Adam and Eve "sufficient to stand, though free to fall" (Book III, 99), He conveniently ignores the truth about question. To be factual, the last part of this statement must be interpreted as "prone to fall." All vile temptations come from God during this poem. It was He who shaped man with his inherent curiosity, conjured up a single tree in a garden where there were many, and then boldly declared that man could eat anything except its fruits. For what purpose then was the tree built if not to serve as a hindrance to man? To put it bluntly, man was not allowed to wander freely, as was Satan. Rather, Satan serves as an instrument to carry out God's will; God not only wanted man to sin, but he himself orchestrated his destruction. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In order to determine whether Milton's God is indeed a tyrant, one must begin by analyzing Lucifer's original rebellion in heaven and the motivations that drove him. this failed usurpation of the throne. If God deserves so much worship and adoration, then why have legions of angels willingly defected and flocked to his detractor? To put it bluntly, these were spirits who "did not like his rule and [Satan] preferred it" (Book I, 102), making a conscious effort to throw off the chains of "pomp servile” (Book II, 257). While the Bible illustrates a God who is the manifestation of grace and love, it cannot be disputed that, one way or another, it came to pass that these ethereal beings, more intimately close to the Lord than man, have come not only to openly rebel against his rule, but also to openly rebel against his rule. to sincerely hate him too. But, it could be argued, God is a just God: those who love him will rejoice in his glory and those who despise him and bow down to sin will endure his wrath. In this case, it is enough to dwell on the judgments he makes on his creations to conclude that it is not the justice of a merciful being, but that of a calculated tyrant. After man falls from his previous state of greatness and innocence in the Garden of Eden, God grants a series of sanctions to the parties involved. Yet even though the serpent served only as a hollow vessel for Satan to inhabit, punishment was meted out to him and his fellows as if it were he, not its possessor, who whispered sweet flirtations to Eve and commanded her to eat forbidden fruit. God proclaims that “because you [theserpent] have done this, you are cursed above… every beast of the field; you will walk on your belly, and the dust will eat all the days of your life” (Book X, 175-178). Surely the serpent itself could not be held responsible; this creature did not act autonomously, but rather under otherworldly persuasion. Then, on Adam and Eve, God imposes a punishment extremely amplified compared to that suffered by their alleged deceiver. To the woman, God proclaims that he will make her servile to the male sex and will greatly amplify her pain while she gives birth. For man, God decrees that he will be expelled from the Garden, this earthly paradise, and that he will have to work hard in his banishment in order to ensure his subsistence. But infinitely more important is God's proclamation of death: "Know your birth, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." It seems quite elementary that, assuming that "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23), one must be able to earn such damning fruits on one's own accord, and not under coercion and manipulation. But perhaps the most compelling argument for the Lord's injustice comes from Adam. In a state of abject despair, the disgraced Adam asks himself: “Did I ask you [God]… to fashion me into a man… it would be just and equal to reduce me to my dust. .. until the loss of this, sufficient punishment, why have you added the feeling of endless misfortunes, your justice seems” (Book X, 743-755). Perhaps it is his righteous fate to suffer death. Yet he cannot justify God's compounding his sorrow by condemning him to a life full of difficulties and troubles. Adam boldly questions whether it is appropriate to condemn. a party to a contract for non-compliance with its terms, when that accused party never had the opportunity to express itself initially as to whether it wished to enter into such an agreement Having established from the text that can-. being the application of justice by God is not pure, it nevertheless remains obvious that the fault for the fall of man must lie solely with Man, with Satan, with God, or with a combination of the three . It would be a blatant repudiation of reason to completely forgive God for his role in the tragedy. Furthermore, like the manifestation of sin incarnate by Satan, the creation of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the inability to maintain the Garden as a controlled environment, free from outside forces, all originate from God , all the blame must, according to logic, lie with the Creator. It is telling to note that the Tree's only use was to serve as a crushing temptation and downfall to man. For, as Adam says, “God did not pronounce death to taste this Tree” (Book IV, 427), although he himself built it. A practical objection to God comes from the serpent's insidious mouth: "There is but one mortal tree...forbidden knowledge?" is it death? And they only stick to ignorance” (Book IV, 514-519). By allowing man to wallow in his state of ignorance, God is doing Adam and Eve no favors. Certainly, it was not a vast expanse of knowledge that was denied to them, nor the lucidity necessary to recognize their capacity to do good. Rather the consciousness of its counterpart, evil. However, is it not a certain knowledge of decadence and sin that the black angels drew upon in fermenting their plot of rebellion? Perhaps, then, God sought to promote faithfulness and obedience by forbidding man from the pursuit of a certain kind of wisdom. This can be argued, but it is not actually the case. Can we really say that man dominates his choices if he only has the.