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Kendall Horan
Carrie Matthews
English 297
17 November 2014
Actions Speak Louder than Words
A number of literary critics have recently suggested that the concept of free will in John
Miltons Paradise Lost has several fundamental problems. Among them are the issues regarding
to what extent free will is utilized during both Eves and Abdiels reception of Satans deception,
and to what extent Satan himself understands and utilizes his own free will, all in the face of
various temptations. And this utilization of free will is all well and good, but what Paradise Lost
truly addresses is not whether this temptation compromises free will but whether it compromises
reason. Free will is the ability to make a choice and follow through with said choice.
Subsequently, the ability to reason, while a factor, is not the only factor of free will. Free will
and reason are separate elements, the former concrete and the latter abstract and totally of the
mind. Satans temptation does affect many things, but it does so by compromising reason rather
than free will. Though Eves reason is influenced by Satans speech in the Garden of Eden, her
free will remains intact. Similarly, Abdiel is able to leave Satans side with the use of his free
will; only he does well to ignore Satans rhetoric and escape with his reason intact as well,
something Eve fails to do. Either way, free will remains, steadfast even where reason is not.
Before being able to fully appreciate the implications of this distinction between free will
and reason, it is first crucial to fully understand said distinction in terms of Paradise Lost. In
Book III, God explicitly identifies free will as separate from reason with his description of the
Fallen as authors to themselves in all, / Both what they judge, and what they choose (III. 122-

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3). Here the word judge is a synonym for reason and choose is merely a conjugation of
choice, choice a close synonym for will. That God addresses both this judgement or reason
and choice or will in the same sentence and Milton divides said sentence with a caesura creates
an undeniable, formulaic separation of the entities. Moreover, God calls the Fallen authors, a
word long associated with creator. That the Fallen, the created, are designated creators by their
Creator, capital C, appeals to the interminable nature of free will, but not reason. Once an author
writes something, however ill advised the writing, it cannot be unwritten; likewise, once a choice
is made, no matter the faulty judgement used to arrive at such a choice, it cannot be unmade.
Milton, by way of God, suggests free will cannot be taken away, though what they judge,
already deemed separate, may be swayed or sullied.
What follows is the issue of sullying that reason, an issue addressed most wholly in
Paradise Lost by Satans temptation of Eve and Abdiel. In his article Not so much a Teaching
as an Intangling, Stanley Fish suggests this temptation ends with Eve and Abdiels response
(somewhat unconscious) [being] to a performance rather than to a point of view that he might be
lead to adopt as his own (Fish, 10). It is Fishs firm belief that one can analyze the process of
deception only after it is successful (Fish, 6-8). Although Fish does not say so directly, he
assumes the choice to succumb to Satans whiles is not a choice at all, but a mere reaction
brought about by Satans rhetorical theatrics. He assumes the response to Satans deception is
not conscious but unconscious, thus eliminating the aspect of free will. Fish presents the idea
that characters such as Eve and Abdiel and, in fact, the reader do not give into Satan of their
own free will but of an involuntary reaction. By focusing on the immediate reaction to the
performance nature of Satans speeches, however, Fish overlooks the separation of reason and
free will. Where Fish overlooks the separation, John Milton posits each individual is inherently

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gifted with both free will and the ability to reason, God having made [them] just and right, /
sufficient to have stood, though free to fall (III. 95-9). The ability to reason, defined by that
free[dom] to fall, should not and does not simply vanish when Satan opens his mouth to speak.
Satans deception tactics are received by Eve and Abdiel, two individuals fully fit to reason and
fully fit to then apply that reason to free will. Now, there is some merit in Fishs claim of a
somewhat unconscious reaction to Satans temptation. Temptation is a form of manipulation,
and manipulation is, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, the act of controlling or
influencing a person unfairly, which is an act that hinders mental faculties. But this temptation
does not, as Fish suggests, hinder or compromise free will. It compromises reason.
When discussing the matter of free will amongst Satans targets of temptation, namely
Eve and Abdiel, it is important to understand that Satan, before attempting to diminish the free
will of his targets, utilizes both free will and reason of his own. In Book I, lines 242-270, Satan
gives a speech to his fellow Fallen Angels about this very utilization of free will and the reason
that came before it. Satans application of free will came via a choice, the choice to leave God
whom reason hath equalld, force hath made supreme / above his equals (I. 248-9). The use of
reason in this line describing God, the giver of free will, juxtaposed with force does well to
further emphasize the separation of reason and free will. Reason is the abstract, the thought
process behind an event, while free will is the active choice, the force necessary to put
something, once reasoned, into practice. It becomes clear that Satan, while demonstrating this
very separation of virtues, does not understand they are indeed separate. He believes the mind
is its own place, and in itself / can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven (I. 254-5). Defining
the mind as its own place eliminates the separation of abstract and concrete. Satan believes
the mind, the abstract and the ability to reason, can make a heaven of hell, when in reality it

