We’ve all heard about the classics and assume they’re

Paradise Lost as a religious poem

. While readers with Christian sen-

sibilities and biblical knowledge can find an abundance of Christian elements 

in the writings of authors such as Shakespeare and Hawthorne, non-Christian 

readers find it possible to read them with minimal attention to the Christian 

aspects. Milton stands in contrast to this. As C. S. Lewis put it, Milton’s poetry 

does not exist apart from his theology. Milton himself said that in writing the 

great English and Christian epic he intended to write a poem “doctrinal and 

exemplary to a nation.” Paradise Lost is a complete repository of biblical truth 

and Christian doctrine. As for the claims of revisionist scholars that Milton was 

heretical in his thinking, any ordinary reader will be hard pressed to find any 

hint of heresy in Paradise Lost. Most of what the debunkers claim as heresy is 

taken straight from the Bible, such as the title “only begotten Son” for Christ.

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