Prefatory remark:
I would like to explain the nature of my paper. My short paper required a great amount of independent research and less in the amount of creative possibilities. I wanted to make my long paper more in the lines of my own, exclusive, independent thinking. With this in mind I did a lot of research but only used the material that conformed to my own paper ideas. My extensive use of Bush is not because I derived my ideas from him but rather because I found support for ideas that I already had.
Right Reason: Milton's Ethical Standard
There are two closely related foci in this paper. First, I want to point out the dichotomy between right and reason in Milton's concept of right reason. Second, I want to suggest that this concept of right reason is the controlling principal of Milton's ethics.
As Bush recognizes in his book, Paradise Lost In Our Times, "The supreme manifestation of right reason is God himself." It is because God is the source of right reason as well as the source of goodness and love that makes right reason an operative force for man after his Fall. Michael explains to Adam:
Since thy original lapse, true liberty
Is lost, which always with right reason dwells
Twinned, and from her hath no dividual being:
Reason in man obscured, or not obeyed,
Immediately inordinate desires
And upstart passions catch the government
From reason, and to servitude reduce
Man till then free.
Because man's reason is "obscured" it is no longer sufficient within itself to lead man to God. Milton still recognizes reason as important but much more limited than it had been in prelapsarian times. In fact Milton warns man in Paradise Lost, "Solicit not thy thoughts with matters hid, / Leave them alone to God above, him serve and fear." Reason is not sufficient but then God does not expect it to be. Bush suggests the answer when he claims, "the spirit of man and the revealed word of God together proclaim unshakable truths." The solution to man's predicament lies in Milton's concept of right reason. What is the nature of this "right reason" that God has provided for man?
Right reason is not equivalent to our concept of reason. It is not limited to any amoral, systematic functioning of the human intellect but neither is it simply an ingrained religious conscience. Bush calls it "a kind of rational and philosophic conscience which distinguishes man from the beasts and which links man with man and with God." This ability was given by God to all men and exists as a source of truth and a guide to proper conduct. "Though its effectual workings may be obscured by sin, it makes man, in his degree, like God; it enables him, within limits, to understand the purposes of a God who is perfect reason as well as perfect justice, goodness, and love." The classicists as well as other non-Christian thinkers, are men who have achieved a degree of truth and virtue according to their natural reason but are in need of divine revelation and love to complete their search for truth. Reason is not denied as a source of God, it does search for the "true light," and it is a gift of God, but it is limited by human imperfection. Because of its limitations it is only one part of the two-facet approach of the Christian search for truth. Milton says that the unwritten law of God:
is no other than that law of nature given originally to Adam, and of which a certain remnant, or imperfect illumination, still dwells in the hearts of all mankind; which, in the regenerate, under the influence of the holy spirit, is daily tending towards a renewal of its primitive brightness.
The illumination is imperfect and consequently it demands two corresponding approaches to truth--imperfect reason and its inspiration by the revelation of the inner light.
Now that I have established a need for right reason, that God is the source of it, and that it takes revelation and reason working together to conform to Milton's ethical principal of "right reason" I would like to suggest that this dichotomy of revelation and reason represents Milton as a synthesis between what we commonly refer to as the old and new worlds. On one hand there is the revealed truth and love of the inner light which suggests the old world approach, the deductive approach in which man discovers particular values according to the revealed word of God. On the other hand Milton suggests the new world view of man finding his own truth through the use of his natural powers of reason. The method of the rational and empirical movements was inductive. Milton does not consider these two seemingly opposite approaches to Truth as being in conflict (partly because he recognizes only one truth). On the one hand, reason is working upward toward God while on the other hand God is working down toward man as he reveals himself to man through the Holy Spirit and the inner light. Theoretically Christ symbolizes the ultimate synthesis of these two corresponding approaches through his proper use of his inner light and natural reason.
Understanding the dichotomy between right and reason, that they must work together in an imperfect world, and that God is the source of this right reason, we can now interpret right reason as the underlying principal of Milton's ethics. The concept of right reason is essential to all of Milton's ethical assumptions.
The first essential supposition of Milton's ethics is that man has free choice and is not predestinated. In Areopogitica Milton contends:
When God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force; God therefore left him free.
