Inherit the Wind: Introduction and Summary

Inherit the Wind, a play written by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, was written according to the authors as a response to attacks on intellectual freedom coming from Republican Senator Joseph MaCarthy’s infamous pursuit on communists during the early 1950’s.  The “McCarthy hearings” refer to hearings conducted when McCarthy headed the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in 1953 and 1954, when McCarthy sought to root out Communism in America, especially in the State Department and armed forces.  These hearings are often confused with the activities of the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) that focused during the same period (actually beginning in 1947) on the film and theatre communities, and were seen by many as a witch hunt, leading friends and co-workers to turn each other in for suspected Communist leanings.  McCarthy did not launch his attack on Communism in 1950; the same year that Lawrence and Lee completed the script of Inherit the Wind, thus the author’s contention that the play was a response to McCarthyism is probably disingenuous.  It seems obvious that, if anything, the play is a response to the activities of the HUAC and that McCarthy was simply a convenient focal point for all efforts to suppress Communism in the United States.

Inherit the Wind is loosely based on the 1925 case of The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, AKA “the Scope’s trial” and “the Monkey trial.”   The play's preface says that while the trial was its "genesis," it is "not history.”  Nevertheless, the popularity of the plan caused many people to assume that it was an accurate portrayal of the events of the trial, and the true facts of the case are often forgotten.  The play was not produced on stage until 1955.  For the preceding two years, between 1952 and 1954, the authors could not find a buyer for the script.  Finally, in 1954, Margo Jones, a producer from Dallas, agreed to produce the play at Theatre '55. The opening of the play on January 10, 1955, drew rave reviews.  On April 21, 1955, the play moved to Broadway’s National Theatre, and featured Paul Muni, Ed Begley, and Tony Randall in the principal roles.  Reviews were almost unanimously favorable.  The following appeared in April 25, 1955 edition of the Morning Telegraph

by Whitney Bolton

For what it has to say, and the explicit way in which it says it, there is no more important play in New York that "Inherit the Wind," a dramatic evaluation of the famed Scope trial of 30 years ago. This is a play which, in the pleasant-tasting icing of excellent theatre, gets across to its audience the core of value beneath the icing: there is no more holy concept than the right of a man to think.

This is important beyond description. In an era when this one right along is taking a brutal beating, it is healthy and needful for creative men and women to take their stand in defenses of such a right. "Inherit the Wind" could have been much less a satisfying play and still would be a statement heartily to be embraced and supported.

The Scopes trial seems long ago and dimly away now. It seems ridiculous that an entire nation could have been aroused and flung into two bitter camps because a very small potatoes of a public teacher chose to state the theory of evolution in his classroom. That this teaching violated a statute of Tennessee was then and curiously is now true. Some statutory benefits came from the Scopes trial, but erasure of the law forbidding the teaching of evolution was not one of them. Nor is that of importance. What is of importance is that from that musty little town, whipped into fervor by the presence of William Jennings Bryan on the side of orthodox interpretations of the Bible, and Clarence Darrow, on the side of enlightenment and science, came a note of hope; that men could think of themselves without censure or impoundment and that the lost little soul of the trial, the accused, made it easier, even though by only a fractional amount, for the next accused thinker to take his stand for it.

This is the rub of what Darrow fought for. He had no great interest in publicly humiliating Bryan; he had no real concern with fighting the Bible orthodoxy. His own estimation of the case went far deeper than that and into the realm of something he looked upon as holier than sacred writ; the full, free, unmenaced and unbruised right of a human being to think.

This splendid theatrical presentation of the battle has been powerfully arrived at by the precise writing of Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, and it has received determined and affectionate direction from its producer, Herman Shumlin. Mr. Shumlin is a man of thought as well as a man of theatre, and it is plain in his work with this play and the people in it that is courageously alongside the late Darrow in the conviction of what makes rights and what makes the struggle to retain them.

But nothing that the authors wrote and not enough of the direction Mr. Shumlin provided would have had the thrust essential to the play if a lesser actor than Paul Muni had occupied the principal role. His interpretation of the role that is frankly Darrow is a wonder of performance, a full-bodied and magnificent performance which stirs from the moment of silent, shuffling, round-shouldered entry until the legally defeated and when his convicted little client receives from Darrow the true import of what the trial has meant in terms of freeing the minds of humanity for their noblest purpose, thought. This is one of Mr. Muni's most colorful and brilliant performances in a long career of such. It reaches horizons few actors ever see, much less arrive at, and it has the stature of giantism.

Not discernibly less brilliant is Ed Begley in a role just as frankly Bryan. Mr. Begley brings to it the needful sonorous note, the pious humility of the professional religious layman who, spreading himself in an area where only he is saint and all adversaries are labeled sinful, gloats over and mocks his foe. When these two reach their moment of clinch in the play, the work at the National Theatre becomes a thrilling event.

In 1960, a film based on the play opened in Dayton, Tennessee, the site of the actual Scopes trial, on July 21, the anniversary of the verdict rendering in the actual case in 1925.  The film was produced and directed by Stanley Kramer and starred Spencer Tracy as Henry Drummond, Frederick March as Matthew Harrison Brady, and Gene Kelly as E. K. Hornbeck.  Like the play, the film was both a critical and financial success.  Most of Kramer’s films were noted for engaging the audience with political and social issues of the time and included such “message movies” as High Noon (1952, as producer), The Defiant Ones (1958), On the Beach (1959), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Ship of Fools (1965) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). 