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would need concrete action to truly make anything. Whats more, Satan states, here we may
reign secure; and in my choice / to reign is worth ambition, though in hell (I. 261-2). The
restatement here, reign secure in my choice / to reign is worth ambition, reveals Satan
utilizes both his reason and his free will by reasoning that the chance to reign secure though
in hell is worth his choice and ambition, or his application of free will. The thought of a
chance to reign leads to the choice to pursue that thought as ambition; the reason leads to the
application of free will. However, Satans failure to acknowledge the separation of reason and
free will later hinders him. Once he acts on his reason and pursues that ambition to rise up
against God, he admonishes himself, saying, Nay cursd be thou; since against his thy will /
Chose freely, what it now so justly rues (IV. 71-2). Satan sees the error of his ways and the
justification of Gods punishment of him, but only chastises himself for his choice, made
freely, to go against thy will. He does not chastise himself for his err in judgement or reason
that led to that choice. Had Satan realized it was a lapse of reason that resulted in him applying
his free will in a way tainted by horror and doubt (IV. 18-9) and not a lapse of free will
altogether, he may have realized his plot to rob the free will of others would amount to nothing
more than a sway of their reason and do nothing to actually compromise their free will, thus
foiling Satans desired result.
A further example of the separation between reason and free will, this time exacerbated
by Satans temptation in the Garden of Eden, comes in Book IX, lines 745-779 of Paradise Lost.
Here Eve treats the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden as a sounding board to help her
make sense of her run-in with Satan. She speaks to the tree as a separate entity, addressing its
knowledge both of good and evil in a second person point of view and thus establishing
knowledge as a force removed from the binary of good and evil by declaring it is of both (IX.

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751-2). On top of presenting knowledges singularity, this address suggests Eve is developing
the idea that Nature, embodied by the tree, is separate from God, or at least that God is not as
omnipotent and omniscient as she was led to believe, a notion reinforced by her referring to God
as an author unsuspect (IX. 771). The word unsuspect means not known or thought to exist
and when attributed to God robs God of his omniscience. This is sophistry on Eves part; she
reasons the serpents claim, Satans temptation, is correct by assuming and convincing herself
that God is unaware of it due to his separation from the Tree of Knowledge. Whether this is true
or untrue matters not; Eve believes it to be true, has reasoned that it is true, and proceeds to make
a choice based on this reason, however led astray by Satans conniving that reason is. The
passage as a whole, riddled with rhetorical questions, reads very much like an internal
monologue, even though Eve is directly addressing the Tree of Knowledge and its fruit. With
this internal monologue comes a key contradiction -- what starts as a question of knowledge with
what forbids he but to know ends on a question of ignorance with for us alone was death
invented (IX. 758-9, 766-7). The question of knowledge is well founded so close to Eves
discovery of the separation between knowledge and God, but the question of death is ignorant.
Eve knows full well death is not reserved for humans but has had her ability to reason sullied by
the serpent because he knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns in a way she has difficulty
fathoming (IX. 765). This deterioration of questioning marks the deterioration of Eves ability to
reason, but it is after this deterioration that she makes her choice to eat the fruit, after her reason
is compromised that she utilizes free will. Reason is compromised, yes, and does impact the use
of free will, but Eves ability to act on her reason remains her own.

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Book V, lines 896-907 of Paradise Lost dramatizes Abdiels application of free will
through descriptive third person narration of his departure from Satan. Beginning So spake the
seraph Abdiel, this passage is a summarizing conclusion to Book V, but also functions as a
freestanding attribution to Abdiels speech, fully utilizing the speakers relative removal from
and purported objectivity to the story. So spake the seraph Abdiel, is a tidy transition sentence
at the start of the passage (V. 896). The use of so introduces the concept of a conclusive
sentence while addressing Abdiel in third person marks the passage as a narrative attribution of
the previous passages dialogue. Moreover, unseducd and unterrified exist in the line
unmovd, / Unshaken, unseducd, unterrified, in which the latter two adjectives are abstract
while the former are concrete (V. 898-9). This lends further to the speakers omniscience; he is
able to describe Abdiel in the metaphysical sense, not just the physical much like how
Paradise Lost as a whole describes the separation of free will and reason as fact, not conjecture.
The following emphasis of his loyalty he kept, his love, his zeal emphasizes Abdiels
singularity in his stance of reason by lending loyalty and love and zeal to Abdiel alone and
removing him from any singular entity as Eve previously removed knowledge from good and
evil (V. 900). Addressing Satan and the Fallen Angels as the innumerable false is succinct
hyperbole, innumerable a word, according to the New Oxford American Dictionary, meaning
too many to count, but often used hypothetically. This lends to the power of Abdiels free will;
he is able to reason that the innumerable are, as their hypothetical descriptor, irrational and go
on to act against them, despite their attacks on his reason, with a grand display of free will.
What free will really comes down to, as gleaned through the tribulations of Satan, Eve,
and Abdiel in Miltons epic Paradise Lost, is not what is said or what is heard, but what is done.
The old adage rings true: actions speak louder than words; free will speaks louder than reason.

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