We find this emphasis on the liberty of man in virtually all of Milton's works. In Paradise Lost it is essential to our understanding of Adam.
God made thee perfect, not immutable;
And good he made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy power, ordain'd thy will
By nature free, not over-rul'd by Fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity;
Our voluntary service he requires,
Not our necessitated, such with him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find, for how
Can hearts, not free, be tri'd whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By Destiny, an can no other choose?
The first essential to Milton's ethics is his notion of free choice and significantly this emphasis on free choice is closely identified with the reason half of right reason. In Book III of Paradise Lost God announces "Reason also is choice." We will see that the revelation of "right" is also important to Milton's notion of liberty.
Milton extends his notion of liberty and free choice to a freedom from man-created, outside sources. As Bush properly observes in Paradise Lost, "Regenerate man is in fact freed from dependence upon and allegiance to all external authorities and institutions." The significance is two-fold. "Free choice" is closely linked to the concept of the power of reason and the freedom from the authorities and institutions (which were devised by the rationality of man) accents the need for the revealed truth of the inner light. Milton does not see the two forces at odds but rather sees them working toward each other and the same goal of ultimate knowledge and redemption. Right and reason are essential to Milton's notion of liberty.
With his accent on liberty and freedom, Milton is quick to affirm that liberty is not license. Along with his belief in the right of publication, Milton asserts that with the "dignity and freedom of individual man" comes a responsibility for individual discipline. In Areopogitica Milton defends the right to read and publish.
Read any books whatever come to thy hand, for thou art sufficient both to judge aright and to examine each matter… To the pure, all things are pure.
There are two reasons Milton can use to defend his liberalism. First, he maintains that good can only be known in this imperfect world as it is distinct from evil and second he trusts that if the books are detrimental the people will exercise their right reason and voluntarily burn them. If people correctly exercise their right reason they will automatically be "responsible" because right reason depends upon responsibility for its proper use. License and right reason are not compatible because license is denying the "right" component of right reason.
The corollary to Milton's emphasis on freedom and responsibility is that only the wise men are actually free. As Bush observes, "Over and over again Milton repeats that liberty is not license, that true liberty can be enjoyed only by the wise and good." This corollary is just as relevant today as it was then. To digress for just a moment I think this message about only the wise man experiencing freedom is especially important. Possibly the two most often attacked vices from the church pulpit are drinking and smoking. They are not always attacked for the right reasons but they can be attacked under Milton's ethical standards. If the person chooses to smoke or drink because of the enjoyment Milton might not say anything, but if the person smokes of drinks because his body has come to need the nicotine or alcohol or the psychological relief he is no longer making a choice for pleasure but has become a slave to the object. This can be extended to other areas of the human concern including the more generic things such as envy or jealousy. If you are a slave to something rather than choosing something you no longer are experiencing the freedom Milton thought was essential to his brand of Christianity. It was important to do the right thing for the right reason. Bishop Pike has nothing new to add to Milton when he suggests that a Christian is a person who patterns his life after the freedom that Jesus found.
This has not been entirely a digression because if you appreciate the emphasis on choice you can appreciate Milton's statement that only the wise men actually appreciate freedom.
For, indeed, none can love freedom heartily but good men; the rest love not freedom but license, which never hath more scope, or more indulgence than under tyrants.
Milton connects the relationship of liberty to reason earlier in the Second Defence when he announces,
Unless you will subjugate the propensity to avarice, to ambition, and sensuality, and expell all luxury from yourselves and your families, you will find that you have cherished a more stubborn and intractable despot at home, than you ever encountered in the field. You, therefore, who wish to remain free, either instantly be wise, or, as soon as possible, cease to be fools; if you think slavery an intolerable evil, learn obedience to reason and the government of yourselves.
The first essential of Milton's right reason is that man has the freedom to choose and this rational liberty to choose and this rational liberty to choose, balanced by a corresponding responsibility to choose "rightly" is Milton's first supposition of his ethical construct.
Having established the right and obligation to choose and to choose correctly it follows that Milton's second ethical principal would be the necessity of testing virtue. By example alone we can see that this is essential to Milton's ethics and theology. Comus is tested, Christ is tempted, Adam and Eve are tempted and succumb, and Samson is tempted. In Areopogitica Milton expresses the need for temptation so that man can discern good from evil.
Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compared in scripture to a streaming fountain, if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition.
Right reason is the operative principal that permits man to exercise his faith and overcome temptation. Christ is closely identified with right reason and properly so since he uses his right reason to meet the temptations of Satan. It takes both his rational arguments and his intuitive knowledge to realize that Satan is not quite what he makes himself out to be. The Devils as represented by Satan, who "reason for their Law refuse," are rendered helpless against the right reason as embodied by Christ. But it was not easy for Christ. In an imperfect world the proper use of right reason is not clear-cut. Satan's temptation of worldly power in Paradise Regained might have been a proper outlet for Christ's mission. But through a combination of the revelations of love of his inner light and his rational consideration of Satan's arguments, Christ successfully surmounts the temptations.
Once we have established that man has free choice, this liberty requires responsibility rather than giving license, and that virtue must be tested, and that all of this is interdependent with the concept and proper use of right reason (the synthesis of revelation and reason by the inner light) we can consider the nature of sin in the context of Milton's ethics.
Milton's world view was the concept of the chain of being. Everything had its proper place including God and man. There are three basic methods of looking at sin in Milton's works and they are all interrelated. In it s broadest sense sin can be interpreted as man upsetting the natural order of the universe. Man had a clearly defined role and any attempt to break with this role constitutes sin. More specifically the sin of Adam and Eve is attributable to their pride and presumption in thinking that they could ascend to the "godhead." The third way of looking at sin is in terms of reason and passion. Saurat speaks in these terms.
The study of the fall teaches us that for Milton man is a double being, in whom co-exist desire and intelligence or passion and reason. The two powers ought to be in harmonious equilibrium, desire being normally expressed, but remaining under the leadership of reason. Evil appears, the Fall takes place, when passion triumphs over reason.
The natural order of the universe, which includes reason over passion, is upset when Adam and Eve fall. Their vulnerability to their passion at the expense of their reason is in direct conflict with the demands of right reason. Bush expresses it as "Eve falls through weakness of reason, Adam through weakness of will, and both violate, not merely a taboo, but the order of nature." When they have sinned, their souls are an unnatural chaos of contending passions:
For understanding rul'd not, and the Will
Heard not her lore, both in subjection now
To sensual Appetite, who from beneath
Usurping over sovran Reason claim'd
Superior sway.
Bush goes on to add:
It must be emphasized again that this sovereignty of reason is always presented as the wholly natural order, not, as naturalistic thought would have it, an unnatural restraint, and that it is the overthrow of that sovereignty which is unnatural.
A statement attributed to Jesus, that I came across in an ancient parchment of the Book of Thomas indicates the relationship of reason and passion.
Blessed is the lion which is eaten by the man, and the lion becomes man; but cursed is the man who is eaten by the lion, and the man becomes a lion.
But since the fall, no longer will reason suffice. Just as Milton notes the limitations in the rationality of the classicists he recognizes the limits of reason for all mankind. Reason must be fortified and illuminated by Christian revelation and Christian love for man to discover truth. This is the whole basis of Milton's ethics-right reason. Right reason acknowledges the need for both reason and revelation. With the proper use of this right reason (and right reason implies proper use since its equivalent is God's will) sin can be combatted by accepting the natural order of things, recognizing human limitations, and controlling passion by reason.
In this paper I have tried to indicate that man is in need of an end to salvation. God being the source of justice and reason provides an ethical principal of "right reason" to operate by. In an imperfect world this right reason suggests two opposite approaches to truth, in a sense-right and reason. Man's ultimate goal would be to synthesize right and reason to discover the one truth. I made much of the dichotomy of right and reason and then tried to show how it was basic to Milton's main ethical precepts of free choice, tested virtue, and the nature of sin being passion over reason.
In conclusion I would like to return to a point I made earlier about Milton being a man between two worlds. His concept of right reason clearly reflects this. Milton recognized the two approaches to truth and denied either as being sufficient within itself. What Milton was able to do was synthesize the best of the two and did it by conceiving of the ethical power of "right reason."