Drummond v. Brady

To briefly summarize the play, Inherit the Wind is a courtroom drama set in the imaginary town of Hillsboro in an unspecified State at an unspecified time, "Not long ago" according to the stage directions. “It might have been yesterday. It could be tomorrow” according to The Playwrights' Note.  A young school teacher, Bertram Cates, is in jail for violating a State law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of evolution in the public schools.  His principle in-town persecutor is Reverend Jeremiah Brown, a fundamentalist Protestant Christian preacher of indeterminate denomination who believes in Biblical literalism. He is widowed, and has a daughter, Rachel who is romantically linked to Cates.  The trial is something of a cause célèbre and the local district attorney has recruited famed orator and three time Populist presidential candidate to be the primary spokesperson for the Prosecution.  For the Defense, the Baltimore-based newspaper, the fictional Baltimore Herald has hired Henry Drummond, another nationally known attorney who was once Brady's closest friend, and has dispatched a glib and cynical reporter, E. K. Hornbeck to cover the trial.

The carnival atmosphere surrounding the trial is evident by the sundry vendors hawking Bibles and hot dogs to the town people as they await the arrival of Brady.  The sarcastic Hornbeck watching the scene remarks, “Ahhhh, Hillsboro- Heavenly Hillsboro. The buckle on the BibleBelt.”  The sentiment of the crowd gathered by Reverend Brown to greet Brady is evident in the posters they carry:

ARE YOU A MAN OR A MONKEY?/AMEND THE CONSTITUTION- PROHIBIT DARWIN /SAVE OUR SCHOOLS FROM SIN/ MY ANCESTORS AIN’T APES!/WELCOME MATTHEW HARRISON BRADY/ DOWN WITH DARWIN /BE A SWEET ANGEL, DON’T MONKEY WITH OUR SCHOOLS!/DARWIN IS WRONG! /DOWN WITH EVOLUTION /SWEETHEART, COME UNTO THE LORD

Brady from the beginning is portrayed as a caricature of the southern politician, large than life, both literally and figuratively.  He sprinkles compliments on the townspeople like sugared candy while chowing down on huge quantities of food.  He can win people over with his affable manner and he succeeds in gain the confidence of Rachel Brown, extracting information from her about the defendant Bertram Cates.

Similarly, the Reverend Brown is performed as an intolerant zealot, again a stock figure of the southern fundamentalist and religious bigot. When he learns from Hornbeck that Henry Drummond will represent Cates in court, his response is predictable:

“I saw Drummond once. In a courtroom in Ohio. A man was on trial for a most brutal crime. Although he knew-and admitted- the man was guilty, Drummond was perverting the evidence to cast the guilt away from the accused and onto you and me and all of society…  You look into his face, and you wonder why God made such a man. And then you know that God didn’t make him, that he is a creature of the Devil, perhaps even the Devil himself!

 The Reverend Brown

Quick to pass judgment on the state of another man’s soul, he even alienates his daughter first by denouncing Cates and her relationship with him as sinful, and then in a frenzy of zealotry by cursing both Cates and Rachel to Hellfire.  At a rally he leads his flock:

BROWN:  (Pointing a finger toward the jail) Do we curse the man who denies the Word?

 ALL: (Crescendo, each answer mightier than the one before) Yes!

 BROWN:  Do we cast out this sinner in our midst?

 ALL:  Yes!

 BROWN:  Do we call down hellfire on the man who has sinned against the Word?

 ALL:  (Roaring) Yes!

 BROWN:  (Deliberately shattering the rhythm, to go into a frenzied prayer, hands clasped together and lifted heavenward) O Lord of the Tempest and the Thunder! O Lord of Righteousness and Wrath! We pray that Thou wilt make a sign unto us! Strike down this sinner, as Thou didst Thine enemies of old, in the days of the Pharaohs!  Let him feel the terror of Thy sword! For all eternity, let his soul writhe in anguish and damnation-

 RACHEL:  No! (She rushes to the platform). No, Father. Don’t pray to destroy Bert!

 BROWN:  Lord, we call down the same curse on those who ask grace for this sinner- though they be blood of my blood, and flesh of my flesh!

This is even too much for Brady who interrupts to put an end Brown’s hateful fanaticism.

"Heavenly" Hillsboro

The town itself also takes on the role of a character in this drama.  It is divided between the devoted and the indifferent.  The devout are the narrow-minded, mean-spirited amen chorus who follow Brady into town singing “If it’s good enough for Brady then it is good enough for me.” and join Reverent Brown in condemning Cates to Hell and damnation.  Later, they are burning Drummond in effigy and singing about ”hang[ing] Bert Cates from a sour apple tree.”  The indifferent are represented by the two jurors with speaking roles: the illiterate Mr. Bannister who wants “that there front seat in the jury box” because “everybody says this is going to be quite a show,” and George Sillers who works at the feed store.   Sillers stays “pretty busy down at the feed store” and lets his “wife tend to the religion for both of us.”  We are told in a stage direction that Cates has a “smattering” of supporter but we neither see nor hear from them.

