Great Books III Fall
2018
Paradise Lost - John Milton
"God's Objective is
___"
|
Reading/Discussion Schedule
September 13: I; September 17: II, III, IV (through
IV.719);
September 20: IV (remaining), V, VI, VII;
September 24: VIII, IX; September
27: X, XI, XII
|
Reading/Discussion Prompts
September 13
-
What is Satan's problem?
-
What makes Satan heroic?
-
How is this work like the Iliad?
-
What does pure evil look like?
-
How is Satan justified? unjustified? in his relationship with God/with his minions?
-
Why is Satan at war with God?
September 17
-
Why is sin unable to close the gate?
-
Why does Man receive grace
despite his fall, yet Satan receives none?
-
Is God really in charge,
omnipotent, omniscient, ... while allowing Satan to enter the
garden?
-
Why does God plant BOTH trees
in the garden?
-
What is "guided free will"?
What is an "umpire conscience"?
-
Describe Satan's state of mind.
-
Why are there no children in paradise?
Moloch, Belial, Mammon, Beelzebub
September 20 - CLASS WILL
START IN STAUFFER CHAPEL
-
Read the first two chapters of
Genesis.
-
What does "thrice happy" mean?
-
Is knowledge ever bad?
-
Does God's perfection include Satan?
-
How is Paradise the ultimate form of happiness? How not so?
-
How can servility be freedom?
-
What is God's "great purpose" in all of this?
September 24
-
You are in a state of
perfection for each of the following time periods. What are you
doing? a) one minute, b) one hour, c) one day.
-
Who is ultimately to blame
for the fall?
-
Was Eve's fall due to reason?
-
Unpack the time between Eve's fall and Adam's.
-
Unpack the changes in Adam and Eve because of the Fall.
-
Unpack their changed relationship with God.
-
What is the difference between
knowledge and reason?
-
Satan is a tragic hero. How so? Not so?
September 27 - CLASS
WILL START IN WEISMAN MUSEUM
-
Reread the last section of Book
X, lines 720-1104.
-
After the fall, how are Adam
and Eve (un)like Satan?
-
What is "deathless death"?
-
How is death a stroke of genius
on God's part?
-
Why must Adam and Eve leave
Paradise? See
Masaccio's rendition.
-
Why are there two trees in the
Garden?
-
How is the fall a "happy sin"?
-
Find a single line in the poem
to answer the question: What is God's objective?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|