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Puritans: The Power Of Good And Evil

693 Words3 Pages

The power of good and evil fills humans. How we come about using which is argued

upon by past ideologies. On one hand the Puritans, who had lived in the early settlement of the

colonies around the 1600s, believed that the human use of good is out of fear of the consequence

of their sins and the wrath of God (Lawson “Puritan Background”). The other known as

humanism believes the nature of good comes from the wanting of helping fellow man and being

a good person; humanism is popular from the days of founding fathers. The unique nature of

humans and the way they behave cannot all be explained by just one theory; the way a human

behaves is the combinations of all philosophies and sciences that mankind has created. This type

of good …show more content…

The talk of moral perfection in the current world is seen as questionable and unlikely

despite the quality ideas put forth from the time. The current state of the world sees humanism as

a way to being a great person but not the ability to achieve perfection. Perfection does not always

mean virtuous so these traits may not be the heroism that this world needs. Perfection, a

questionable concept, is unrealistic and unachievable.

The good of Puritans was based monumentally on their fear of God’s wrath. The fear of

God worked very well at that time but with the changes of the country and the world at large this

fear is less relevant now. Since now there are so many religions based on the religious freedom

granted, the wrath of God does not do much to keep people virtuous. In Jonathan Edwards’s

sermon he is adamant about everyone going to Hell if they were a sinner. Edwards preaches

vindictively, “Your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downward with

great weight and pressure toward Hell; and if God should let you go, you would immediately

sink” to get others to see how being wicked and a sinner brings on the wrath of God (47).

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