The trial rapidly transforms from focusing on Cates’ singular crime of teaching evolution in opposition to State law to an indictment of the law itself and the mindset of the people who enacted and supported it.  Brady, Brown and the town of Hillsboro see the trail as a defense of the law and by extension their faith in the Bible as the literal and unambiguous word of God.  In a comment to Hornbeck, Brady reveals that which he fears:

I have been in many cities and I have seen the altars upon which they sacrifice the futures of their children to the Gods of Science. And what are their rewards? Confusion and self-destruction. New ways to kill each other in wars. I tell you, going the way of scientists is the way of darkness.

And in the courtroom he expands on this after interviewing one of Cates’ students:

I am sure that everyone on the jury, everyone within the sound of this boy’s voice, is moved by his tragic confusion. He has been taught that he wriggled up like an animal form the filth and the muck below!(Continuing fervently, the spirit is upon him) I say that these Bible-haters, these “Evil-utionists,” are brewers of poison. And the legislature of this sovereign state has had the wisdom to demand that the peddlers of poison- in bottles or in books- clearly label the products they attempt to sell!(There is applause. HOWARD gulps. BRADY points at the boy.) I tell you, if this law is not upheld, this boy will become one of a generation, shorn of its faith by the teachings of Godless science! But if the full penalty of the law is meted out to Bertram Cates, the faithful the whole world over, who are watching us here, and listening to our every word, will call this courtroom blessed.

Henry Drummond, in spite of the invectives hurled against him by Brady, Brown and the people of Hillsboro, is in the courtroom not to destroy their faith, but to demand the right to question it as he expresses in this exchange:  

DRUMMOND: I am trying to establish, Your Honor, that Howard (the boy from Cates’ class)- or Colonel Brady- or Charles Darwin—or anyone in this courtroom- or you, sir- has the right to think!

JUDGE:  Colonel Drummond, the right to think is not on trial here.

DRUMMOND: (Energetically) With all respect to the bench, I hold that the right to think is very much on trial! It is fearfully in danger in the proceedings of this court!

BRADY (Rises) A man is on trial!

DRUMMOND:  A thinking man! And he is threatened with fine and imprisonment because he chooses to speak about what he thinks.

It is Brady’s tactic to attack Cates, the man.  He uses information learned from Rachel Brown in confidence to attack Cates religious views.  Calling her to the stand, Brady twists her words and bullies her into tears, and it is only Brady’s wife’s horrified outburst stuns Brady back to his senses.

It is Drummond’s strategy not to defend Cates’ act, but to attack the law:

I say that you cannot administer a wicked law impartially. You can only destroy. You can only punish! And I warn you (Points first at BRADY, then to various members of the audience and the JUDGE) that a wicked law, like cholera, destroys everyone it touches! Its upholders as well as its defilers!

Can’t you understand that if you take a law like evolution and make it a crime to teach it in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools? And tomorrow you may make it a crime to read about it? (Turns to the crowd in the gallery and begins addressing them. The crowd has grown strangely quiet during all of this as they listen. BRADY looks worriedly.)And soon you may ban books and newspapers. And then you may turn Catholic against Protestant, and Protestant against Protestant, and try foisting your own religion upon the mind of man! If you can do one, you can do the other! Because fanaticism and ignorance is forever busy and needs feeding.(Strides slowly back to the JUDGE’S bench)And soon, Your Honor, with banners flying and drums beating we’ll be marching backward. . . .BACKWARD-to the glorious ages of that sixteenth century when bigots burned the man who dared bring enlightenment and intelligence to the human mind!

But in the end, when Drummond’s attempts at an argument of ideas fail, Drummond too resorts to a personal attack against Brady and his fundamentalist beliefs. Having all of his attempts to show the rationality of Darwinian theory, Drummond calls Brady to the witness stand in the capacity of an expert witness on the Bible.  Drummond’s goal is to demonstrate through that the Bible is not to be taken literally Brady’s pride leads him to answer Drummond’s challenge. Brady’s responses to Drummond’s mocking questions reveal him to be closed-minded and utterly unable to respond to questions about Biblical incidents that contradict natural law. He is shown to be more unthinking and unquestioning than faithful and he is finally goaded into admitting that the “days´ of creation need not have been twenty-four hour days at all” and that the scientists might just be right in dating the age of the Earth at many millions of years instead of the 6,000 year old Earth accepted by Biblical literalists.  Drummond succeeds in undermining the credibility of Brady and his beliefs by making him appear ridiculous, the one thing Brady cannot bear.

The trial ends in Cates being found guilty but this is a hollow victory for Brady who has been marginalized by his testimony.  When, at the trials conclusion, he attempts to recapture the spotlight with a victory speech, he is utterly ignored, even by his former followers.  Mid-speech, he falls over and dies. The play concludes with Drummond eulogizing his fallen friend and adversary:

A giant once lived in that body.  But Matt Brady got lost. Because he was looking for God too high up and too far away.

Evolution-Creationism Controversy -- Websites

For a nice overview of the evolution-creationism controversy, go to:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/evolution.htm

For a comprehensive overview of the Scopes trial, go to:

http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/scopes/scopes.htm

Tennessee Evolution Statute

Tennessee Evolution Statute

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PUBLIC ACTS OF THE STATE OF TENNESSEE

PASSED BY THE

SIXTY - FOURTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1925

________

CHAPTER NO. 27

House Bill No. 185

(By Mr. Butler)

AN ACT prohibiting the teaching of the Evolution Theory in all the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of Tennessee, which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, and to provide penalties for the violations thereof.

