Hello and welcome to classical stuff. You should know a podcast put on by classical educators working for fair talk to me in Austin, Texas Join us always with we have Graham Donaldson hi and a J. Hanenburg how to do and I and Thomas Maggie I am slightly concerned about our podcast right now We had our last episode on heresies in which we are called a heretical podcast and today we'll talk about demons Which I believe makes us a demonic podcast so yes Well, we are sitting around having a council about what we should do it feels oddly similar to a scene from Paradise Lost Yes, well today. We are going to go into John Milton's Paradise Lost book two And just to set the scene for you.
We're going to Satan has has lied to a one-third of what he liked all of heaven But one-third of the angels of heaven believed his lie and except for Abbiel except for Abbiel They all believed his lie and then they fought God and God Smoked them out of heaven and they fell to hell and we're laying on the ground rolling around for nine days Oh, they fell they fell in the in hell for nine days just being absolutely smoted And then they got up dust themselves off and they decided that they needed to figure out what to do next So they did what any group of people do when they are trying to figure out what to do next They formed a committee. They formed a committee. Yeah, and they're building a sweet demon castle They build a sweet demon castle name. Yeah, it's really cool.
Yeah, it's really cool. It's not where we get the word pandemonium It is yeah, it's a city in hell where we got the city of pandemonium and they decided that they would have they had a Congress So they are they had some elected officials these elected officials demons were in the representative Government sit around and bait what they should do next and all the other angels are they make themselves kind of small so they can All fit in the room and watch so it's a council it really is The angel row they can grow and shrink. Oh, sorry the angels are the demons. Oh, do you know they were only recently angels?
Yes, and so they get together and they have this debate in a congressional session about what they should do next But Milton makes it really clear that even though Satan Equated Satan says yes, we should definitely have a Congress deep down Satan has already made the decision about what to do next And he in no way is going to listen to the votes in Congress If they all vote to do one thing Satan is going to buy power of rhetoric and back channeling it is going to get whatever he wants anyway So we're going to look at I'm going to read you parts of paradise lost Can I ask is so that that system that is in contrast to heaven that is in contrast to heaven where God is is king and His word is law and angels Obey him in love and sacrifice and God serves them by loving and creating and Creating a yoke that is easy Plato would be like see I told you guys. Yeah, and Satan says no way If we don't need no king we can do this ourselves. We should have elected officials Government but and that's by that doesn't really work doesn't really feel like the founding fathers are rolling in their graves right now Yeah, well, yeah, Milton's politics. I mean Milton also was part on the side against the king in the English revolution in the 17th century But anyway, I don't know enough about it Milton's history and his politics to draw any connections to what's happening in hell All you know is that Satan says that it's gonna go one way, but really it's just like a despotism under a veneer of democracy It's not like Aristotle when he ranks the governmental systems I think the best is a monarchy with a good king but the worst then is a tyrant So it's like the mirror image.
Yeah, like yeah, the twisted of the best is like the absolute worst and so democracies is It's the ranked for six. Yeah, and so it's the best of the worst, but yeah, it's not as bad as the other two So we're gonna read this is also so you can do many things if you're teaching paradise lost The the passages that are put forward by the demons are just great examples of persuasive rhetoric in their own right They are incredibly fun to listen to and they all have one They all have a bunch of mistakes that they are making about gods in nature and and Milton You know you can sort of extrapolate that and think about our own lives about the things we tell ourselves about our duties and responsibilities and the lies that we Tell ourselves in order to not have to do them. So so first up stands one of the first angel demon to stand up in Congress and to speak This is what Milton says about this guy Moloch septered king stood up the strongest and the fiercest spirit that fought in heaven now fiercer by his despair His trust was at the eternal to be deemed equal in strength and rather than be less cared not to be at all With that care lost went all his fear of God or hell or worse He wrecked not and those words there after speak so Moloch says if we know if we can't if we can't win Then we shouldn't exist at all he used to be in the strongest he wasn't the strongest he's like well What is life matter exactly? So you got like an Ajax thing going on in here to yeah kind of character Alright classical reference to the Iliad big fighter not not renowned for brains, but definitely renowned for brawn Thrown down he killed himself after he couldn't have a kill his armor.
That's right quick aside And what's the play where they talk about that there the play there's a there's a the thing I read with the faculty is from Ovid's metamorphoses It's called the judgment of arms and they have this big argument between Odysseus and Ajax and Odysseus wins pretty much by refuting all of his arguments And then Ajax gets angry and in history There are two versions of what he does is he go mad like kill sheep or something in one He kills a couple of rams that he thinks are the kings of Greece And then I think he goes on killing sheep for a while be and they're afraid that he will be able to kill those guys And so the goddess is confused him and then after he wakes up and realizes he's been killing sheep He's so embarrassed here. He's so embarrassed. He props his own Spear in his armpit which is legendarily the only way that he can die and leans on it and kills himself The other one is in Ovid He just stabs his sword into his chest and then the very force of his blood pushes the sword back out and then makes a little Flower of the ground. I'm gonna head some like some blood pressure issues Yeah, I'd say he's if he can push his sword out of his chest with his own blood pressure like you gotta get that Check it out.
