『실낙원』에 나타난 밀턴의 하나님 정당성 옹호

Abstract

The Bible plays an important role in fostering the spirit and the character, the climate of religious opinion, which shapes Milton's life and attains full poetic flowering in Paradise Lost. The purpose of this article is to illuminate Milton's opinion on the right ways of God to man. In the beginning of Paradise Lost, Milton makes clear that he intend to sing both the restoration of man by one greater man and recovery of the lost paradise to justify the way of God to men. Milton does not seem to distinguish the world before the Fall from the ideal society to be restored at the end. His apocalyptic vision is therefore a poetic attempt to fulfill God's ultimate plan or to "justify the ways of God to men" by connecting the first and the last, so that we can see a return to Paradise that is lost forever with the Fall of Adam and Eve. Since the fall of Adam, all mankind has proceeded to evil ways and made sins against God. Milton indicates that the way of restoration of man arises from the grace of God, who means to deliver man out of the fallen state through His only Son, Christ. To all who believe in Christ's redemption, God proclaims the release from sin and death. On the “Salvation” of man, Milton puts the emphasis on the unmerited grace of God, while on the “sin”, he stresses it depends on the man's freedom of the will. Paradise Lost Book XI and XII deal with the evolution of Adam's consciousness, so this section become a study of Adam's development from his first despair at the thought of death, through a succession of hopes and fears, to a comprehension of the final victory of good over evil and final understanding of God's purpose and reconciliation with God's Will, Providence. Milton concludes his poem with a relatively straightforward summary, first through vision and then through Michael's narrative, of the history of Adam's heirs from the Fall to the coming of Christ and beyond.