Section 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher in any of the Universities, Normals and all other public schools of the State which are supported in whole or in part by the public school funds of the State, to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.

Section 2. Be it further enacted, That any teacher found guilty of the violation of this Act, Shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, shall be fined not less than One Hundred $ (100.00) Dollars nor more than Five Hundred ($ 500.00) Dollars for each offense.

Section 3. Be it further enacted, That this Act take effect from and after its passage, the public welfare requiring it.

Passed March 13, 1925

W. F. Barry,
Speaker of the House of Representatives

L. D. Hill,
Speaker of the Senate

Approved March 21, 1925.

Austin Peay,
Governor.

Creation views threaten US science

Bill Nye warns: Creation views threaten US science


Sept. 24, 2012

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The man known to a generation of Americans as "The Science Guy" is condemning efforts by some Christian groups to cast doubts on evolution and lawmakers who want to bring the Bible into science classrooms.

Bill Nye, a mechanical engineer and star of the popular 1990s TV show "Bill Nye The Science Guy," has waded into the evolution debate with an online video that urges parents not to pass their religious-based doubts about evolution on to their children.

Christians who view the stories of the Old Testament as historical fact have come to be known as creationists, and many argue that the world was created by God just a few thousand years ago.

"The Earth is not 6,000 or 10,000 years old," Nye said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's not. And if that conflicts with your beliefs, I strongly feel you should question your beliefs."

Millions of Americans do hold those beliefs, according to a June Gallup poll that found 46 percent of Americans believe God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.

Nye, 56, also decried efforts in recent years by lawmakers and school boards in some states to present Bible stories as an alternative to evolution in public schools. Tennessee passed a law earlier this year that protects teachers who let students criticize evolution and other scientific theories. That echoes a Louisiana law passed in 2008 that allows teachers to introduce supplemental teaching materials in science classes.

"If we raise a generation of students who don't believe in the process of science, who think everything that we've come to know about nature and the universe can be dismissed by a few sentences translated into English from some ancient text, you're not going to continue to innovate," Nye said in a wide-ranging telephone interview.

The brief online video was not Nye's first foray into the combustible debate, but "it's the first time it's gotten to be such a big deal."

"I can see where one gets so caught up in this (debate) that you say something that will galvanize people in a bad way, that will make them hate you forever," he said. "But I emphasize that I'm not questioning someone's religion — much of that is how you were brought up."

In the video he tells adults they can dismiss evolution, "but don't make your kids do it. Because we need them." Posted by Big Think, an online knowledge forum, the clip went viral and has 4.6 million views on YouTube. It has garnered 182,000 comments from critics and supporters.

It drew the ire of the creationism group Answers in Genesis, which built a biblically based Creation Museum in Kentucky that teaches the stories of the Old Testament and has attracted headlines for its assertion that dinosaurs roamed alongside Adam and Eve.

The group produced a response video featuring two scientists who say the Bible has the true account of Earth's origins, and that "children should be exposed to both ideas concerning our past."

Nye, who is prone to inject dry humor into scientific discussions, said Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.

"What I find troubling, when you listen to these people ... once in a while I get the impression that they're not kidding," Nye said.

Ken Ham, a co-founder of Answers in Genesis, said dating methods used by scientists to measure the age of the earth are contradictory and many don't point to millions or billions of years of time.

"We say the only dating method that is absolute is the Word of God," Ham said. "Time is the crucial factor for Bill Nye. Without the time of millions of years, you can't postulate evolution change."

America is home to the world's biggest creationist following, Ham said, and the $27 million Creation Museum has averaged about 330,000 visitors a year since it opened just south of Cincinnati in 2007.

Nye can't talk for long about science without mentioning his current passion: speaking out against proposed government cuts to NASA's planetary sciences division. Nye is CEO of The Planetary Society, an organization in Pasadena, Calif., that promotes space exploration.

NASA's landing of the Curiosity rover on Mars last month is the kind of technological achievement that get kids interested in science, Nye said, but funding cuts would endanger future missions.

He said if Curiosity is able to find evidence of life on Mars — perhaps in the form of fossilized microorganisms — it would "change the world."

"It would change the way everybody feels about his or her place in space," he said. "And we do that for $300 million a year, which is not even a buck a person. We don't want to cut that."

On Paradise Lost

To read the poem on line, go to: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/pl/book_1/index.shtml

In Isaiah 55:8-9 God says to the prophet:

     8“For My thoughts are not your thoughts

      Nor are your ways My ways,” ...

     9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

     So are My ways higher than your ways,

     And My thoughts than your thoughts

                                                 New King James Version (NKJV)

While this statement perhaps justifies the ambiguity of the story of the Fall in Genesis, it is not really very helpful to Fallen man. It suggests that the thoughts and ways of God are so different from those of man that His ways, as communicated through the priests and the prophets, must simply be accepted without explanation or justification. Unfortunately for ever-curious Fallen man, this demand is a pill hard to swallow. It is like the father who tells the child to eat his vegetable. The child asks “Why do I have to eat vegetables?” and the parent answers “Because I say so. I’m your father and I know what is best.” The father may in fact know that the vegetables are good for the child, but by forcing the child to accept the demand with so little explanation will not encourage the child to conform except under duress.