You gotta stop being salt lay off the sodium like deli meets not your number again Alright, maulic he stands up and says my sentence is for open war of wiles more on expert Let them let those contrive who need or when they need not now For while they sit contriving shall the rest millions that stand in arms and longing wait to the signal to ascend sit lingering here Heaven's fugitives and further dwelling place except this dark Approbriest den of shame the prison of his tyranny who reigns by our delay no Let us rather choose armed with hell flames and fury all at once over heavens high towers to force Resistless way turning our tortures into horrid arms against the torturer so first argument is We can either so the question is should we fight God toe to toe or should we do some kind of like sneaky cloak and dagger guerrilla warfare? And he's like no we're fighting God toe to toe because Are we all these egg heads sit around like talk about their plans and the rest of us and all of our armors just gonna sit around? We're gonna get flippin bored. Let's go fight God now He says we're we we're beaten and we can now turn our tortures into horrid arms against the torturer So take all that hell fire makes up That's right take all that anger and maybe that just gives us like if if God and the devil's was like 51 49 Well that hell fire is gonna turn that 49 to like you know fifty five Yeah, and then we can like then we can win it We've got our power level just a little bit which is like objectively not true Which is actually not true.
Yes. Yeah, and if you this this moment happens early in the book But later in the book it actually describes what happened in the fight. Yeah, and when it was just angels Yeah, they're still cool stuff. So I don't want to go too far I'm not gonna go too far into it if we get to have deal and like that whole thing later probably won't but basically when the angels and The demons are fighting.
It's kind of it's just angels versus angels. Yeah, no God We're right God isn't in it And so it kind of goes back and forth and eventually Satan realizes he's losing he gets smoted by I think Michael and he has to go drink Wine is 10 He's gonna drink wine is 10 They have to put him back together because he's made of like weird angel goo And then they're like ah what we got to do is we got to make seed machines So they make these machines and for a second they get in the upper hand But then the God's angels realize like oh We're strong And so they just start lifting mountains and hucking boulders and these machines and wrecking them and eventually Jesus comes It just says enough and and like wait his hand way is the most effortless thing and just tosses them out of heaven And they are so they don't even know what happened like they're thunderstruck They are falling and they're in pain and they're like what? Yeah, yeah, I have no idea what you're you don't listen to ACD see under the culture podcast Sorry, I am clearly not sorry. Well listener will take care of that.
I'm sorry the podcast last time We ever saw time but this this fellow who thinks that he can up his power level and take on Jesus is clearly not remembering the fight Very well because it was effortless Jesus wrote up with a horse and then everything exploded like that's pretty much what happened I'm gonna skip a little bit mark and read everything the mall it says but perhaps the way seems difficult and steep to scale with Upright wing against a higher foe. Remember God now has the high ground. Yeah Let's such think them if the sleepy drench of that forgetful lake But numb not still that in our proper motion we ascend up to our native seat descent and fall to us is adverse Who but felt of late when the fierce foe hung on our broken rear insulting and pursued us through the deep that did not happen With what compulsion and laborious flight we sunk thus low the ascent is easy then the event is feared Should we again provoke our stronger some worse way his wrath may find to our destruction if there be in hell fear to be worse destroyed What can be worse than to dwell here driven out from bliss condemned in this abhorred deep to utter woe or pain of Unextinguishable fire must exercise us without hope of end the vassals of his anger when the scourge inexorably and the torturing hour calls us dependence More destroyed than thus we should be quite abolished and expire. What fear we then what doubt we to incense his utmost ire Which to the height enraged will either quite consume us and reduce us to nothing this essential happier far than miserable to have eternal being So so his his two mistakes here are assuming that his nature is still one that ascends I think he's missing that he's flip-flopped He's like going up is gonna be easy cuz heavens are home is where we belong going home like the you know the driving home is gonna Be fast and then his reasoning is hell's the worst So if we fight him and we lose at least we're not here anymore At least we're not here anymore and maybe if we tick got off a little bit more he will blast us into non-existence And that's better than just like farting around in hell.
Yeah, yeah So that's memory so that he lost his strength and therefore it is like but it's better not to live So if God blesses his non-existence that may be a good thing He says or if our substance be indeed divine and we cannot cease to be we are at worst on this side nothing and by proof We feel our powers sufficient to disturb his heaven and with perpetual inroads to alarm though inaccessible his fatal throne Which if not victory is yet revenge so that last argument is well if God's not gonna destroy us and turn us into nothing We will get up every day. We will assault heaven We will like rattle his cage and even if we get beaten back down to hell every day We will send and every day we will fight and every day we will we will throw down and that is like a revenge It's it's we are going to show God that we have not submitted or yielded We will do an eternal like screw you with our with our rage and anger and fighting spirit This is Moloch's it's the his whole thing is better to die on your feet than live on your knees Yes back on a thing and so he ended frowning and his look denounced at desperate revenge So this is Moloch's speech okay, so Moloch is for open war the next little guy to stand up is awesome And I have I have lots I mean all of these all of these characters end up becoming you could even say that they are You know types or tokens or you can even say that there are stereotypes of attitudes that we have In regards to our sin against God and Moloch is the open rebellious. I will never submit I will never yield and maybe I can get one over God eventually and I've even heard these the each of these attitudes Spouse by the demons and how many demons actually stand up in three and then there's three and then there's Beelzebub who gives Satan speech Which is hey, we should just go wreck man, right? And I've also heard that not only is it our attitude towards God and our sin But it's it is the natural reaction of man in crisis and severe loss You've just lost everything and so this is the well things can't get worse.
