Title: Double-effect reasoning in Paradise Lost: an investigation into Milton's God's will in humankind's Fall
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2016, vol. 42, iss. 2, pp. [69]-90
Extent
[69]-90
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2016-2-5
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/136097
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
Double-Effect Reasoning (DER) implies the coexistence of good and evil in certain affairs; for a good outcome to appear, the possible evil side effects in its company or deviating from it are foreseen-but-not-intended. In Paradise Lost, God's creation serves His eternal plan, which is in essence good. The evil that follows, through Satan's rebellion, Adam and Eve's disobedience, ecological deterioration, and the Son of God’s sacrifice, also happen under God's plan. These evil happenings, as paradoxes within good ends, follow the ethical principle of DER. Hence Milton's paradoxes in justifying God's ways in creation and His prelapsarian plan for the perfection of humankind through the Fall. The ambiguities of God's plan, in bringing good out of evil, can thus be explained through DER as an inevitable theological issue, which tries to explain the archetypal symbiosis between contradictions.
References
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[2] Aquinas, Thomas (1981) Summa theologiae. Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Provinc. Notre Dame: Christian Classics.
[3] Augustine of Hippo (2009) Confessions. Trans. Henry Chadwick. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[4] Augustine of Hippo (1955) Confessions and Enchiridion. Ed. & Trans. Alber Cook Outler. Louisville, The Westminster Press.
[5] Augustine of Hippo (1957–1972) De civitate Dei [City of God], 7 Vols. Ed. & Trans. G. E. McCracken et al. London: Heinemann.
[6] Augustine of Hippo (1972) De Genesi ad litteram [Literal Commentary on Genesis], 2 Vols. In La Genèse au sens littéral. Trans. P. Agaësse and A. Solignac. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer.
[7] Augustine of Hippo (2010) On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings. Ed. & Trans. Peter King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[8] Augustine of Hippo (1997a) Rebuke and Grace. In Answer to the Pelagians, IV. Ed. John E. Rotelle. Trans. Roland J. Teske. New York: New City Press, 109–148.
[9] Augustine of Hippo (1997b) The Punishment and Forgiveness of Sins and the Baptism of Little Ones. In Answer to the Pelagians, I. Ed. John E. Rotelle. Trans. Roland J. Teske. New York: New City Press, 19–132.
[10] Augustine of Hippo (1997c) The Spirit and the Letter. In Answer to the Pelagians I. Ed. John E. Rotelle. Trans. Roland J. Teske. New York: New City Press, 133–194.
[11] Baxter, Richard (1649) Aphorismes of Justification: with their explication annexed: wherein also is opened the nature of the covenants, satisfaction, righteousnesse, faith, works, & c.: published esspecially for the use of the church of Kederminster in Worcestershire by their unworthy teacher, Ri. Baxter. London: Printed for Francis Tyton.
[12] Boethius (1609) Five Bookes of Philosophicall Comfort. London: Mathew Lownes.
[13] Bryson, Michael (May 2002) '"That far be from thee": Divine evil and justification in Paradise Lost'. Milton Quarterly 36 (2), 87–105. | DOI 10.1111/1094-348X.00033
[14] Campbell, W. Gardner (2014) 'Temptation'. In: Schwartz, Louis (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Paradise Lost. New York: Cambridge University Press, 164–178.
[15] Cavanaugh, Thomas (2006) Double-Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and Avoiding Evil. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[16] Colebrook, Clair (2008) Milton, Evil, and Literary History. London: Continuum.
[17] Danielson, Dennis (1999) 'The fall and Milton's theodicy'. In: Danielson, Dennis (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Milton. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 144–159.
[18] Draper, Paul (2001) 'Pain and pleasure: an evidential problem for theists'. In: Rowe, William L. (ed.) God and the Problem of Evil. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 180–202.
[19] Duncan, Joseph Ellis (1972) Milton's Earthly Paradise: A Historical Study of Eden. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
[20] Greenlaw, Edwin (Apr. 1917) 'A Better Teacher than Aquinas'. Studies in Philology 14(2), 196–217.
[21] Innes-Parker, Catherine (2011) 'Critical essay on Paradise Lost'. In: Constantakis, Sara (ed.) Epics for Students. 2nd ed. Farmington Hills, MI: Cengage Gale, 595–598.
[22] Jeffrey, David L. (1992) A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing.
[23] Lawrence, Karen, Betsy Seifter, and Lois Ratner (1985) The McGraw-Hill Guide to English Literature: Volume One, Beowulf to Jane Austen. New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc.
[24] Lewis, Clive Staples (1969) A Preface to Paradise Lost. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[25] Linn, Bob (2001) CliffsNotes: Milton's Paradise Lost. New York: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.
[26] Loewenstein, David (2004) Milton: Paradise Lost. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[27] Lovejoy, Arthur Oncken (1973) 'Milton and the paradox of the fortunate fall'. ELH 4, 161–179. | DOI 10.2307/2871531
[28] Mautner, Thomas (2005) The Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy. 2nd ed. London: Penguin Books.
[29] McFarland, Ian A. (2010) In Adam's Fall: A Meditation on the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell.
[30] McIntyre, Alison (2011) 'Doctrine of Double Effect'. In: Zalta, Edward N. (ed.) The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2011/entries/double-effect - "Accessed on 15 June 2015"
[31] Milton, John (1982) Complete Prose Works of John Milton, 8 Vols. Ed. D. Wolfe et al. New Haven: Yale University Press.
[32] Milton, John (1957) John Milton: Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. Merritt Hughes. New York: Odyssey Press.
[33] Milton, John (2007) Paradise Lost. Ed. Barbabara K. Lewalski. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
[34] Nagel, Thomas (1980) 'The limits of objectivity'. In: McMurrin, Sterling (ed.) The Tanner Lectures on Human Values. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 77–139.
[35] Plontingo, Alvin (2002) God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.
[36] Poole, William (2005) Milton and the Idea of the Fall. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[37] Sanders, Andrew (1999) The Short Oxford History of English Literature. 2nd ed. London: Oxford University Press.
[38] Schwartz, Louise (2009) Milton and Maternal Mortality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[39] Steadman, John (August 1976) 'The idea of Satan as the hero of Paradise Lost'. Symposium on John Milton: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 120 (4), 253–294.
[40] The Bible: Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha (1998) Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[41] Walker, William (2007) 'On reason, faith, and freedom in Paradise Lost'. Studies in English Literature 1500–1900 47 (1), 143–159.