Isabel Magalhaes, CGS student
What
is evil and what is good? If evil is the absence of good, then what does good
consist of? These questions are just
as much a controversial topic today as it was in the late medieval and Renaissance
period. To answer such a question seems
impossible or at the very least complicated, but many have tried to do so.
Free will is then the core of theological debate. The very existence of evil then depends on a free will. Many have argued if the will of humankind is indeed free to choose good or evil, then why do many choose bad actions over good actions? Another cause of debate would be that we are in no need of a saving grace, or the church, or religious works, since we can save ourselves by consistently choosing to do good actions. These were hot issues which some theologians dared to throw at an ever-increasingly divided clergy, humanists’ theories, and ordinary people as well.
Augustine attempted to answer those issues with the following argument, which is the basis of many Christian theologies. Simply put, Adam had perfect freedom to choose both good and evil. Adam chose evil and so his nature became corrupt and then he lost his freedom to choose good. Since Adam is the representative of the human race, we have inherited his corrupted nature of which the universality of sin was a result, and we lost our freedom to choose good and are damned. Augustine continued to declare that God foreknew and only through his mercy did he elect a select few of this corrupted human race to be atoned by the application of grace and the water of baptism. Furthermore the elect are chosen by God’s will alone and not by any of their merit, or does any human know if they are elected lest they become proud.
Pratt states that although Augustine still believed in free will, he also thought our will was determined (226). Our corrupted natures allows us to use the freedom of the will only for evil, and without the help of grace, we can not choose to do good actions. We do not have freedom of choice according to Augustine’s theory. However, one may conclude that there seems to be two standards. In his article Pratt realized this, and these two ethical standards were discussed in medieval and renaissance periods as well (234). That is, a standard of goodness and a standard of merit. One can see that merit is impossible without freedom to choose good actions (thereby getting good merit), and goodness does not need freedom at all since it is given to those at the mercy of God’s grace.
What causes a will, if it is free at all, to direct humans towards good or evil? This has been on the minds of some people throughout the centuries. Another theological figure of the medieval period who contemplated this issues was, Aquinas and he “relates that the goodness or the badness of the passions to the will’s control of them, and permits their being regarded as disturbances of the soul and diseases only when they are not controlled by reason” (Morris 110). Aquinas also believed that “the passions and the temptations of the Devil, being alike the causes of sin, are impeded only by the help of the Divine grace. God’s withholding of His grace as a punishment for sin allows the passions to overcome, and thus to be the cause-though accidentally-of further sin” (Morris 111). So passions that go unchecked by reason and perhaps consciousness, lead our wills to choose evil over good.
Augustine, Aquinas, and later Calvin agree with this rather depressing view that God has predestined a certain select to be saved by his grace from our wills that bend towards choosing evil actions because of the fallen and corrupt nature of humans. Ivor Morris states that Calvin believed, “Who is supreme over all wills, wills to save some and condemn others” (147). Of course what is needed is faith that you can receive Grace since we perceive ourselves as damned without it, regardless of this doctrine of predestination.
More so than in other eras, there was a reinterpretation of the medieval Catholic worldview in the Elizabethan era. Martin Luther broke his ties with the Roman Catholic Church, and translated the Bible for the ordinary Germans. Luther died in 1546, and by 1580, his belief that faith alone and adhering to the scripture alone became doctrines (Placher 196). A personal relationship with God and not the church, as well as focusing on the “inward man” is what Luther and later the reformed church developing from Crammer’s prayer book emphasized during the Elizabethan era (H.R. Coursen 52).
Indeed there was considerable religious debate during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. William C. Placher summarized that Martin Luther, part of the Protestant Reformation movement, stated that original sin in Adam destroyed free will and he claimed that justification comes from grace alone without the aid of good works (203). Luther also protested against the medieval system of penance and especially “indulgences” which was monetary dues to release a person from penance for a sin committed (Plecher 183). Placher further states that on other side of the coin, the Council of Trent during the Catholic Counter-Reformation movement, maintained that there is free will which is “weakened as it was in its powers and downward bent, was by no means extinguished” and justification requires much human effort in addition to grace (203).