I might as well fight against it, right? So you if you want to see these three things outside of the Christian faith, you can look at you know This is how we kind of react to crisis. The first one is things can't get worse. I might as well Give it my full rage good on the other side up rose In act more graceful in humane a fair person lost not heaven So he is just the most attractive of all the angels He seemed for dignity composed and high exploit But all was false and hollow though his tongue dropped mana and he could make the worse appear the better reason to perplex and dash But sure as councils for his thoughts were low to vice industrious but to know their deeds timorous and slothful Okay, hold on that that he could make the weaker argument seem the stronger That's what all the philosophers accuse the sophists.
Yes. That feels lifted straight from it. Yes It is you can make the worst appear the better reason so well. I'll love that's like straight for Aristotle I think it's Plato where he's saying that this is what this was the this is what Socrates was accused of No, maybe not It was what the sophists were accused of it was a trick that the sophists played.
Yeah, I thought it was early Aristotle's rhetoric in any case It's yeah Yeah, so he loves to take the position that is the weakest and use his fancy words to get people to agree to it Not because he believes it but because he's lazy he's lazy he's lawful and but he is industrious in some in some things But he's industrious in vice and says to vice industrious, but to no bloodied's timorous and slothful. He misses I know this is this is what Milton is saying about it yet He pleased the ear and with persuasive accent thus began there is now We're not gonna read all of a little because Bliles is very long We're just gonna be parts of it But his is very long and going through it and analyzing just the rhetoric of it if you read maulak He's got these like little short punchy phrases Blile has these long meandering sentences and that's rhetorically done on purpose I even I read the whole thing out to my students It's you know about 200 lines and I tell them I say about halfway through you guys are gonna feel real sleepy And that's on purpose because belial is lulling you into laziness and sleepiness. So at the end you're just gonna be like Yeah, whatever you should just do what he said who and that's on purpose So we're not gonna be all of it because you poor podcast listeners, but this will give you a taste of what belial says I Should be much for open war opeers and not behind in hate if what was urged main reason to persuade And persuade immediate war did not dissuade me most and seemed to cast on me as conjecture on the whole success When he who most excels in fact of arms and what he counsels and in what excels mistrustful grounds his courage on despair and utter dissolution as the scope Of all his aim after some dire revenge He's like so he says basically maulak's best argument is that at best we could be destroyed by God and not exist anymore He grounds his courage on despair first What revenge the towers of heaven are filled with armed watch that render all access impregnable Offed on the bordering deep and camp their legions or with obscure wings scout far and wide into the realm of knight scawning surprise Or could we break our way by force and at our heels all hell should rise with blackest insurrection to confound heaven's purest light Yet our great enemy all incorruptible with on his throne sit unpoluted and the ethereal mold incapable of stain would soon expel her mischief and purge off the base or fire victorious. He's like yeah We may be like be able to smack around a couple of angels But we're not gonna shake God's throne like maulak said that God is going to like we're gonna rattle his cage We might lightly harass the dudes who are on the very frontier, but right God is gonna have no Oh the attacking thing.
All right, thus repulsed our final hope is flat despair. We must exacerbate Sorry, exasperate the almighty victor to spend all his rage and that must end us that must be our cure to be no more Sad cure for who would lose though full of pain this intellectual being those thoughts that wander through eternity to perish rather Swallowed up and lost in the wide womb of uncreated knight devoid of sense in motion, but I was like I like thinking right I like having thoughts you guys really want to go to nothing That's better than living here, and then he goes on a little bit is that a proposal that's one of his proposals He says so we don't want to do this. Oh, yes, and then this is good. So we this And who knows let this good whether our angry foe can give it or will ever he's like maybe he won't blast us into nothing How can he is doubtful that he never will is sure will he so wise let loose at once his ire But like though in impotence or unaware to give his enemies their wish and end them in his anger whom his anger saves to punish endless Wherefore cease we then say they who counsel wore we are decreed reserved and destined to eternal well Whatever doing what can we suffer more?
What can we suffer worse is this then worst thus sitting thus consulting thus in arms? What when we fled a mane pursued and struck with heavens afflicting thunder and besought the deep to shelter us this hell then seemed a refuge From those wounds or when we lay chained on the burning lake that sure was worse So he's saying to mollocks argument where mollocks says there's no worse than hell He's saying uh do you remember being when we fell into a burning lake and we said this burning lake sucks And now we're sitting in a fancical castle talking about what we should do next this is clearly better than that and with the lake itself was a refuge from The very thunder of God right if I remember correctly was horrible. So but Baliel saying very surely worse We there is a we are living on a spectrum here And God if you wanted to could bury us under that lake or throw him around on our head or do all sorts of terrible things He says if your argument rests on him destroying us you really think he's gonna destroy us when he preserved us to torture us That's that's where he's saying you think his anger's gonna go so far as to make us nothing when he could just torture us worse So then Baliel's got like 25 lines or so of all the terrible things that God could possibly do And then he ends with this war therefore open or concealed alike my voice dissuades For what can force her guile with him or who to see of his mind whose eye views all things at one view He from heaven's height all these are emotions vain sees and derides No moral mighty to resist our might then wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles Shall we then live thus vile the race of heaven thus trampled thus expelled to suffer here chains in these torments better These than worse by my advice since fate inevitable subdues us an omnipotent degree the victors will to suffer as to do our strength is equal Nor the law unjust that so ordains you're gonna skip a little bit ahead He basically says that God has the capacity to make our lives worse And so he says if we're strong enough to do it We're strong enough to stay here and suffer this yes He says maybe though if we stay in hell long enough We will get used to it and he says our pure essence then will overcome that they're not just vapor or in your do not feel or changed at length And to the place conformed in temper and in nature will receive familiar the feasts heat the fear seat and void of pain This horror will grow mild this darkness light besides what hope the never-ending flight of future days may bring what chance what change worth waiting Since our present lot appears for happy though But ill for ill not worst if we procure not to ourselves more woe So the lile basically says if we hunker down maybe over time we will kind of get used to hell You know when you're in a shower we'll be the frog's willing pop exactly yeah right now It's real hot you guys, but look we can be comfortable frogs But all we need to do is like not Tick off God anymore so that he continues to ratchet up our pains Let's just chill. Let's just be real quiet and let's definitely not do any more fighting Let's just say stay here and maybe God will kind of ignore us over time Especially because even now his eyes he's all he probably sees our current conversation So he's if he's strong enough to smoke us.
