Questions and Topics We Can Help You To Answer:
Paper Instructions:

There is one part of the argument that is missing and it's important. You lay out some crucial aspects of Luther's theology/anthropology: His emphasis on sin, his belief in the devil, and the notion of the absolute divide between our (sinful) bodies and our souls. What I'd like you to consider and look into is: Given these things, why did the ORIGINAL Faustus story emerge? How is the idea of a man who is willing to sell his soul to the devil for the sake of worldly things a cautionary tale in the 16th century. That is, the goal of this exercise is to get a sense of how Goethe's play is radically different from the kind of Lutheran warning provided in the 16th century. (For example, you say about Goethe's Faust: " Goethe's Faust ends with the main character taking his only option: serving as the devil’s slave"--but is that really the case? The original Faust story has the character being dragged down into hell. Why? He's sinful. But "sin" never appears in Goethe's Faust!)