Goethes Faust

5 Pages 1267 Words

Faust’s Trials
Goethe’s Faust probes the belief that God knows man will err because he has reason, and free will. God does not damn man for sins he commits, because it is in his nature to err as long as they strive, but rather condemns those who ceases to strive towards any goal, and in doing so forsake God‘s will for peopling the earth. Giving proof to the statement “Idle hands do the Devil’s work.”
Faust journey throughout the reading can be broken into three parts. He makes a pact with the Devil, (Removing himself from God’s path). He flounders along on that dark path for a number of years, (Following his desires, though they may not be what God had intended, yet still striving for something). Lastly Faust is saved and taken to paradise to be with God,( Thus ending up at the Destination that God has intended for him from the time of Faust‘s creation.)
Let us first see why Faust should be, by traditional examples of sin, damned instead of saved. Faust’s first damnable act, (act 6 Faust‘s study 1), is his calling upon the devil, using pentagrams, and other rites forbidden by Christian tradition. Being a learned man, Faust would have known that these rituals alone would have been a sin, because they call for him to denounce God to gain the favor of the devil. Even if theses warnings did not fall on Faust’s ears, he is counseled by Mephistopheles in lines 1655-1660 of the price, and moreover the consequences of his partnership with the devil. “In this world I will cater For all your whims, to serve and wait on you; When we meet in the next world, some time later, Wages in the same kind will then fall due.” Interpreting this to mean Faust will be bound to Mephistopheles, we see he has broken one of the Ten commandments and gone against God’s way. Thus committing a sin, and departing from the path to Heaven.
Throughout the book, most noticeably in the Witches kitchen, and Walpurgis night, Faust engages in ...