He's wise enough to foil us and then he has An argument that says who knows what the future may bring which is often a a great way to like you know Further deeply embed your sloth is to say like who knows what could happen. Maybe this maybe a single clean itself, right? Who knows what's gonna happen to bring this back into to crisis This is the argument where I've lost everything But things could get so much worse if I try to fix the problem So this is right better the devil. I know than the one I don't yeah I mean the third one man And I'll read a little bit of man and we can talk a little bit about the lies that they're saying and then how There are like things that are arguments that I find sympathetic and they're arguing and which I think are you know Let's remap it first.
Do you say sympathize with demons? That was her too. Yeah, there are I said her sympathetic I sympathize with her takes you sympathize with even though the whole point is like what is it about my sympathy with it? Is that is that a deficiency in my character or it?
I got something up. Let's just remap it first and we'll talk about it Thus the lie with his words clothes and reasons garb counseled ignoblees and peaceful sloth not peace so Milton clearly has an opinion Yes, yeah And after him thus ma'am and spake and ma'am is the demon that was really jazz to be in hell because there's so many beautiful Jewels and gold everywhere the hills of hell are filled with precious stones and man was psyched when he saw this because he loved all that stuff in heaven What all the time was just in hell already? Yes, it's just sort of like this the hills are filled with um with precious stones and jewels It's kind of weird isn't it? Maybe an effort on Milton's part to show that money is not part and parcel to heaven and that the good things Much don't come with it right hell has money just as much as heaven has money Yeah, like it's born out in life too Either to disinthrown the king of heaven we war if war be best or to regain our own right lost Him to unthrown we then may hope when everlasting fate shall yield to fickle chance and chaos judge the strife The former vain to hope argues as vain the letter for what place can be for us within heavens bounds unless heavens Lord supreme We overpower he says we're gonna go up to heaven We got it like we got a win if we want to be there We can't just we we can't just like fight God if we want to go back to heaven We got we got actually win take that throne suppose He should relent and publish grace to all on a promise made of new subjection With what eyes could we stand in his presence humble and receive strict laws imposed to celebrate his throne with warbled hymns and to his Godhead sing Enforced hallelujah's while he lordly sits our envied sovereign and his altar breathes ambrosial odour odour's and Ambrosial flowers our servile offerings this must be our task in heaven this our delight how weary some eternity so spent in worship paid to whom we hate Let us not then pursue by force impossible by leave obtained unacceptable though in heaven our state of splendid vassalage But rather seek our own good from ourselves and from our own live to ourselves though in this vast recess free and to none accountable Perfering hard liberty before the easy yoke of servile pomp Our greatness will appear then most conspicuous when great things of small useful or hurtful prosperous of adverse we can create and in what place so air Thrive under evil and work ease out of pain through labor and endurance This deep world of darkness do we dread how often mets thick clouds and dark doth heavens all ruling sigher choose to reside his glory unobscured and With majesty of darkness round covers his throne from whence deep thunder roar mustering their rage and heaven resembles hell as he our darkness Cannot we his light imitate when we please this desert soil wants not her hidden luster gems and gold nor want we skill or art For whence to raise magnificence and what can heaven show more our torments also may in length of time become our Elements these piercing fires as soft as now severe our temper changed into their temper Which must needs remove the sensible of pain all things invite to peaceful councils and the settled state of order How in safety best we may compose our present evils with regard of what we are and where dismissing quite all thoughts of war You have what I advise.
I mean everyone cheers for him. So what's ma'am? It's what's ma'am is a plan around and hell and like love it Yeah, we can like it may not be the most fetching place, but at least it's very potential. Yeah, you've got hell's got great bones Yeah, we it's a fixer upper.
I hear it, but we can flip this up Yes, ma'am and says if we go back to heaven and sit there and have to like sing songs to God for us for turn That sounds terrible. No, we've got our own country now boys. We've got art. We've got skills.
We have abilities We've got raw materials. We can turn hell into our heaven I think the biggest thing is that he says occasionally God will put storm clouds around his throat And it'll look all dark if he can imitate darkness we can imitate like we can imitate like mmm-hmm But rather seek our own good from ourselves. This is what he says every year students are real To mamans argument that's interesting that you said that he's the one that you find least something no No, no, I find below at least empathetic, but he's wild like let's just keep our heads down and hope But ma'am is real sympathetic because he's got the like work ethic we can work our way out of our sit-in despondency We can sort of build we can build hell We don't have to follow God anymore and then he's got the freedom He's got this naturalization argument. He's like eventually this country will be our country and we will be hellion Like we will be hellish.