It was perhaps for this reason that the 17th century Puritan poet, John Milton undertook to "justify the ways of God to men" in the grandest epic poems produced in the English language. First published in 1667 and revised and reissued in 1672, Milton’s Paradise Lost is an imaginative retelling of the story of Eden that expands on the Genesis account, making God appear less arbitrary and tyrannical, and explaining how the Fall came to pass. The poem, mimicking the epic classics of Homer and Virgil, tells its’ story in in twelve “books” of blank verse. It has two dramatic arcs, one telling the story of Satan, the arch-enemy of God and man, and the other telling the story of Adam and Eve. The first 4 books focus on Satan. His story begins in Hell where he and his minions have been banished after their rebellion against God. Satan. Satan, beaten, but not bowed determines to continue his war against God by subterfuge rather than direct assault. He determines to ruin God’s great work by finding a way to subvert it and to this end, he undertakes a hazardous journey to the newly formed Earth. There he finds Adam and Eve in a state of bliss, and he plans to bring them down by persuading them to disobey God’s single command: to refrain from eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

One of the conclusions drawn from the Eden story is that God stands in opposition to man obtaining knowledge, that he wants man to remain in a blissful state of ignorance, guided by faith rather than reason. To this conclusion, Milton objects and focuses a considerable portion of his poem to exploring the nature of appropriate knowledge. In an earlier essay, “Of Education” Milton wrote: “The end then of Learning is to repair the ruines [sp] of our first Parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him." Milton devotes nearly a third of the poem to demonstrating that God does not oppose knowledge and makes provisions to see that Adam’s natural curiosity is satisfied in full. Books 5 through 8 presents a dialogue between Adam and the archangel Raphael covering a range of topics including the creation of the world, the war in Heaven, and the appropriate acquisition and application of knowledge.

God, aware of Satan’s intention to launch an assault on Adam’s idyllic existence, instructs Raphael to explicitly warn Adam of the imminent attack by Satan, that the attack will take the form of deceit and that Adam should resist the temptations of Satan for his own continued happiness:

     Go …Converse with Adam, …and such discourse bring on,

     As may advise him of his happie state,

     Happiness in his power left free to will,

     Left to his own free Will, his Will though free,

     Yet mutable; whence warne him to beware

     He swerve not too secure: tell him withall

     His danger, and from whom, what enemie

     Late falln himself from Heav'n, is plotting now

     The fall of others from like state of bliss;

     By violence, no, for that shall be withstood,

     But by deceit and lies; this let him know,

     Lest wilfully transgressing he pretend

     Surprisal, unadmonisht, unforewarnd. [5: 228-245]

God tells Raphael to give Adam “to know/ Of things above his World, and of thir being/ Who dwell in Heav’n [5: 454-6]. Raphael uses this platform to explain that angels and man share the power of “reason,” i.e., to know and understand, and that they differ only in how they obtain and apply knowledge.

      the Soule (says Raphael)

      Reason receives, and reason is her being,

      Discursive, or Intuitive; discourse

      Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,

     Differing but in degree, of kind the same. [5: 486-90]

Raphael then explains the responsibility that comes with the gift of free will and again warns Adam that his continued happiness rests in his own hands.

     … That thou art happie, owe to God;

      That thou continu'st such, owe to thy self,

      That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.

      This was that caution giv'n thee; be advis'd.

      God made thee perfet, not immutable;

      And good he made thee, but to persevere

      He left it in thy power, ordaind thy will

      By nature free, not over-rul'd by Fate [5: 520-27]

Adam turns the conversation to cosmology, a matter of supreme importance to Milton’s contemporaries. Since the publication of Nicolaus Copernicus’ De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) in 1543, the controversy of whether the sun revolved around the Earth or the Earth revolved around the sun had raged across Renaissance Europe. His heliocentric hypothesis represented the first major scientific assault on the teaching of the Catholic Church that the Earth was the absolute center of the universe. The intellectual climate of the time was dominated by Aristotelian philosophy and the corresponding Ptolemaic astronomy which placed the Earth as the center of the Earth, thereby elevating the importance of Man in the vast in the vast universe. Further, the heliocentric hypothesis denied the literal interpretation of the Bible, contradicting numerous Biblical references that supported Ptolemaic astronomy (see Psalm 93:1, 96:10, Psalm 104:5, 1 Chronicles 16:30 Ecclesiastes 1:5 ). When the famed Italian astronomer Galileo defended the Copernican theory in Rome in 1616, he fell under the full weight of censure from the Church and though he was suppressed for several years, in 1632, he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems with formal authorization from the Inquisition and papal permission. Nevertheless, a year later he was placed on trial for heresy and was required to "abjure, curse and detest" the heliocentric opinions he supported in Dialogue. Further, he was placed under house arrest and remained so until his death in 1642. Both De revolutionibus and Dialogue were placed in the Church’s Index of Prohibited Books and remained there until 1835. And least one think that the Copernican controversy was confined to the Catholic Church, both Martin Luther and John Calvin rejected heliocentric theory in favor of a literal interpretation of the Bible. It is the “Galileo affair” that gave rise to claims of anti-intellectualism on the part of the Catholic Church specifically and Christianity generally.

