Season 3 Podcast 138 Milton's Paradise Lost Bk III Freewill

Bk III, Pt V, Milton’s Paradise Lost: Freewill Pt IThis is the Fifth in the series entitled Milton’s Paradise Lost. In Book I and II we have the War in Heaven.  Satan and his angels are cast out of Heaven. In Book II Satan escapes from Hell and travels toward earth. Those scenes are covered in Previous Podcasts. Today’s Podcast is from Book III. As Satan flies through Chaos and Night, he is Observed by Elohim and Jehovah, the Father and the Son.  Satan thinks he is free, but his every move is monitored. He travels to earth only by permission though he doesn’t know it.  The Father allows Satan to tempt man only because opposition is necessary. Man cannot have agency unless he is enticed both by Satan to do evil and by Christ to do good. Elohim is speaking to his Son, and he explains why he allow Satan to come to earth. Milton introduces the Father and the Son:Now had the Almighty Father from above,From the pure Empyrean where he sitsHigh Thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye,His own works and their works at once to view:About him all the Sanctities of HeavenStood thick as Stars, and from his sight receiv’dBeatitude past utterance; on his rightThe radiant image of his Glory sat,His only Son;  First, they observe Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.On Earth he first beheldOur two first Parents, yet the only twoOf mankind, in the happy Garden plac’t,Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,Uninterrupted joy, unrivald loveIn blissful solitude; Then he spies Satan flying toward earth.He then survey’dHell and the Gulf between, and Satan thereCoasting the wall of Heav’n on this side NightIn the dun Air sublime, and ready nowTo stoop with wearied wings, and willing feetOn the bare outside of this World, that seem’dFirm land imbosom’d without Firmament,Uncertain which, in Ocean or in Air.Him God beholding from his prospect high,Wherein past, present, future he beholds,4 RONThe Father speaks about Satan. Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.Only begotten Son, seest thou what rageTransports our adversary, whom no boundsPrescrib’d, no bars of Hell, nor all the chainsHeapt on him there, nor yet the main AbyssWide interrupt can hold;Before Satan even acts, Heavenly Father explains that all the evil Satan does will double back on him and he becomes the victim of his own evil, bringing misery on top of misery upon himself.  Sin is its own curse, and one brings upon himself the punishment of hell through the natural consequences of broken laws. In Book II, Milton Describes how Sin was given birth when Satan conceived the idea of fighting against God.  At first Sin was beautiful beyond description and seduced a third of the host of heaven. Lucifer was so enamored of his daughter Sin that he lay with her and conceived Death. Death, however, had an unnatural birth. He was ripped out of her bowels deforming her body into a hideous monster, and Death filed with Lust for his mother, raped her and begot an infinite brood of hellhounds that continued to gnaw at Sin’s entrails causing unimaginable pain. Using those incestuous images of Satan, Sin, and Death, Milton describes the incestuous nature of sin, how it doubles back on itself and torments its victims.  On the one hand Milton describes the pains of hell in his own inimitable way but lays the blame on the sinner and not on God.