We will no longer have the accent of heaven We will have adopt our new accent of hell and our new customs and celebrate our own traditions. It's it's like the um, yeah It's it's the colony. It's the colony argument and it is I think quite persuasive, you know We can be the hard hard yoke hard freedom then to this yoke of servile pomp. I think is any wrong Yeah, and so the question is why is he wrong because there's no you can't develop hell into heaven Yeah, you cannot work out a new good apartment You can you can use darkness to obscure light occasionally as God does you cannot work light from darkness and on top of that I think he understands he misunderstands freedom, right?
He sees Being servile to God as servile pomp, right? It's horrible thing He's forced to do hymns when in reality the only freedom comes from that and that being a slave to one's own vices is worse So teenagers like ma'am and because they they have a like well They're like nuts to you. I'm gonna go we're gonna go do it ourselves. We don't need your rules We don't need your laws.
We all know what's up and we can do this thing Yeah, so the so then eventually a student will ever say well Mr. Johnson like what actually is wrong with ma'am is position because it sounds really logical and it sounds like let's just let's just do it ourselves And we're also in Texas. We've got that like Texas can do attitude amongst the students as well And we did try to take this country and make it into our own country Yes, but it's what isn't the problem with it that it's in hell is making the argument? Yeah, so I know he's like the secede.
Yeah, he is he does have a session a session a session every mindset Which I think is fine in you know temporal existence for country, you know for people who want to do it themselves But so the question is what is met wrong with ma'am and so I tell my students this I say okay, remember these demons are eternal They're never going to uh fade away or die and I say let's say ma'am is right and they build this perfect society What happens when 20 demons disagree with the way that the rules have been out laid out and the students kind of work that out Amongself and I say okay, ultimately what's gonna happen? What do they realize that they can go do and then a student says oh well They'll just go and start their own second city right I say okay Now we got two pandemoniums in hell and then what happens when in the second pandemonium some other demons disagree with some of the decisions And then you know then they say okay, we got another split and then the first one splits again And I say okay work that out for 10,000 years whatever eventually happens to these demons And the students say they each live in their own kingdom of one right and I say welcome to the perfect definition of hell right like each Yes, ma'am and may there may be like an initial excitement of doing this together and going against the powers that be but work that self out when you don't have When you are not conforming to goodness and you will eventually come to sort of discord with one another And you will become isolated and alone and and bitter doing your own saying I can do this better myself I don't need anybody else and that's that's the tell-loss of hell. Isn't that what see us Lewis? Right in the idea from to in the great divorce is that well, everybody's neighbors But the building materials are all free you just sort of think it shows up And so I don't really like my neighbors So everybody moves further out and the people who have been there the longest are the furthest from the city because they hate their neighbor so much like You can use binoculars and see Napoleon's house 300 miles away.
It's just what single like still grumbling about his how his generals failed him and that kind of thing Yeah, so then when you phrase it that way then then the students are sort of fairly okay that does make a lot of sense I also say imagine if we were You know if If we were on a road trip with each other for 10,000 years like eventually we would all want to be away from one another right because there's still that sinfulness working inside of us So then yeah, okay So then what are the lies that all of these demons tell each other so mamma's lie is is it's a that goodness and evil that this fight is like a Is a 51 49 percent power imbalance that God is surmountable well, not only that he's surmountable But that he's flappable he thinks that his constant assays into the kingdom is gonna rattle the cage and really that cage doesn't rattle That's right and God is not going to be yeah, he's not here. He's not scared. You can't you know, you know, you can't flank God We got really got your day That's mammon's mistake and then What's belial's mistake? Thinking that they'll use to it I mean that's part of it Yeah, and thinking that the solution is ease and thinking that maybe God will relent on his rules if they see perhaps Okay Maybe the other way to think about this is how can we relate this to our own our own lives of dealing with our sin and the arguments?
We make up against God From when I think of Blyle, I also think of God isn't going to let us alone right like God I'm happy if we just deal with it We will not be happy we just don't deal with it God is not just going to leave us like if we just say if we just sort of sin and do something terrible and then say oh crap I am not going to do something to let's just not do bad things for the next week And God's gonna forget about it and just keep your head down and like just tough it out And it's all just gonna go away like it won't it won't that's not how like God is not going to leave you alone really problem problems that work like that if you just sort of sit in the problem the problem doesn't get less it gets worse And and you say the pain we feel now maybe we can get used to it later Also, I don't think it's true when it comes to when it comes to you know sins against God like sin doesn't sin doesn't get better with time So time does not heal always that time does not heal sin Sin deepens and what's that? You cannot maintain a level of evil. Oh, yeah, it was it's from a father Brown. It's from the father Brown mysteries He's talking to this People right thief.
