In the book, Good Omen's  the argument of nature verses nurture comes up as Crowley and Aziraphale are discussing the future of the anti-christ. Both Crowley and Aziraphale are fighting it out for the soul of this child, "the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel if the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness." (Gaiman & Pratchett. Good Omen's, pg 42). Crowley argues that, "". . . the birth is just the start. It's the upbringing  that's important. It's the Influences. Otherwise the child will never learn to use its powers." He hesitated. "At least, not necessarily as intended."" (pg 58). Here they are more or less questioning the nature of a person which is something that I have noticed came up many times throughout the beginning of Good Omen's and even in the plot of the poem by John Milton, "Paradise Lost". 

Right from the beginning, Crawly and Aziraphale question what would happen if Crawly, a demon pre-programmed to do wrong and evil had done the good thing and Aziraphale, an angel with a good-doing nature was the one who had committed the evil act in regards to the fall of Adam and Eve. Aziraphale tells Crawly that he is not even sure that Crawly even has the capacity to do good, after all he is a demon. (pg 4). It seems as though it is just expected that the demons are only capable of evil-doings and angels are only able to do good deeds. As though maybe there is a set model for angels to follow, and an even stricter one for the demons?

As I began to think of how one can define the nature of a person I immediately connected it to free will. I think that a person as was said in the poem, "Paradise Lost" is given free will by God and therefore is capable to make their own decisions and thus will determine their human nature. In the book Good Omen's Aziraphale says, "the whole point was that when a human was good or bad it was because they wanted to be."; nurture (pg 39). He goes farther to say that angels and demons are set in their ways from the beginning; nature. I believe this to be true, for the most part. I believe that humans are capable of being of both a good or an evil nature depending on the situation. This seems to revert back to one of my previous posts that talked about the book 19 Minutes (to revert back to this post: http://writerslost.blogspot.com/2008/09/eves-dream.html ).

 Basically I was exploring the idea that just because people have thoughts and ideas does not mean that they will act upon these ideas. I think that this would go even further to question whether or not one's free will to act upon these dark thoughts would stem back to the type of person that they are. One of the ideas that the book addresses is whether a person who commits a heinous crime such as committing a mass murder was born a psychopath or if his environment growing up had shaped him into who he was when he decided to commit the crime. 

I have to wonder whether one could call Eve's reasoning for eating from the Forbidden Tree a case of nature or nurture. One could argue that it was in her nature to be curious, naïve and vain; attributes that allowed her to be easily deceived by Satan. Or does the argument stand that Eve had been more or less oppressed by Adam for her entire existence that she subconsciously made the decision to eat the apple and thus destroy paradise. 

"Free will for everyone. Ineffable right?" (pg 107) --- Crowley 

However I have reservations concerning the notion that angels and demons are set in their ways right from the beginning. As I mention before, both Crawly and Aziraphale have questioned what the nature of their actions were: whether they were in-line with their pre-determined molds or if they had strayed and adapted the other's role. They both question whether this is possible which makes me believe that even though they have had many experiences this is something that they have not yet tested and are therefore relying on the information that is pumped to them as correct. I also find this to be in question because they are trying to rationalize and sway the actions of a demon child whom they believe is to be evil by nature but is instead a normal human child which would thus mean that even Warlock were to grow up to be evil that it would not be due to the nature that they believe it to be, but instead his nurturing and upbringing as a child. In many ways I believe it is up to a person's free will the determines their behavior: human, angel, or demon. 

Please let me know what you think!

Emily

p.s. - what's with the hating on the Golden Girls on page 71?! I love that show and actually as sad as it is I'm actually watching it as I write this post :P