Milton cleverly side-steps the Copernican controversy in Paradise Lost by having Adam explicitly ask Raphael about the movement of the stars, Instead of answering him directly (and thus forcing Milton to come down on one side or the other of the conflict, Raphael takes this opportunity to parrot Milton’s final opinion on the pursuit of knowledge:

     To ask or search I blame thee not, for Heav'n

     Is as the Book of God before thee set,

     Wherein to read his wondrous Works, and learne

     His Seasons, Hours, or Dayes, or Months, or Yeares:

     This to attain, whether Heav'n move or Earth,

     Imports not, if thou reck'n right, the rest

     From Man or Angel the great Architect

     Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge

     His secrets to be scann'd by them who ought

     Rather admire; [ 8: 66-75]

Raphael does not condemn Adam for his curiosity, but he dismisses the question as superfluous; rather than asking about how the universe works, man would do better to just stand back and admire the wonder of it. He continues:

     Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid,

     Leave them to God above, him serve and feare;

     Of other Creatures, as him pleases best,

     Wherever plac't, let him dispose: joy thou

     In what he gives to thee, this Paradise

     And thy faire Eve; Heav'n is for thee too high

     To know what passes there; be lowlie wise:

     Think onely what concernes thee and thy being; [8: 167-174]

Raphael shows Adam that the only knowledge he needs pursue is the knowledge that concerns his day-to-day existence. He is encouraged to be “lowlie wise,” meaning that he is to study those things appropriate to his state and station, those things that will make his happy and a more perfect creature of God. There is knowledge that God withholds from man, not because God opposes knowledgeable man, but because man’s limited intellectual capacity is unable to comprehend the knowledge that is withheld. He need not ponder the imponderable or reach for things beyond his grasp because such things can never serve a good or useful purpose. And ultimately, to pursue such elevated knowledge is a waste of man’s time; time that could be more profitably spent in simply appreciating the wonders of the universe and worshiping God for the wonders.

So thoroughly is Adam prepared for Satan’s assault, one wonders how Satan could be successful; however one important event occurs during the conversation: Eve grows bored and leaves to tend her Garden, thus she is not privy to the sundry explanations and warnings of Raphael. It is she who becomes Satan’s target and although she is warned by Adam to be on guard, she falls to his temptation. Significantly, the serpent inhabited by Satan calls the Tree “Mother of Science” and persuades Eve that he gained the power of speech by eating of the fruit of the Tree. Eve is moved more by the indignity of being denied the fruit than by a desire for the forbidden knowledge. That the lowly snake would be able to eat the fruit with impunity offends her pride and in an act of self-assertion, Eve takes the fruit and eats it. The first change is that she immediately praises the Tree in words previously reserved for God:

     O Sovran, vertuous, precious of all Trees

     In Paradise, of operation blest

     To Sapience, hitherto obscur'd, infam'd,

     And thy fair Fruit let hang, as to no end

     Created; but henceforth my early care,

     Not without Song, each Morning, and due praise

     Shall tend thee, [9: 795-801]

She comments that “dieted by thee [the Tree] I grow mature/ In knowledge, as the Gods who all things know” but what specifically has been learned is not articulated. [9: 801-4]  Finally, she begins to feel pangs of guilt, hoping that her transgression has escaped Heaven’s notice and that as a result of her defiant act, she may lose her beloved Adam.

Eve goes to Adam and confesses her crime and Adam, knowing Eve is now doomed to death, resolves to join her rather than lose her and be left alone. Adam’s transgression then is an act of love and not an act of prideful defiance.

     I with thee have fixt my Lot,

     Certain to undergoe like doom, if Death

     Consort with thee, Death is to mee as Life [9: 952-4]

So Adam eats the fruit and

     As with new Wine intoxicated both

     They swim in mirth, and fansie that they feel

     Divinitie within them breeding wings [9: 1008-1010 ]

Adam is then enflamed with carnal lust and the couple fall to “amorous play.” In this scene, Milton endorses the hypothesis of St. Augustine that carnal lust is a product of the Fall. Sated, they sleep and upon awakening, Adam feels the first pangs of guilt. He says to Eve, “we know/ Both Good and Evil, Good lost, and Evil got.” [9: 1071-2] They sew fig leaves together to hide their shame and then “sate them down to weep.” The poignancy of this sad scene is short lived, because they couple immediately fall to blaming each other for their fallen state.

Having discovered man’s crime, the angels charged with guarding Eden rush to God, but instead of chastising them for their failure to protect Adam, God explains:

     When first this Tempter cross'd the Gulf from Hell.

