The focus of analysis and interpretation of William Blake’s short poem “The Lamb” is usually—and rightly—focused on its portrayal of the natural state of man (as represented by the child speaker and the lamb) being a state of innocence. While rather non-controversial in its mainstream adaptation today, at the time of composition, such a view was radical enough for publication of such a philosophy to make French writer Jean Jacques Rousseau famous. (Or, in certain quarters, infamous.) The predominant view on such matters for some time had the Puritanical Calvinism most famous (or, again, infamously) expressed in Jonathan Edwards’ sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” which posited the dogmatic tenet of Christian faith that man is a born sinner already living in a state of depravity before he is aware such a thing exists. “The Lamb” presents a rather revolutionary rejection of this conventional view as it embraces the radical notion that are humans created in a state of innocence by God. For many scholars and a wealth of academic criticism, this is the beginning and the end of theological debate to be found within the poem.
Closer scrutiny reveals, however, that perhaps it is even more radical and revolutionary than it seems. In fact, the question over whether man is conceived sin in or comes into existence naturally innocent is really more of a metaphysical debate than a theological one. On the other hand, the lesson that the speaker is teaching the lamb is constructed in language that seems unquestionably to be at theological odds with most Christian denominations. The doctrinal belief taught in most Sunday Schools is that of the trinitarian existence of God; that is, the dogmatic belief primarily derived from Matthew 28:19 that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are three separate, independent, but co-existent entities. To speak of God the father, for instance, is not necessarily to speak of Jesus Christ and vice versa. (Even for most true believers the whole concept of the Holy Spirit is confusing, so for the sake of simplicity and because the poem only references God and Christ, just assume all doctrinal differences apply to that third entity as well.) The concept of God as creator of the universe within Trinitarianism applies to God the holy father rather than Jesus just as “the Lamb of God” refers to Jesus the Son rather than God the Creator. In the poem, however, Blake dismisses this separation with the result being a unification of God the creator with Jesus the Son. Unlike the expounding the philosophy that man is innocent at birth, this idea is not just radical, but heretical.
The child speaking to the lamb asks the animal if he is aware of the creator of the universe and then—since it is rhetorical—provides the answer. And the answer provide is not ambiguous, but plainly spoken:
“For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek and mild”
That is irrefutably a description of Jesus Christ from the New Testament, not the Old Testament God of wrath and fury. So, the child—not Blake, remember, but the child within the poem—is providing dogmatic theological instruction to the lamb that conflates God the creator with “the Lamb of God” which is well-established to be a metaphorical reference to Jesus. In other words, God the creator and Jesus the Son are one and the same; Jesus is the creator as well as the Son. That is as explicit a rejection of the entire concept of the holy trinity as it is possible to get in a twenty-line pastoral poem. Which makes “The Lamb” much more subversive than it may seem.
