The Fall of Man in Milton’s Paradise Lost
In Book IX of Paradise Lost, Milton shows what sin is really about: thinking that we can be like God and losing sight of the essential difference between the eternal Creator and the finite creature. It is not just an obedience issue. Satan is a deceiver, and he deceives Eve very craftily. He argues that he, a serpent, ate the fruit and was raised from brute life to reason and speech; if the fruit could raise him to a higher state, it could raise Adam and Eve still higher, even to become as gods. God’s prohibition, he suggests, is really meant to keep them from that higher knowledge.
The temptation also plays upon Eve’s desire to rise above her own place. After eating, she briefly considers keeping the fruit from Adam so that her greater knowledge might make her his equal or even his superior. But then she fears that she may die and Adam may be given another Eve, and it is ultimately her desire not to lose him that leads her to persuade him to eat. Adam is not deceived by the serpent as Eve is, but in placing Eve above God he has already lost sight of who God is. He treats a finite creature as a greater good than the eternal Creator.
Milton therefore also gives us a picture of the root of relationship difficulties. Adam and Eve get their eyes off the highest good and onto each other. Eve seeks to rise above Adam, while Adam makes Eve too great a good. Once their relation to God is disordered, their relation to each other quickly becomes disordered as well.
And the immediate result is to make matters even more complicated. They feel shame and begin casting blame. By the end of the book they are caught in mutual accusation, neither willing to condemn himself or herself. This reflects a basic truth: no matter how badly we mess up, and no matter how big our problems become, we can begin to turn things around if we are able to see past the guilt, shame, and blame and face what we have done. As John says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).
