A Few Ramblings

This is a bit of a departure from my Biblical readings, but it is a Biblical post nonetheless. In one of my English classes we are reading Doctor Faustus which was a play written a long, long time ago (1500’s I think). Anyway the play is about a man named Faustus who out of pride and greed for knowledge sells his soul to the devil to achieve greater power than he could ever imagine. Faustus has very little faith, yet he still senses he had made a mistake and the play depicts his transformation as the clock ticks down to the end of his life.

The key question in the play is centered on whether one can repent from anything, and goes further another level to the concept of predestination.

Now, I do not claim any sort of superior knowledge, I am armed with nothing more than a mediocre understanding of the Bible alongside any sort of reasoning abilities found in any 19 year old. My professor asked if Faustus can repent and while I did not speak (because I did not know myself) I think that he can, and here is why.

The devil may have a signed contract for Faustus’ soul, yet the devil still has to play by the rules of the universe, and that is a universe created by God. God is infinitely more powerful than any curse from the devil and I firmly believe that He can break through any sort of bind the devil has on us. Does that mean we are free to do as we please? Well, repentance starts in your heart, and if you take a path away from God don’t expect your heart to repent so easily. Faustus never repented because he didn’t think it was possible, I think if he tried he would find God’s power to be more than enough to save his soul.

That brings us to the idea of predestination: was Faustus unable to repent because of his pride, or was he destined to be condemned? I’ve touched on the idea of predestination before and I am not about to confront centuries of church doctrine. All I know from my own life was that I was unsaved as a child and God found me and picked me up. I chose to draw to Him when He found me, I’m sure I could have done the opposite but that doesn’t matter to me. Whether I was destined to be called to God I simply don’t know, I do know that I was not born saved, rather I was born in circumstances that really didn’t inspire any thoughts of greatness towards my life.

I think the biggest barrier for me embracing predestination is that it essentially means there are people out there born to die in hell, and that is not what Jesus’ sacrifice means to me. I think anyone can be saved, but it all hangs on what they choose. I’m sure God knew where I would end up I often ask Him to reveal His plan for my life, but I don’t think that He had that complete control over the choice I made.

Still I don’t quite know, because recently God plucked me from despair because, I believe, I still have much work to do here at Holy Cross. Did I choose to follow Him again or was it all predestined? I fear this post has more questions than answers, but it is important to ask these questions and it is okay to not understand the answers.