Milton's God is a subtle dictator that demands justice from His people when they've failed to offer Him their undivided love and affection or have sinned against Him. Yet God, or Jesus, takes all the blame. This becomes evident when God says the He created Adam and Eve “sufficient to have stood, though free to fall” (3.99).

It was apparent that God created a tree for Adam and Eve to be inclined to eat from. It is humankind's way to naturally want to do something somebody tells you not to do. Milton has shown that all evil temptations originate from God throughout the entire poem. It was God who created man in the same flesh as He, with the same curiosity as He, and with the same temptations as He, and told them they may eat from everything in the Garden but that one single tree. The whole purpose of the tree was to serve as a hindrance if not, what else?

Satan was able to move freely about and man wasn't. Milton wasn't making a very good person out of God in this epic poem. It's as if God desires man to sin; like he has orchestrated the ruin of man before it has even begun. Satan knows just what he is doing and God knows what Satan is doing. Why did He set mankind up for failure?

If God is indeed a persecutor, then one needs to look at the revolt of Lucifer. Lucifer rebelled against God, hating and rejecting the love He had to offer. Lucifer's failed usurping motivated other angels to defect and take his side. These angels “[disliked] his reign, and [Satan] preferring” (1.102), made an effort to release themselves from “servile pomp” (2.257). Basically Lucifer had the angels come to believe that they were better than the degradation God was putting them through being servants, beckoning to His every call. He convinced them of a place where each of them would be held in high regards and they would be free to do as they please, “Live to ourselves…/Free, and to none accountable” (2.254-5).

The Bible paints a picture that God is full of grace and love, but when one looks at the close proximity of the ethereal beings and God, it might pose a question as to why the angels and Lucifer came to openly rebel against Him and despise His every being. The argument is that people believe God is a just God, (as He describes Himself in Romans chapter 3), and those who worship Him will live in His glory forever and those who sin against him will perish in Hell. This being said, one might only look upon Him as being deceitful and merciless.

Adam and Eve were fated from the moment they were formed from dust and rib. As soon as they were tricked to eat the fruit of the tree, God told them “because thou [serpent] hast done this, thou art accurst above...each beast of the field; upon thy belly thou shalt go, and dust shalt eat all the days of thy life” (10.175-178).

God magnifies all hardships to come over that of Satan. He (God) tells Eve that her and all women will now be servants to men and give birth in agonizing pain. To Adam, He says that man will be cast out of the Garden and made to work for the rest of their lives in order to provide for himself and his family. But of greater magnitude, God proclaimed Death upon all uttering “know thy birth, for dust thou art, and shalt to dust return” (10.208)

Satan and his legion were cursed by God into forms of serpents and scorpions and dragon-like creatures; forked, hissing tongues replacing the latter. “On all sides…/A dismal universal hiss, the sound/Of public scorn…” (10.507-8). So God transformed Satan and then gave him the option to repent and he may turn him back to flesh, but being so angry Satan and his legion would never do such a thing. Satan and his legion got off easy.

Forced into a state of despair, Adam questions his very existence. Why were him and Eve made to act so purely in the first place, when the omnipotent knew of their failure? What was the purpose of having them believe in an everlasting life when death was in the cards for them anyway? Adam also wonders if God even has a right to do this to them, when they (Adam and Eve) had never asked for life in the first place. “Did I request thee [God]...to mould me man...it were but right and equal to reduce me to my dust...to the loss of that, sufficient penalty, why hast thou added the sense of endless woes? Inexplicable Thy justice seems" (10. 743-755). He does accept the fact that because he sinned to God, death is just, but he can't justify why God would turn such a beautiful life into complete turmoil.

The thesis of “Paradise Lost” is Milton trying to convince us that God is just and good. Depending upon the reader, Milton's portrayal of God is different. The fall of Adam and Eve has paved the way of humankind. No one knows what it is like to be naked and not aware of their nakedness.

Milton's portrayal of Satan is very symbolic and very meaningful. Satan's character is described as people we meet and talk to today. He's illustrated as a force not to be dealt with, but yet people deal with him day-to-day.

The fall of Adam and Eve gives people a choice of free will. People have the choice to do what God wants, but having chosen wrongly, will have subjected the individual to incurring the wrath of God. In turn, that person will be subjected to the rewards of Satan, which is to burn in Hell. Milton's message is heard loud and clear.