Give Me Liberty Or Give Me A Piece Of Fruit? The Liberty (Or Lack Thereof) Of Adam And Eve In Paradise Lost Essay, Research Paper
Give Me Liberty or Give Me a Piece of Fruit?
The Liberty (or Lack Thereof) of Adam and Eve
in Paradise Lost
Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. -Milton, Areopagitica, 1644
If we are to take any one moral from Milton’s Paradise Lost, it might very well be that human beings must always be obedient to God. However, the term obedience implies the ability to make a choice. After all, if men are not free to decide to be obedient, then it is really not obedience at all but the only natural state that mankind can achieve. In order to support the moral that all sentient beings must be obedient to God, then we must accept that God created all sentient beings with free will. God says, “I form’d them free, and free they must remain, till they enthrall themselves” (III.123).
Freedom has only one condition in the paradise of Eden-to be obedient to God’s will. Adam and Eve were instructed not to eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Except for this single prohibition, they were indeed free. Or where they?
In the Garden, the archangel Raphael explains to Adam that man might someday purify their bodies into spirit, meaning that humans might one day evolve into something more akin to the angels. However, Raphael does condition the possibility. He tells Adam that his obedience is required in order for it to happen. Adam asks about obedience, and Raphael tells him, “Our voluntary service he requires?freely we serve, because freely we love” (V.529-540).
God’s justice depends upon the freedom of his rational creatures. This can be a troublesome declaration because embedded in the notion of freedom is the ability to disobey. So given that God gave us our ability to disobey, then it can be stated that God in ultimately responsible for man’s disobedience. If mankind is constituted in such a way that they cannot act contrary to God’s commands, there can be no virtue in obedience. Therefore, they serve necessity-not God.
It might be argued that Eve is less free than her husband is. If so, this could very well be due to a case of gender inequality. From Eve’s birth, women were deemed inferior to men. When Eve woke for the first time, shortly after being formed from Adam, she finds Adam asleep and then wanders to a body of water. Not realizing that she viewed a reflection of herself, Eve immediately fell in love with her own image. If not for divine intervention telling Eve that she was gazing at her own reflection and that she had a lover waiting on her, Eve might have been the world’s first narcissist.
Being inferior in physical ability and subservient to Adam as he is to God, an argument could be made that Eve willfully chose to be tempted by the snake so that she could gain an advantage over Adam. She deliberates on whether or not to share the fruit with Adam. If she alone eats, it will “render [her] more equal, and perhaps?Superior: for inferior who is free?” (IX.823-825). However, in the end she cannot bear the notion of her dying and Adam taking a second Eve. So in a state of what can only be considered jealousy, Eve decides to convince Adam to eat of the forbidden fruit.
It is tempting to ponder what might have happened to the world had Adam not been tempted to eat the fruit. However, it is useless speculation at best. Adam had no real choice at all. Adam is not seduced into partaking of the forbidden fruit, even though Eve attempts the same arguments the serpent used on her.
When Adam eats, he knows what he is doing-but that does not make it a free choice. God created Eve be the most intoxicatingly beautiful being in all existence. Furthermore, He crafted Eve from a part of Adam, and therefore Adam is closer to her than any husband has been to a wife since. They are essentially one being-Adam perceives no choice but to die with her. Keep in mind that God created Eve and her attributes. Being all knowing, God realized that Adam would love her fully and unconditionally. By creating her anyway, God has usurped even more of Adam’s free will. Furthermore, God created Eve in a way that ensured that she would be forever inferior to Adam. Had he created her as Adam’s equal and therefore with no subconscious need to empower herself, perhaps Eve would have never caved into the temptation of the serpent.
God was aware that if he gave Adam and Eve the supposed gift of a “free will”, their eventual fall from grace was certain. He also knew that Satan would rise from damnation to lead the first humans into the first sin. So, what was God’s purpose for not intervening to save his precious creations? This leads directly to the issue of predestination. Was the fall of humankind written into the pages of history before Creation?
Predestination states that since God knows the entire course of future events, the fate of every person is determined before he or she is born. The damned are powerless to ever pass the gates of heaven, and the chosen are guaranteed membership in Paradise. Milton points out that God, in His own words, wants all humans to be chosen for heaven.
My belief throughout the essay has centered on the notion that with out free will, obedience is without virtue. However, to state positively that Adam and Eve in Paradise Lost are completely free or whether they are automatically programmed to be obedient is nearly impossible. Instead, I maintain that the truth lies somewhere in between. God most certainly gave mankind the ability to act freely. However, He tempers that ability with rules, beauty, and a lack of equality.
God granted them the ability to decide, but then stacked the decked against them. Instead of allowing them to be obedient on their own accord, God creates a tree that bears fruit that they cannot eat. He creates Eve in a role subservient to Adam, thereby causing the circumstances that might have led to Eve consuming the forbidden fruit in an effort to become Adam’s equal. And if those were not bad enough, he allows Satan into the Garden, having full knowledge of what Satan would accomplish.
It appears that God does this to all of his rational creatures. God created the Son and placed him over the archangels knowing full well that it would lead to Satan revolting. Was Satan showing free will when he revolted, or was he reacting in the only way that God predisposition him to react?
God gave Adam and Eve free will, but then makes every effort to condition them not to use it. Disobedience is punished, therefore making therefore making fear the impetus of obedience, not virtue. Mankind’s ability to think freely is blocked by obstacles that God has deemed fit to place in our paths.
Milton, J. (1935). Paradise Lost. New York: The Odyssey Press, Inc.