Satan's Trouble With Eve

Saturday, March 04, 2006

SFU student excellence: case # 097945

In the debate set up in seminar this past week between Milton's God and Milton's Satan, I noted several statements that revealed a strong engagement with the competing literary positions of our course authors. Here is an representative encapsulation of the opposing positions sent to me my email from from one of the seminar groups.

  1. [Milton] "The virtue of choosing good is contingent upon temptation and rejection of evil."
  2. [Hobbes] "Free will does not exist because we are always inclined to the good/beneficial. Since no one would freely choose a self-harming action, choice is simply a word associated with the related events that follow a given pattern of thought."

2 Comments:

  • On the summary of Hobbes' position, this is curiously reminiscent of Milton's idea of 'Charity,' wherein he says that to choose to do good, out of love for the other, is also the choice to do no harm to oneself. To 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' ultimately means that you are self-protecting...which now sounds rather Hobbesian...hmmm...
    Janet

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 4:56 PM  

  • Hmmm... is right! Do you have your Milton citation?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 12:08 PM  

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