No, it's not he it's he says look you can maintain a level of good You can be continuously good, but you cannot be this sort of rafish wonderful evil where you're dashing in great forever You will become more base you will do worse and worse things until you are some twisted creature that That's horrible right you cannot you cannot maintain like a little bit of evil. Yeah, keep the floor of evil It's always gonna keep sinking down. Yeah, the floor's gonna drop out for me Keep a sort of level of good, but no man has ever been able to keep on one level of evil with that road goes down and down Yes, yeah, so okay, and then mamans lie what's mamans lie? He tells himself We can make this just as good as heaven and we can have we can have freedom apart from God And we can abstract a good from good without having to conform to all of good I'm not over that way or we yeah from from evil we can create good right yeah I think this is that that hits on the theological notion that evil is not its own thing.
It's only twisted good, right? You can make evil from good you can take something that was originally good and make it bad You cannot take there's no evil essence to make into good doesn't work the other way around the the devil's in C.S. Lewis's screetape letters say despite our the best efforts of our indeed apartment We've never invented our own thing Yeah, there's no such thing as a pure evil and you as a listener might point to certain things But it's also some twisted good right even murder is the the twisting of life or some sense of justice or some sense of justice You know, but is maybe correct that there is a large and discussion in culture in hell He is I mean that so are there good things It's not good things because of the things that they're pointing to are not goods And I'm gonna read so the next section that we're gonna read a little bit is so this council ends with be also Bob standing up and saying like no this we can't turn this into our own place God This is God's prison. This is not our neutral territory to turn into our kingdom.
He says so let's go and let's go and break something that God loves man and He gives the favorite line my favorite line in the entire so he says he got to speak where he says um Let's let's go destroy God's kingdom Let's go to destroy God's new creation as opposed to sitting here and talking about what we should do and he says this So he gives us a big old speech about this and he says he says advise if this be worth attempting or to sit in darkness here Hatching vain empires. I love that line It's such a like dig it mammon anyway So then everyone agrees with people Bob and then Satan stands up He's like I'm gonna do it and then some demons are like I'm gonna help you It's like no one's gonna help me because I want to do it to get all the glory Yeah, he doesn't say that he says I'm doing it because I'm your king and I should serve you It's what he says, but he's clearly just wants a glory And then he says so then Satan at the end of the says I want you this is answering your question and roundabout way about art maybe yeah Satan says try to do something in the meantime well, he says Go there for mighty powers as a Satan terrors of heaven though fallen intended home while here shall be our home What best may ease the present misery and to render hell more tolerable? He says go and figure out ways that you can make hell just sort of more tolerable while I go off and and go on this mission So the demons go off and they do a bunch of different things Some I will just describe and some I'm actually gonna read so the first thing that some of the demons do is they get together and they Organize Olympic style games so they get together and they like joust and they wrestle and they like give each other medals and they and they play War games like nights on shining armor and horses and they just go well. Yeah, it's fun Okay, you know, they're just bored and they're playing games that seems like a going to be a problem Yes adjusting and then some do this Others more mild retreated into a silent valley.
Okay, sing with notes and jellicle to many a harp their own heroic deeds So they go off and they sing songs of their own deeds of like what happened in the war of heaven Like I totally smoked that angel right like you know in the war of heaven But also their hapless fall by doom of battle and complain that fate free virtue should enthrall to force or chance Their song was partial so their song was biased, but the harmony what could it less when spirits and mortals sing? Suspended hell and took with ravishment the thronging audience. So everybody was really into the songs You know the songs were about played is so hard. I'm so virtuous, but it was just chance.
It's just chance. Let me hear a sad break up Songs from heaven. I was once a glorious angel now terrible demon and everyone is like oh Song is so sad and so good Yes, so they're saying sappy sweet break up sad songs about their former status And then they're also singing songs about how awesome they used to be in heaven and Milton says so sad because it has a bad more Lesson yes, but there's beautiful sounding it spends hell right and then and then this happens In discourse more sweet for eloquence the soul song charms a sense Others apart sat on a hill retired in thoughts more elevate and reasoned high of providence for knowledge will in fate fixed fate free Well for knowledge absolute and found no end in wandering mazes lost of good and evil much They argued that in the happiness and final misery passion and apathy and glory and shame vain wisdom all and false philosophy Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm pain for a while or anguish and excite Folacious hope or arm the obdered breast with stubborn patience as with triple steel. So what are they doing now?
Have a chat Yeah, they're but they're making themselves feel better temporarily. They're making themselves feel temporarily by having like vain wandering philosophical talks But what actually is fate you guys what actually is pain is what we're experiencing Really pain and someone be like maybe it isn't and then they'd be like okay with hell for a couple of days They've given themselves an inoculation against misery just for a couple of days It's like a there's a comic that I believe is somewhat famous. It shows two doors and over one door It says heaven and over the second door it says books about heaven. Yeah Actually, I don't know if repentance is available to the demons after they've been kicked out Um if I work out the logic of Milton to my the best of my abilities It seems like repentance is even available to these demons It's only not available to Satan because he was self-deceived self-depraved But all of these demons fell because of a lie that Satan told them and the lie was Satan says I'm an uncreated being or no He says that God didn't make me necessity made me I just sort of popped into existence or or at least he argues like you can't prove that I have been here for like They all came at the time at the same time and he's like I don't know that he's my real dad who can prove that you're you know So Satan says I have the capacity to be on God's throne So now it's time to like out with the old in with the new and so something was like okay cool Let's go with it Yeah, so whether or not they can repent is kind of squishy But some some passages seem to indicate that they can't some houses seem to indicate that everybody but Satan could just say that Of the arguments that even make at the beginning of what you're reading none of them says we should go back and say we're sorry Mm-hmm like yeah, there's at least the possibility of them being welcome back in yes They don't talk about that.
