In Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus, a question that arises throughout the course of the play is whether or not Faustus damns himself or if he is a victim of the temptations of the devil. Faustus is attracted to the forces of dark magic due to his insatiable desire for knowledge and his dissatisfaction with the limitations of human knowledge. In the beginning of the play, Faustus reflects on various fields of scholarship and ultimately determines that none of them offer him what he truly desires. He rejects Divinity, reading from the Bible, “the reward of sin is death.” Faustus views religion as promising him only death, and fails to see that the Bible says that God will forgive our sins if we confess. This proves to be a belief that will affect Faustus throughout the play.
Faustus comes to the conclusion that magic is the only way to satisfy his needs. Faustus’ quest for knowledge and sinful pride and greed is what leads him to give up God for the devil. However, it is by Faustus’ complete own will that he chooses this fate. Faustus’ ability to choose his own fate is highlighted by the appearances of the good and evil angels. We see Faustus struggle internally with making the decision of either selling his soul for what he covets most or repenting. Faustus chooses to reject God in order to satisfy his need to have more power than human beings would normally be allowed, and to attempt to learn the absolute truth about the universe. We quickly see Faustus’ mistake and realize that no one can be more powerful and knowledgeable than God when Faustus asks Mephistopheles who created the world and Mephistopheles replies that the answer is “against our kingdom,” suggesting that only God is capable of the absolute knowledge that humans or evil can never be capable of.
We quickly see Faustus’s mistake, but he doesn’t. Let us think about why.