     I told ye then he should prevail and speed

     On his bad Errand, Man should be seduc't

     And flatter'd out of all [10: 39- 42]

God sends his Son, “mild Judge and Intercessor,” to sentence Adam and Eve. The judgment is well known and consistent with that in the Genesis account, but Milton adds on an epilogue to the banishment from Eden. God has the archangel Michael take Adam up to a high mountaintop and there the future of mankind is unveiled. Adam learns of the redemptive life, death and resurrection of the Son of God and he “is greatly satisfied and recomforted by these Relations and Promises.” [12: The Argument]

Milton’s Paradise Lost is rich in imagery and ideas, but Milton’s reflection on knowledge argues eloquently against the charges that God is opposed to the intellect. Milton’s God encourages man’s understanding of the world around him. He sends his angels to enlighten man and satisfy his natural curiosity. And even after the Fall, God sends Michael to show Adam the future of his descendants. God only seems to discourage the pursuit of knowledge that can offer no immediate benefit to man; such knowledge is discouraged not because it is dangerous, but because it is a distraction from what man should be about: the enjoyment of life and the worship of God.

What Adam and Eve gained and lost

The story of the Fall in Genesis is the essence of brevity.  Because it is so short, it leaves the reader with a multitude of questions, not the least of which is what is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  What does its' fruit reveal?  What specifically is meant by the "Knowledge of Good and Evil?"  What do Adam and Eve gain by eating the fruit of the Tree and what do they lose?

 

One of the more popular speculations about the story of Eden is that what the Tree gave humankind was sexual awareness. This common Christian understanding has advanced the belief that the sin of Adam had something to do with sex: either sex caused the Fall or was a result of it. This theory, initially advanced by Augustine of Hippo (354-430), taught that Adam's sin is transmitted by concupiscence (intense sexual desire). In his letter to the Pelagians, Augustine wrote:

Although, if those members by which sin was committed were to be covered after the sin, men ought not indeed to have been clothed in tunics, but to have covered their hand and mouth, because they sinned by taking and eating. What, then, is the meaning, when the prohibited food was taken, and the transgression of the precept had been committed, of the look turned towards those members? What unknown novelty is felt there, and compels itself to be noticed? And this is signified by the opening of the eyes… As, therefore, they were so suddenly ashamed of their nakedness, which they were daily in the habit of looking upon and were not confused, that they could now no longer bear those members naked, but immediately took care to cover them; did not they–he in the open, she in the hidden impulse–perceive those members to be disobedient to the choice of their will, which certainly they ought to have ruled like the rest by their voluntary command? And this they deservedly suffered, because they themselves also were not obedient to their Lord. Therefore they blushed that they in such wise had not manifested service to their Creator, that they should deserve to lose dominion over those members by which children were to be procreated. [1.31-32]

Augustine made the assumption that because Adam and Eve covered their genital, realizing they were naked, in an attempt to hide those body parts that had participated in the sinful act. If eating the fruit had been the sin, they should have covered their hands and mouths, but instead they cover their sexual organs, leading Augustine to conclude that these were the body parts responsible for the original sin. While modern theology holds that the original sin stems from disobedience to God, the idea that that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge was a metaphor for carnal sex has been a persistent current throughout Christian history.

More modern theories include those that take the fruit of the tree literally and suggest that what Adam and Eve gained by eating the fruit was the literal knowledge of good and evil, but since evil would not have naturally existed in the God-created Garden, a literal reading is that evil was created when the couple disobeyed God’s commandment and ate of the fruit. This is the premise of Jewish tradition where the Tree of Knowledge and the eating of its fruit represent the beginning of the mixture of good and evil together. Before that time, the two were separate, and evil had only a nebulous existence in potentia. The the eating of the fruit released the “yeitzer hara,” the Evil Inclination that refers to the misuse of things the physical body needs to survive, hence hunger begets gluttony, the sexual urge turns to lust, self-preservation leads to preemptive violence, etc. Thus the knowledge Adam and Eve gain is the evil they set free through the act of disobedience, the first act of evil.

A second understanding also comes down from Jewish tradition. The phrase in Hebrew: (tov V'ra), meaning good and evil, is a figure of speech known as a merism. This literary device pairs opposite terms together, in order to create a meaning, so that with the phrase "good and evil" it means "everything.” This interpretation makes sense of God’s statement “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil,” suggesting man now knows everything that God knows. This however is clearly not the case. There are still limits on what man knows, but knowledge, like evil, perhaps exists in potentia, meaning that man’s act of eating the fruit released his potential to lean and grow. Before the Fall, man had little incentive to learn and grow because all of his needs where met by God and his environment. After the Fall, man is forced to learn and grow in a new harsher environment as a result of his sin, but he has also acquired the intellectual tools to do so.

Akin to this understanding is the proposition that Adam and Eve received self-awareness as a result of eating from the Tree of Knowledge. Self-awareness is said to be that feature that most clearly separates man from all other animals. Their new-found self-awareness made them aware of their individuality and their separation from both God and the animals. As a result of eating the fruit, Adam and Eve became aware that they were uniquely different from the animals and superior to them. Nakedness was a characteristic Adam and Eve shared with their animal companions and they were ashamed of their nakedness because it too closely associated then with the inferior animal kingdom.

More importantly, in their emerging self-awareness, they became conscious of their own mortality. The awareness of the inevitability of death that compelled then (and us) to make something of life and is sometimes tied to the idea of the “fortunate Fall” and the “felix culpa” or “happy fault.” If not for the Fall, we would not know evil and virtues like compassion, integrity, and generosity would have no value. In the fallen world, choosing the good over the bad, in a world of pain, encourages us grow in virtue. We refine and ennoble our souls by overcoming obstacles and enduring disappointment and pain. It is our consciousness of inevitable death that compels us to live more deeply, to live our lives so that every minute counts. In this context, the evils man must endure are ultimately for the good.

