s of God to men" (Lewis lecture). God's ways do not always seem fair and Milton tackles the task of making them "apparent" in his depiction of the Creation Story. In doing so, however, he must over-come and explain many areas of confusion. Milton solves these confusions surrounding the "Fall" by the use of Augustinian theology. Confusion mainly lies, in the concept, of how the exceptionally "good" creation of God set, in a perfect paradise, perverts itself into what we humanistically call "Bad". In other words, if God were responsible for creating all things -- all of it good -- why, in fact, would s/he create an Adam and Eve that would fall? Why would s/he create Satan? Why create things that perform evil? Why create evil itself? Along this line of questioning one, could easily concur with Depeche Mode: "I think that God's got a sick sense of humor and when I die I expect to find him laughing." Milton sees Paradise Lost as a way solving the above "problem of evil" (Lewis lecture).
The first issue Milton addresses is the perversion of Good to Bad. Augustine writes, "God created all things good, and because they are good . . . there is no such entity in nature as 'evil': 'evil' is merely a name for the privation of good" (XI 22). Accordingly Milton's God says of Adam, "I made him just and right, / Sufficient to have stood, through free to fall. / Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers" (III 98-100). Consequently the angel, in Para
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