These conflicting views on whether the will is free or not free impacted Shakespeare’s mind. Also on his mind were the opinions of King James. Jane H. Jack states that “In Basilikon Doron James enlarges on the topic that only faith, a good conscience and the gift of prayer form adequate protection against the assaults of the Devil. The stakes for which this battle is waged are eternal felicity as against eternal damnation” (176). This same work depicts James hatred of secrecy and hypocrisy, and of false perceptions (Jack 177). James conceived life as an internal war between Grace and the Devil (Jack 177). James was well acquainted with the “spirit of the Old Testament histories of kings whose reigns are characterized as good or evil according to their allegiance to false prophets or the true God” (Jack 180). In this ideology, it is a sin to listen to false prophets (and witches were considered to be false) who are symbols of evil themselves. If a king or any of his subjects committed this initial sin, then it would open the door of humankind’s heart to let evil and evil actions reign. Jane H. Jack states that in James’ Daemonologie, he is concerned with the preoccupation of false prophecy and that God has power to abandon the word at His will to the Devil (193). James’ Revelation depicts images of the withdrawal of God’s grace. Jane H. Jack concludes that, “The truth which James saw most clearly enforced in the Book is that human nature is pitifully weak in the face of evil” (187).
Throughout the entire Macbeth play, one can perceive numerous incidents in which some of the scenes and even the words spoken by the characters allude to Biblical passages. Shakespeare would have probably read many of the stories in the Book, since The Geneva Bible (1560) was available to the people and this version, H.R. Coursen states, was favored among the people during Shakespeare lifetime (53). Macbeth was a royal play, it is certain that Shakespeare had to cleverly keep in mind the religious and political views of King James in mind. Indeed there are many allusions to political history and fairly current political events as well. The best example of James’ influence on Macbeth, is the scene depicting Banquo’s descendents (IV.i.112-121) Shakespeare no doubt uses Macbeth’s words to compliment the king. However, the deeper meaning of the words spoken by the witches ( IV.i.110-111, 125-132), it is a caution and remainder of the biblical passages that warn people of the evil of initially listening to and soliciting false prophets, and the inevitable evil (as well as the wrath of God) that follows.
The ways of God are mysterious. But Shakespeare also makes the ways of Evil mysterious. Shakespeare creates a double world of evil (that is human and superhuman), and Macbeth focuses on the interrelationship of both worlds. Robert G. Hunter comments, “Chronologically, in terms of the succession of scenes, supranational evil-the witches-is presented as prior to human evil, as the fall of Satan is prior to the fall of man. But Macbeth is fallen and Macbeth’s mind, like all human minds, though to an extraordinary degree, is prepared for the witches before he meets” (165). So Shakespeare uses the issue of the fallen and corrupt nature of man which bends his will towards evil.
Shakespeare
also explores the issue of those who have grace which is free from merit,
and those people in which grace is withheld.
The character Malcolm describes King Edward (of
He hath a heavenly gift of Prophesie,
And sundry Blessings hang about his Throne,
That speake him full of Grace. (IV.iii.157-159).
King Edward seems to have received grace, which as previously discussed is the unmerited gift of God. The characters Macbeth (and the character Lady Macbeth) are perhaps created by Shakespeare to demonstrate a character who is without grace.
Macbeth is a fallen character but is not like the fallen character Othello who finds a degree of redemption in his bitter end. Othello learned, like Adam, through the self-created disasters, the nature of evil. Macbeth falls in the same manner Satan fell, which was all due to ambition. In fact Macbeth is like the character of Satan in that he is without remorse for any evil action and Young Siward addresses Macbeth:
No, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name
Than any is in hell. (V.vii.7-80).
Irving Ribner states that ambition was part of pride, and for Aquinas it was the worst of the seven medieval sins (149).Macbeth’s pride to fulfill the witches prophecy of becoming a king begins a series of horrendous murders, treason, deceptions, all of which were to keep the secrecy of Macbeth killing King Duncan. Macbeth’s will was turned from God, and from the possibility of receiving grace.
Shakespeare
also debates the issue of the will being free or not free. If the will is not free which Calvin and Luther
believed was the case, then Macbeth is one whom God has already damned and
left to the powers of Evil. However,
Shakespeare may have supported more the issue that the will is free, and Macbeth
damned himself as Robert H. Hunter states, “by choosing to permit the domination
of the powers of evil over him” (168). Shakespeare defines the nature of evil and how Macbeth and his
wife wills are led to choose evil in act I and act II. The mysterious ways of how evil manifests itself
on the fallen man (Macbeth), family (the disintegrating bond between Macbeth
and his wife), the state (
Shakespeare perhaps hoped that humans can have free will and resist the temptation to bend the will to evil actions. This hope lay in Banquo’s son, Fleance, who fled from the murderers charged by Macbeth to kill Banquo and Fleance. Banquo too heard the “facts” of his destiny from the weird sisters, but he chose to resist attaining his destiny through evil actions as did Macbeth. Banquo is not perfect but an ordinary person who struggled with his will to do good or to do evil. This struggle is evident in his speech in act three, verses 3-10. But he knows from the beginning how false prophecies can entice humans to evil as he stated:
And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s
In deepest consequence. (I.iii.122-126)
Shakespeare’s Banquo gives hope to all that a free will does not only cause ill.