Free Will and Personal Responsibility in FaustusIt can be argued that Doctor Faustus is damned from the moment of conception. His innate desire for knowledge inevitably leads him to ruin. It represents the common human dissatisfaction with being human and the struggle to accept our lack of omnipotence and omniscience. Marlowe manipulates this struggle between the aspirations of a character of his time and the implications for Christianity in relation to its doctrine of heaven and hell. Indeed, Doctor Faustus demands more than what was intentionally made available to him through God's plan, yet it was God's gift of his intellect that caused him to seek beyond the realm of knowledge that had been given to him. assigned. Faustus, of his own free will, decides to exchange his soul with Lucifer to obtain the answers to the questions of the universe. According to the ideology of the divine plan of Catholic doctrine, his decision affected the cosmic picture. The divine enforcement of his decision implies that there are benefits or rather some other importance, outside of the connection with Faustus, to the sale of his soul. This diminishes the impetus behind his decision due to the emphasis on universal application as opposed to the immediate ramifications on Faustus, the human. Therefore, it can be debated where responsibility or blame lies regarding Faustus' fate due to the presence of other forces that may have influenced his decision. However, the responsibility for his choice remains his and his alone. Faust sells his soul for what he believes to be unlimited power, with full logical, not emotional, knowledge of the consequences of such a transaction. He knows the stakes of his bet with the... middle of the card... both lead to final and eternal damnation. Conversely, it could be argued that Marlowe was illustrating the cruelty of the idea that faith alone was not enough to ensure one's salvation, simply through Faustus's tragic end itself. However, taking into account Marlowe's possible sympathies with Catholic dogma, it can be deduced that much of the Doctor Faustus character's ideology was, in fact, the direct product of Marlowe's religious beliefs. Works cited and consulted Marlowe, Christopher Dr Faustus in ed. W.B. Worthen (1996) The Harcourt Brace Anthology of Drama, 2nd ed., Texas: Harcourt BraceSteane, J.B. (1965) Marlowe Cambridge: Cambridge University PressWilson, F.P. (1953) Marlowe and the Early Shakespeare Oxford: Clarendon PressThe Oxford English Dictionary (1989) ), Second edition, volume xviii. Oxford: Clarendon Press