Free Will in Paradise Lost Amanda Abere College

In Milton’s Paradise Lost, the species of man has been given free will, and is best illustrated through Satan and Eve due to their choices. Milton define free will as a way to become closer to God, for choosing God makes a person superior, as opposed to his or her own wants or needs. When God created man, he predicted the temptation of Satan: “For man will hearken to his glozing lies, And easily transgress the sole command, Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall, He and his failthless progeny: 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 th' Ethereal Powers And Spirits, both them who stood & them who faild; Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.” (Book III, lines 93-101). Facing this temptation will be the ultimate challenge for man, for it will prove his loyalty to God. As explicit in God’s speech - “What pleasure I from such obedience paid When Will and Reason (Reason is also choice) Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled Made passive both, had serv’d necessity. Not me. They therefore as to right belonged, So were created, nor can justly accuse Their maker, or their making, or their...