To each and every Puritan colonist, there was no greater objective than the acquisition of moral perfection. Puritan life revolved around perfection and contained many rules for right and wrong. God hovered over Puritans, governing their successes, failures, and positions throughout life. At the same time, he also punished, shunned, and rejected those who did not abstain from sin and did not lead virtuous lives. In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin recognized the merit of the virtuous life that Puritan colonist hold so dear.
Although it is in fact a theory, many individuals find it to be the golden rule of evolution. Anthony Burgess, the author of many perplexing novels, found that within human beings lays a code for survival. In A Clockwork Orange, Burgess reveals that individuals who lack corrupted morals or brutal behaviors prove to be the weaker links within society Lacking in brutal behaviors and corrupted morals, the prison chaplain who guides the protagonist, Alex, suffers the disappointment of failure. As a man of Christian beliefs, his purpose is to preach excellent morals. Throughout the novel, how he continuously reprimands the workings of the Ludovico Technique, a brain washing procedure in which Alex is put under to become “good”.
First, a brief overview will be given of both novels. Secondly, this essay will focus on what exactly is the definition of morality and how being immoral results in a double life. Lastly, more attention will be paid to the portrayal of good and evil. Overview In Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr Henry Jekyll is a renowned doctor who has been struggling to conceal his evil urges and lead the life of a well-respected gentleman among his fellow-men. Upon reaching ‘years of reflection’, Jekyll recognises the dual nature of man: I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.
The personality traits of insanity and intellectuality also contribute greatly to the death of Hamlet. Hamlet’s tragic flaw is his procrastination. Without a doubt, Hamlet portrays procrastination and indecisiveness multiple times in the play. The ghost of Hamlet’s father visits him in the beginning of the play informing Hamlet that he was murdered by his own brother, Claudius: “The serpent that did sting thy father’s life/ Now wears the crown”(I.v.44,45). Furthermore, Shakespeare exhibits how Hamlet chose to devise a plan of acting mad, rather than avenging his father’s death immediately, progressing to his demise.
He questioned the worth of his own life, and became suicidal. Hamlet proves this when he says, “Or that the Everlasting had not fixed his canon 'gainst self-slaughter!” (1.2.131). Soon after his grief ridden soliloquy, Horatio and the guards brought news of a ghost sighting. Supposedly, the ghost was Hamlet's father. Later in the last scene of Act 1, Hamlet accompanies the guards to the platform on which the ghost was spotted.
Because of the prominence of Calvinism during the time period that Doctor Faustus was performed and published, I feel as though Calvinist ideas are something that Marlowe sought to respond to through the drama. The Calvinist doctrine of predestination suggests that God acts of his own free will and elects select people to be saved, while the rest are eternally damned. Individuals have no control over whether or not they achieve salvation, even if they live with upstanding morals in accordance with religious doctrine, because it has already been predetermined before they came into being (Helm, 139). In the beginning of the play, Faustus concludes that he has come to the end of his studies in fields such as law and divinity, the latter to which he says “Divinity, adieu!” (Marlowe, 1026), which can be taken as a renouncement of religion all together. Before making this statement, Faustus says in his monologue that sin is rewarded by death, but that all must sin and subsequently must die.
Transformative Role of the Spirit in Moral Ethics as Presented by Luke and Paul Deborah Lein INTRODUCTION Definition of Ethics Christian ethics as a branch of philosophy dealing with values relating to human conduct, with respect to the rightness and wrongness of certain actions and to the goodness and badness of the motives and ends of such actions, has been examined extensively with an overabundance of literature being produced regarding it. Furnish, however, provides a worthwhile caution regarding Pauline ethics, but is just as apropos for all the New Testament writers, that though Paul does instruct and advise his readers, it is almost always done on an as needed basis for each specific situation. Furnish says that ‘no single practical ethical pattern or “Christian code of conduct” is ever promulgated.’1 The warning is to prevent attempts to collect the specific exhortations of the New Testament and gather them together into a comprehensive rule book for the Christian life. For the purposes of this paper we will not attempt to compile and provide commentary on all of Luke and Paul’s admonitions, but rather to explore ethics in connection with what Luke and Paul think about the Spirit’s function in the believer and how His work affects the Christian’s morality and way of life. Spirit’s Prior Work As we compare and contrast Luke and Paul’s writings and what it says implicitly about the Sprit’s work in relation to moral ethics, some presumed groundwork needs to be understood as recounted for us by Luke in his second book.
God also has standards for man regarding morality and/or ethics. He gave us the ability to choose, even knowing that we could choose to disregard His guidelines or Commandments. In Exodus 20:6 we are told how to please God. Though we may please God, in Ephesians 2:8-10, we see what we must ultimately do to atone for man’s fall from God. “How a Christian lives their life reveals their spiritual condition” (Weider & Gutierrez, 2011, p.65).
Conceptions of God and Human Nature The quote “God made man in his own image, and man returned the compliment” explains God's image to man as up for open interpretation and varying from believer to believer, which applies to the Puritans and Benjamin Franklin. The Puritans that arrived in New England were frustrated with the Church of England's methods of practice because they were too closely related to Catholicism. The Puritans departed to the New World between the 16th and 17th century, in hope of purifying their religion and creating a society that properly and strictly obeyed God. The Puritan ways heavily influenced life in New England, even for the Franklin family. Benjamin Franklin was raised in a Calvinist family with Puritan foundations, but Franklin later grew to become a worldly individual through his studies and life experiences.
It is the love that Jesus and St Paul talked about in the Bible – AGAPE. Situation ethics is ideal because agape appeals to both theists and non-theists: C. S. Lewis was a theist and he said ‘love himself can work in those who know nothing of him’; whereas B. Russell was an atheist and said ‘what the world needs is Christian love or compassion’. Situation ethics means that there is no ethical standard that can be uniformly or consistently applied, for each situation demands its own standard of ethics. It basically states that sometimes other moral principles can be cast aside in certain situations if love is best served. Situation ethics was created upon the belief that there are no universal moral rules or right because each case or situation is unique and deserves a unique solution.