This theory answers the question about why a benevolent and omniscient God would place the Tree of Knowledge within man’s grasp, and then enjoin him not to touch it. God is not just giving man an opportunity to prove his loyalty, but is giving him an opportunity to either live his life as an innocent and pampered child, never to grow beyond his idyllic state or to choice to live a life rife with challenges and pain, but one that encouraged the ability to choose between right and wrong, and accept responsibility for those decisions. While it certainly true that Adam lacked sufficient information to make an informed decision about his fate and the fate of his descendants, he was warned that defiance had consequence and still in an exercise of his free will, he ate of the fruit. For the secularist who may choose to see the story of Eden as an allegory, the Fall from Grace represents the fall every child must experience when it becomes aware that it must leave the Eden of primary narcissism, the bliss of being the center of the parents’ world, a world where their every need is met and where they experience themselves, for a brief time, the center of the known world. This idea raises an interesting question: if given the choice, how many of us would exchange our current existence for one of complete childhood innocence and dependency? Many can think back to their childhood and their most vivid memories are associated with their desire for individuality and independence. Perhaps this explains the real nature of original sin, not that it is something passively passed along to us by our parents, but the fact that given the choice Adam made in relative ignorance, we would follow suit to gain our independence, even with foreknowledge of the fate that awaits us.

In this view, the Fall was part of the divine plan. As Paul wrote in Romans 8:28: “… we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Thus, from our limited human perspective looks to be evil may in the broader scope be a positive good. In his book The Case for Faith, author Lee Strobel recorded excerpts from his interview with Villanova University and Boston College professor of philosophy Peter Kreft who attempted to explain this concept with an analogy:

“’How can a mere finite human be sure that infinite wisdom would not tolerate certain short-  range evils in order for more long-range goods that we couldn’t foresee?’ he [Kreft] asked.”

“’Okay, then, imagine a bear in a trap and a hunter who, out of sympathy, wants to liberate him. He tries to win the bear’s confidence, but he can’t do it, so he has to shoot the bear full of drugs. The bear, however, thinks this is an attack and that the hunter is trying to kill him. He doesn’t realize that this is being done out of compassion.’”

“’Then, in order to get the bear out of the trap, the hunter has to push him further into the trap to release the tension on the spring. If the bear were semiconscious at that point, he would be even more convinced that the hunter was his enemy who was out to cause him suffering and pain. But the bear would be wrong. He reaches this incorrect conclusion because he’s not a human being.’”

“Kreft let the illustration soak in for a moment. ’Now,’ he concluded, ‘how can anyone be certain that’s not an analogy between us and God? I believe God does the same to us sometimes, and we can’t comprehend why he does it any more than the bear can understand the motivations of the hunter. As the bear could have trusted the hunter, so we can trust God.’”

“Dentists, athletic trainers, teachers, parents—they all know that sometimes to be good is not to be kind. Certainly there are times when God allows suffering and deprives us the lesser good of pleasure in order to help us toward the greater good of moral and spiritual education. Even the ancient Greeks believed the gods taught wisdom through suffering. Aeschylus wrote: ‘Day by day, hour by hour / Pain drips upon the heart / As, against our will, and even in our own despite / Comes Wisdom from the awful grace of God.’”

So like the bear in the analogy, we are ultimately obligated to put our faith in God, to trust that God is working for our good even in our misery and that our limited human knowledge cannot discern or even define what that good might be. While man continues to strive for greater independence, suffering draws him back to dependency on God. Like the bear, man can resist his rescuer, drawing away and snapping at the hunter, but he cannot be released from his misery in the trap until he gives in and accepts what the hunter must do regardless of the pain the extrication inflicts.

Thought questions

1.Throughout the creation story, God has pronounced everything He created as “Good.” Specifically, the passage “And God saw that it was good.” is repeated in Genesis 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, and Genesis 1 concludes with the statement in verse 31 “ And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.”  The word “Evil” does not appear until it is identified with the tree.  If everything God created is good, where does evil come from?  Is evil the antithesis of good?   Is “Evil” something existing outside of God, not created, but coexisting with God from the very beginning, inactive in God’s creation until “activated” by the act of the eating of the fruit?

2.What do Adam and Eve gain when they eat of the fruit?  The story only tells us that “the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked.”

3.After cursing the Serpent, Adam and Eve, God says “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” To whom is God speaking?

4.Who/what is the “serpent”?  Did God create the serpent?  If so, why isn’t the serpent good?  If not, is the serpent the agent of ‘Evil” that has managed to invade the Garden of Eden as John Milton suggests in Paradise Lost?  If God is omniscient how is possible for Evil to enter the Garden without His knowledge?

5.For that matter, if God is the ultimate good, why would he place the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden at all?  Why create it in such a way that “when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, “ she was enticed to eat it?  Would a loving father place a particularly attractive, but dangerous object before his children, forbid them to touch the object, leave them unsupervised, and then punish them when they disobeyed? 

6.Again, if God is omniscient, wouldn’t He have known what was going to happen and if He knew what was going to happen and allowed it, doesn’t that suggest that the outcome was His plan all along?