“With Dangers Compast Round” 1660–1665he, in bringing himself within the limits of our understanding, wishes us to form....
In short, God either is or is not really like he says he is. If he really is like this, why
should we think otherwise? If he is not really like this, on what authority do we
contradict God? If, at any rate, he wants us to imagine him in this way, why does our
imagination go off on some other tack? (133, 136)He entirely repudiates all attempts to explain what seems unworthy of God by
anthropopathy (the figurative ascription of human feelings to God), making the
radical claim that every aspect of God’s portrayal of himself in the Bible – including
his expression of humanlike emotions and his manifestation in something like hu-
man form – should form part of our conception of him:
We ought not to imagine that God would have said anything or caused anything to be
written about himself unless he intended that it should be a part of our conception of
him. On the question of what is or what is not suitable for God, let us ask for no more
dependable authority than God himself. If Jehovah repented that he had created man, Gen.
vi.6, and repented because of their groanings, Judges ii.18, let us believe that he did repent.
... If he grieved in his heart Gen. vi.6, and if, similarly, his soul was grieved, Judges x.16,
let us believe that he did feel grief.... If it is said that God, after working for six days,
rested and was refreshed, Exod. xxxi.17, and if he feared his enemy’s displeasure, Deut.
xxxii.27, let us believe that it is not beneath God to feel what grief he does feel, to be
refreshed by what refreshes him, and to fear what he does fear.... After all, if God is
said to have created man in his own image, after his own likeness, Gen. i.26, and not only his
mind but also his external appearance (unless the same words mean something differ-
ent when they are used again in Gen. v.3, Adam begot his son after his own likeness, in his
own image), and if God attributes to himself again and again a human shape and form,
why should we be afraid of assigning to him something he assigns to himself, provided
we believe that what is imperfect and weak in us is, when ascribed to God, utterly
perfect and utterly beautiful? (134–6)On such principles, the poet Milton can find biblical warrant for portraying God as
an epic character who expresses a range of emotions (fear, wrath, scorn, dismay,
love), who makes himself visible and audible to his creatures by various means, and
who engages in dialogue with his Son and with Adam.
No aspect of De Doctrina Christiana is more central to Milton’s mature thought
than the arguments he develops in chapters 3 and 4, opposing orthodox Calvinist
determinism and predestination and insisting that God’s eternal decrees provide for
genuine freedom of choice to angels and humankind, both before and after their
falls. These arguments, often paralleling the beliefs of the Dutch theologian Jacobus
Arminius and his Remonstrant followers,^100 provide the theological underpinning
for the commitment to liberty and human responsibility, founded upon reason and
free will, which had been a constant of Milton’s political polemic almost from the
outset. Supralapsarian Calvinism insisted that an omnipotent, immutable God whose
will is wholly unconstrained must have predestinated certain individuals to salva-