Rethinking Political Theology in Milton: De Doctrina Christiana and the Colloquy in Heaven in Paradise Lost

Abstract

This essay considers how Milton actively and imaginatively rethinks political theology so that it takes on a more distinctive radical dimension in the early modern period. Recent studies of political theology in Milton have focused largely on the 1671 poems, rather than on Paradise Lost. This article consequently examines the theological tensions and radical political implications of the colloquy in Heaven in Book 3 of Paradise Lost, a notable place in Milton where theology and politics dramatically converge. Milton's radical political theology, generated through a process of strenuous interrogation in De Doctrina Christiana and imaginatively tested and dramatized in the colloquy in Heaven in Paradise Lost, needs to be approached on its own terms. It does not readily fit already established definitions of political theology, whether those proposed by twentieth- century thinkers influenced by early modern writers—as in the case of Carl Schmitt—or political theology as it was articulated in Stuart divine right theory. In Paradise Lost theological concepts in the realm of sovereignty are radicalized rather than secularized. The convergence of radical theology and politics in the poem unsettles and reforms rather than legitimates traditional concepts of political authority and sovereignty. The Son's promotion and acquisition of kingly power, after he freely assumes the role of mediator and redeemer on behalf of fallen humankind, thus enables Milton to present a new and more radical understanding of the theological legitimation of political authority.