Yeah, I know them want to drink the cup of humility Right, so here's the last one another part is real short another part in squadrons and gross bands on bold adventures to discover Why did that dismal world if any climb perhaps might yield them easier habitation? So other demons get together and they just go on adventures They go and explore hell to see there's any other place in here in hell that could be better for them whenever I teach this section of Paradise Lost I'm always very convicted especially about the sitting around and talking thing cuz that's like literally I know the idea being like all of these demons have a central problem that they are ignoring they need to repent like they are wrong with God Yeah, but they are all burying that in these tasks some demons are burying it in sports and saying You know if we want to sort of even extend a little bit and have some creative license They're saying I don't want to think about God I'm just gonna focus on the 60 minutes on the on the court or whatever I'm just gonna focus on whatever sports task I have in front of me cuz that's that makes sense and everything else kind of sucks I don't want to think about it. Others are like, oh, yeah, like, you know the pain is good And we can turn it into like a creative expression of our pain We can fix it with art which I think is baloney nonsense like people who say oh, I took my pain And I and I turned it into art and that solved the pain I never I have never really bought as an argument. I don't I don't I always feel like it's just a temporary fix You can't this is sort of during gray the expression of it doesn't solve the expression of pain does not solve the pain Even artfully rendered expressions of it don't and this is this is my breakup songs are so dangerous Yeah, they give a panacea, but only during the song and then they remind you of everything and it's so terrible right when Yeah, the very first thing that happens when both uses put in prison is that wisdom comes down and tosses all the the Poetuses out all the muses of poetry she's like they're not helping like you're expressing your sorrow in poetry or Wallowing in poetry doesn't help you and it seems to be like there's three levels here We have the level where it's I'm just going to ignore the problem Right, there's distraction with sports, and then there's the I'm going to sing about the problem and have my feels about it Probably say that the distraction with adventures is that first one to we're just gonna go on road trips We're gonna go and we're gonna just hang out and do cool stuff and not with and not think about the despair within We're just gonna like jump off mountains in our school suits and seek after the yeah Seek after the excitement and then we're gonna have the feels and then the last one is we're gonna do philosophy Which it's it's funny how much I think see us Lewis stole from over for the great divorce because there's a character You know the bus yeah, he decides he's gonna start a theological debate society He's like oh you sound so smart.
Would you like to join my club? He's like what club he's like we're gonna have a talking group where we sit around we talk about theology and he's like That's what you want to do. He's like man. I just want to get some actual real theological discussion here Everyone in here is so stupid and then it's it's that he's he's like honestly ignoring the truth that is staring him right in the face For me this is throwback for a second to one of our early episodes again the difference between myth and dialectic right dialectic tears Things apart and tears things down and that investigates endlessly while myth gives you an example of the good and you can recognize it instantly and follow it Right you can analyze the good or you can do the good.
Mm-hmm. So the demons sit around and by analyzing the good they they can What is he what's the actual line that he uses he says with pleasing sorcery could charm pain for a while right? Just by by talking about this so basically they're sitting around they're literally having conversations about predestination right and then When they're conversations about predestination, it's kind of making them feel better about their sin and fall in this and it's like okay Well, just had to happen and then or whatever they're whatever lie they're believing or whatever sort of empty philosophy They're going around and around and around with when really every one of these demons is ignoring the absolute central problem that they are in a Wrong place with God and that they are have they are not repenting and so you know I'm talking with students about this so then students will then inevitably raise their hand say okay So it's like playing sports evil it's like no it's not but it's we all as human beings need to examine our motivation for doing things If we are creating art and music because we want to wallow in our sadness because there is a certain kind of pleasure in wallowing and sadness Then that is a bad motivation then creating something beautiful because you are partaking in he who is all of beauty It's sports our way to attract you from you should be dealing with another problem If sports if you say yourself like I only understand who I am in those 60 minutes of competition on the field and and that's when I come alive and everything else I just don't you know I'm not who I am I am who I am when I'm like throwing the football like that's you're running away from a full humanity there but if you can enter into it in the right way and your heart and relationship with God is good well then those sports are the place where brotherhood can grow and where competition can be done in a friendly way and virtues can form and Gentlemenly conduct can be can be upheld and and you know You can grow morally by being a good competitor for sure And then the last one, you know, maybe is the most obvious to the three of us since since we are we turn to a podcast every week Is sitting around and talking about about things has a has a seductive nature to it if you don't really care about the conversation If you don't really care about truth and you just care about like talking and sounding smart It can make you feel like you've got things figured out or even say at least I know that I don't have things figured out and take some sort of solace in that but Actively seeking out after truth and then when finding it saying, oh, you do it. I found it now.
I need to do it Right here's of the word versus the words exactly and so that's the and so these demons are so Milton is showing this doing this Because he's showing you know, this is not just demons. He's saying this is this is people. This is what we're doing Is that we were hiding from these things? So we all have lies that we believe about God to to you know Keep us from repenting the demons all have these various lies that they are telling themselves They don't have to repent and then you have all these various actions that they do the busyness of life the tasks of the tasks of the Day to bury yourself to snow in just know yourself under from the the the central burning problem Which is your heart is in discord with God and until you solve that Anything else is going to be sort of unsatisfying or is just going to be fleeing from it's gonna be it's gonna be fractured I know what we're talking about diabolical actually means the terms of the devil But I mean that it is on the devil, but the actual root word means to pull into pieces So so a diabolical thing is to take a hole and to separate into its parts and leave its parts on like the table That's a diabolical.
