[lbo-talk] Re: Atheistic religions

[Carl Remick]

>From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu>
>
>In an argument
>some years ago among Milton scholars over whether or no Milton accepted
>the Trinity,  a scholar who thought that Milton did accept it in PL,
>said that in DC (rough prose notes for himself) Milton had very nearly
>become a polytheist.

[Or even a nonbeliever, no?  Ron Rosenbaum has an interesting NY Observer 
column on theodicy this week that includes this mention of Milton:]

... A God who encourages watching torture—as in the theology of Aquinas, who 
imagined that one of the pleasures that God would offer the souls He saved 
would be gazing down from Heaven upon the cruel and prolonged tortures of 
the damned in Hell. Recreational sadism from Heaven’s luxury skyboxes (Summa 
Theologica, Question 94).

This was one of the logical outcomes of certain orthodox Christian doctrines 
that used to drive William Empson crazy. Read Empson’s Milton’s God, his 
last, most lacerating book, almost totally devoted to denouncing the God of 
Paradise Lost—Milton’s massive effort at overcoming the contradictions of 
theodicy. And arguing from a study of Milton’s posthumously published and 
ambiguously heterodox De Doctrina Christiana that Milton had doubts, too. 
(Actually, it’s almost impossible to find a copy of Empson’s Milton’s God; 
someone should bring it back into print.) ...

<http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage3.asp>

Carl