Quest for Knowledge and God’s Love (Part III)
Milton’s work “Paradise Regained? and “Areopagitica? offer us a glimpse of a God who is capable of both love and discipline. It is true that the reality we observed around us seem to blight that fact. We see sufferings, poverty, pain, injustice and all other negativities. It is hard indeed to imagine a loving God amidst all these. Where is the love in all that?
This indeed is baffling. God’s seeming indifference is puzzling. If He is truly a God of love how come all we see is suffering? In order to address that question we need to trace back our roots and see where we went wrong. We go back to the times when man was simply a meek and obedient creature, loved by God and not wearied by imperfections. Man was perfect, incapable of sin. At least, that was how we started millions of years ago. As times went on though, things changed. By common consensus, we could say things took a turn for the worst.
When Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit in paradise they became aware of their nudity and were overcome by intense lust. They made love for the first time. When confronted by God, they felt shame which meant they were aware of their mistakes.
God purposely made man incapable of choosing right from wrong. When Satan learned that the Tree of Knowledge is forbidden to Adam and Eve, he ponders “ignorance, is that their happy state, / the proof of their obedience and their faith?” Indeed would ignorance be bliss? The fact that they felt ashamed of what they had done made it all too plain that their mistake went beyond lust. Man’s biggest fall is brought about by disobedience.
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