Tag: theology

On John Milton’s Paradise Lost: Book 1—The Invocation of the Muse

The Prologue:

Having read the first four books (of twelve) from John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and having at last begun to feel grounded with it—or perhaps at least gotten used to flights through the cosmos by Satan and the (good) heavenly hosts— it is time to return to the beginning of the poem to re-engage, reflect, and recite.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

As is the convention of the “epic,” Milton not only takes on big topics, but also saves us the effort of discerning those topics by telling us the answer in the opening lines: he will tell of the fall of humanity from grace when Adam and Eve disobeyed God’s command to stay away from the forbidden tree and its fruit:

Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit

Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste

Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing Heav’nly Muse (1.1-6a)

And so, Milton does as the great writers of epic tales had done before him: invokes his “Muse.” 

For Milton, though, the muse is not Calliope, but the same Holy Spirit who gave inspiration to Moses, writer of the Pentateuch:

That Shepherd who first taught the chosen Seed,

In the Beginning how the heav’ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos . . . I thence

Invoke thy aid to my advent’rous Song (1.8-13)

And divine aid Milton will need, for he boasts of doing one better—nay, infinitely better—than Homer, Virgil, or the writer of Beowulf, writers who told tales of the origins of a people or nation.  In contrast, Milton shall narrate the event that affected not one, but all peoples and nations: when Satan succeeded in turning our first parents away from God. We await, then, “Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhyme” (1.16)

Milton prepares by reminding himself of the need to be virtuous (“And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th’ upright heart and pure” 1.17-18), and thus worthy of receiving inspiration from the Muse, which will enable him to accomplish his task to “justify the ways of God to men” (1. 26). No grander goal has ever been undertaken by mere mortal writers! Note, though, the quid pro quo that Milton assumes is necessary for him to receive this inspiration.  Surely, he must be good enough before the Muse will reward him with its gift. It is ironic, then, that as Milton is about to embark on a tale of unmerited grace given from God to sinful humanity through Jesus Christ, he himself must be good enough to receive the free gift of inspiration.  Is he perhaps demonstrating the same vice that got Adam and Eve into trouble, namely, pride in himself and his own efforts?   

Nevertheless, it is not surprising that Milton cries out to the Heavenly Muse for inspiration, for whom among us have not cried out in hope or anxiousness or frustration for a neatly arranged and quickly delivered package of interesting thoughts and clever words, a package of inspiration that provides us with the material we need to fill up the page?

On Creating a “Great Books” Reading Club

11 April 2026

Last week, a lady who will be a future parishioner of mine asked me if I miss being in academia. (Previous to becoming a pastor, I worked at various colleges and universities for a couple of decades as an English and Humanities instructor.)

I answered that one slice of academia I did NOT miss was all of the grading, but that I did miss the rewards of reading challenging works filled with complex ideas and then discussing them with others who have read those works as well.  (One of the shortcomings of digging into great works of literature within a college course, however, is that too many of the young-adult students in the class would be so obsessed with getting good grades in school in order to find good jobs after graduation that they underappreciated the intellectual opportunities to uplift one’s mind and open new ways of understanding—and thereby better appreciating—the universe around us, which for me means appreciating the Kosmos,  the orderly, nuanced, and complex everything that God has created both for His glory and for our awe.)

I also shared with the parishioner that I am fortunate to be in a Great Books Reading Club, which provides me with mental challenges from the ideas contained in the literary and philosophical works followed by rewarding discussions about those works with others who are members in our reading group. 

There are only three of us in our Great Books Reading Club and all of us are pastors in a small Wisconsin town (in the United States).  The other two pastors majored in Philosophy as undergraduates, while I majored in English.  We all eventually attended theological seminaries, then began working as pastors, and we now make time within our schedules to meet once a month to discuss those “Great Books.”

In the past two or so years, our little group has read Plato’s Republic, Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy, and Nietzsche’s  On the Genealogy of Morals; we are currently working our way through Milton’s Paradise Lost. I plan to share some reflections on these works in my future WordPress  posts, thereby doing my small part to extend the discussion on what Mortimer Adler defined in the mid-twentieth century as “Great Books” participating in a “Great Conversation” about  “Great Ideas” that have contributed to culture and society, and that continue to influence our ideas, identities, politics, and worldviews even today.  

Stop back for more of this discussion later . . .