Re: noodling request: Faustian bargains

In article <1182274412.390211.310770@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
lampert.doug@xxxxxxxxx says...
This brings up the point I'd include in any sell your soul story:
The Devil can't take your soul no matter what you sign. In the
unlikely event that I'm writting a story with a devil that buys souls
it also has God not the Devil decide where they go. If God doesn't
think the deal should damn you then it doesn't.

(Which is clear in the version of Faust I'm familiar with and entirely
absent in most modern retellings. Faust could have repented at any
time. It's pride and stubborn unwillingness to admit to a mistake that
actually damns him, not any silly signature in blood.)

Here is what I meant by modern Faust stories playing more to pop culture
than Christian concepts. Keeping it in the Christian framework, while God
makes the final judgement, it's based on the decisions a person makes.
OTOH, the Holy Spirit doesn't always deal with a person, and at some
point a person can find themselves at a point where repentance is
impossible. A person who bargains to sell their soul may have reached
that point - or may not. Again, by the Christian framework, we can't say.
And, IIRC, if a person has the notion that they are beyond redemption,
then the Roman Catholics say they are guilty of the sin of despair, as
all things are possible with God.

Again, keeping in the Christian framework, it's possible to sell one's
soul for the most mediocre things all without putting one's name on the
dotted line. If a person turns down repentance and accepting Jesus out of
pride, they have sold their soul for what others think. If they decline
repentance because they know that if they accept Jesus they'll have to
give up some pet sin, then that's the price of their soul. C.S. Lewis
presents this very well in "The Great Divorce."

I don't recall a Faust story with this basis, though. Since the theme's
been done to death, it would take an exceptional writer to float this to
the top of the slush pile.

Thus from the Devil's point of view serious loopholes in the deal are
a good thing. They increase the chance that the signer will figure
he's putting one over on the devil and sign up, they make the deal
inherently an evil one for the signer since he's planning a deliberate
fraud, and they reduce the chance of real repentance since the signer
is busy feeling smug over putting one over on the Devil rather than
worrying about the costs.

I think you'd almost have to right this from the Devil's POV. Maybe as
a series of instructions to a newly damned lawyer who's trying to
write an ironclad contract for the Devil on why the contract SHOUDN'T
be unbreakable.

That might be a fresh enough spin to work.

- Kevin J. Cheek
.

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