That's what that means. I'm so that kid that like pulled a sandwich apart at lunch when I was Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, but that's what they're doing, right? They've like they're pulling their lives They're taking what is a whole they're taking nature and creation and themselves and they're fracturing themselves and they're pulling themselves into parts Or they're being pulled into parts and then they're trying to exist as Pulled apart creatures and just sort of try to find meaning in the midst of brokenness which is Language that happens in the church nowadays that I also have very little tolerance for because we over focus on Focus on on the brokenness and not on the sanctification of putting the pieces back together and being a saint And that is what the demons are doing They are for they are trying to like cope with the brokenness as opposed to the hard work of sanctification Which begins with repentance anyway, you might personally talk over the summer part of it was to say that We there are like three identities for those for Christians and one of them is to say that we are sinners that we do make That choices that's a piece of it wanted to say that we're suffers and that bad things happen to us that we don't necessarily choose for Ourself like that is a part of life, but then the third part is that we are saints that we if we're in Christ We've been we're in Christ, but the most pushback I got was on the Saint piece of that I've been Terrifying I understand it but because it's a bold claim to say that you are a saint you either think of saints as you know Only like the super super holy that like their bodies don't decompose or or you it most people just thought of itself as only sinners So I guess I understand that but it's not true. Yeah, I to me.
It's it's just Yeah, it's it's a wallowing that is that is not done unhealthy and also not what as Christians were called to do Which is the business of sanctification. Yes, another Chester can quote since is a reader if you've not dived in the Chesterton like get on that bus reader Listen, I recently flipped through I think it's called the essential Chester 10 It was a collection of essays and it was lovely each one was only four or five pages It was great. This fiction is great. I think it's just a story.
He'll still say smart things He's great. There's a quote that he says the beginning of it I can't remember but the gist of it is that you know you need to root out sin every last hair and feather and I think about that Little phrase all the time I think about like you know The little hairs and feathers you find your pockets and all the little sins that are just sort of in the corners of your house Like the call is to root it all out. It's not just to like try to exist in the midst of the brokenness No, it's to unbreak. It's to it's to piece back together with the help of the spirit.
Oh my god. Yes So just yourself the world around you that you want to put any you start with me. It's just yourself. I mean you you you have to I mean you are called to be in community with other people and I think you can't go down the road of sanctification like a real desire to sanctify to be sanctified until you start to realize that You need other people for that to happen at least that's been my experience Is that you know when sort of taking taking the idea of sanctification seriously realize crap?
I actually need to be in community with people which is sort of contrary to my base or instincts So it's like Aristotle's talk about virtue right as soon as you decide to take one virtue seriously and try to do it You realize that you need to do all the other ones in order to perfect in that virtue It's just I mean it's the same it's the same truth and sanctification So I find it very convicting that the demons are literally trying to cope in a world of brokenness And as opposed and they're ignoring the central problem, which is like repentance of faith. Sure. Anyway, maybe a little bit of a shorter one But that's not that much shorter. It's 56 minutes.
Yeah, I think we're well within our I open am I doing this? Yeah, all right. Awesome. So thank you listener.
I guess therefore be a slash reader Thank you readers go pick up Chester 10 literally anything. Is that true? I haven't read a bad just I remember over like espresso like if you do you have much you're gonna hurt your tummy? That's probably true.
I find that way with just I can only do small doses This might make me a bad person But when we did our summer reading group and we went through orthodoxy that might have been my too much espresso moment So I I'm sure there were a lot of people were like well like that book I think it's not a quashio thing. Yeah, it's not I'm insufficient as a human But just like to read all of it over the course of like nine weeks or whatever it was might have been too much for me Yeah, I'm not saying objectively. So thank you loyal reader slash listener We are online at classical stuff.net you can find us there you can email us at classical stuff at veritasacademy.net You can find us on Twitter at kliscoll C L S S C al stuff At kliscoll stuff on Twitter. That's anyway, I'm gonna get this right.
I think that's everything. What do I forgot? Do we ever make mistakes? Do we oh hey the was it the Peloponnese those are not islands apparently that's it's a peninsula Like what episode was that cuz I was before I was on the podcast.
No, that was like three or four episodes ago Sparta for some reason. Yeah, we were talking about. Oh, the worst Peloponnese and because I don't know geometry I don't know geographies. I don't know what things aren't like rocket surgery.
Yeah That's a good one here. Yeah a couple people who told us that so thank you if you are one of those humans We appreciate you. Yeah, I guess that's wrong on it happen. No, you never do okay I'm trying to throw email anything that might be it.
I don't know anyway this oh quick note quick note one thing We got an email a while ago and have it talked about we did a how-to-write-good podcast featuring our praise of E.B. White in the Style and white and one of our listeners wrote us a lengthy Invective of E.B. White and his hatred for the passive voice when the passive voice really comes in handy sometimes so again I'd say that I'm not fully convinced that E.B. White is a total hack I'd say some of his rules are pretty good But I will say that I think pros style by stone and Bell is a far better writing manual the passive voice is something loved by all Oh, thank you so much.
All right, so this has been Graham a day and Thomas. Thank you so much, and we will talk again soon. Bye