I was prompted to think about this while reading Dennis Danielson's book, Milton's Good God. That book takes a broad look at the theodicy of Milton's epic poem and does so in large part by contextualizing Milton within seventeenth century (and prior) theologies. In the chapter on the importance of God's providence for any theodicy, Danielson discusses grace and free will within their Augustinian context.
Danielson begins by noting that, for Augustine, "grace" is primarily related to matters of salvation and damnation. (This is not perfectly so. Augustine believed that "grace" included good works emanating from salvation, but grace has long maintained this inextricable association with salvation.) Upon this point he elaborates. . .
[T]his recognition that grace and free will primarily concern matters of salvation and damnation will discourage the uncritical acceptance of the pagan, ethical model of choice involving fundamentally a decision between vice and virtue. . . The parting of the ways is symbolized by 'the Pythagorean letter,' Y; and the general picture is of a person standing in neither the way of vice nor the way of virtue but having to choose between these ways.
Danielson asserts that Christians have historically rejected such a visual of decision-making. Piggybacking off of the work of the early church father Lactantius, Danielson claims that "in a Christian view, there is not one 'neutral' road with two ways forking off it in the divergent directions of virtue and vice; there is but one road, which can be traveled in two opposite directions, toward light or toward darkness, toward heaven or toward hell." In other words, we are all traveling on the same road; the question is, which way are we traveling? Danielson concludes, "And if one is traveling the road to death, one will find no fork in the road: The only way to change direction is precisely to be turned around, converted."
This last line immediately brought to my mind the great moment of moral decision of the title character in Shakespeare's Macbeth. After killing King Duncan and his friend Banquo (spoiler alert!), Macbeth is suffering deep pangs of conscience over his actions. When deciding what to do next, specifically in regard to the thane Macduff who has shown signs of disloyalty to Macbeth's rule, Macbeth metaphorically imagines himself in a river of blood, in an image I find resonant with the Christian image of a single road:
. . . I am in blood
Stepped in so far, that should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Macbeth acknowledges that he has put himself in an almost impossible situation. When I teach this section I always draw a (crappy) picture of a stick figure Macbeth stranded midway in a river of blood. If you've read or seen Macbeth, or know that it's a tragedy, you will know what decision he makes. He is going to try to "go o'er." He is going to press deeper into this river.
He needs conversion, to be turned around, as Danielson puts it. While he rejects that as an option, Macbeth, at the very least, is clear-eyed about his prospects. He cannot magically extricate himself from this river and take an adjacent, blood-free tributary that gets him out of trouble. It is forward towards hell or backwards toward repentance. He makes his decision and damns himself. (He also, I think, importantly overlooks something: there is no end to this river of blood; once he has stepped out into it, he has entered upon a never-ending cycle of death and betrayal to keep his kingdom. He can keep going, but there is no conceivable end.)
Unsurprisingly, I like the Christian model better. I don't think Frost had this type of thing in mind when he wrote his poem. It is probably slightly uncharitable to lump him in here. But I think the Christian model is preferable to the pagan, Y-model because the Christian view comports more with reality. For we are ever moral creatures making morally-weighted decisions. And there is but one road: narrow at one end and wide at the other.
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