The Acrostic Paradise Lost by John Milton and Terrance Lindall

THE LINDALL GOLD SCROLL
Did you ever expect to see Milton's paradise lost with a surprise ending? Here is it! You
see, Milton had been criticized over the centuries as having created Satan a much too
sympathetic character. I believe that Milton knew, as some Jesuit scholars have argued,
that Satan had a role to play, a role devised by God. Satan had to rebel against good and
cause the fall of man in order to actualize his infinite mercy. Mercy not actualized is not
infinite. Satan fell because he loved God and wanted that love in return, above God's only
son.
So the scroll is conceptually laid out. The sub-thesis is interesting. Milton conceives of the
poem Paradise Lost as a flame from his head, like Athena from the head of Zeus, or Sin
from the head of Satan. Note my flying "visionary" foal with a mysterious rider. He will
gallop through the scroll revealing Milton's vision.
So the visionary horse leaps across the Bodleian Library representing man's accumulation
of knowledge. Notice the "solemn council" in Pandemonium. Figures from the major
Western religions are represented as well as two famous world leaders. Here on Earth our
leaders all proclaim to be doing good for their people...by persecuting and murdering their
enemies mostly. That's the nature of humanism, as I argued recently on The Milton lists.
No matter how we try to do good for humanity, it is twisted by the will of Satan through our
spiritual and temporal leaders. Notice Nemo's submarine Nautilus at the bottom. He
symbolizes that predicament: he opposes an evil regime by sinking ships with sailors who
are just doing their duty. He does evil thinking he is doing good.
Now the mysterious figure riding the Visionary Foal is revealed. It is none other than Satan,
who in the end is forgiven by God in his infinite Mercy. The foal that Satan has been riding,
the Visionary Foal, is actually the Vision of God himself. Everything that exists in Heaven,
Hell and Earth are ultimately perceptions in the mind of God. God's mind creates all
through the permutations of potentiality and actuality (Aristotle) in the mind of God. The
Mind of God is all reality and all knowledge. Satan, who erred because he wanted Gods'
love for himself above The Son, served God’s purpose in causing the fall of man so God
could make actual and demonstrate his Infinite Mercy... by forgiving Man and Satan too.
Satan, now having become Lucifer again, rests happily with the Visionary Foal, having
been forgiven. Knowledge is vindicated as seen wherein the apex of the Universal Library
of the Mind of God, with Dr. Robert Wickenheiser as the Head Librarian, becomes the
stairway to and from Heaven bearing the Second Coming of Christ. Notice the eye of the
Visionary Foal leads up to the eye representing God's universal all seeing Wisdom.
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