In his book All God’s Children in Blue Suede Shoes: Christians and Popular Culture, cultural critic Ken Myers observed that our popular culture was characterized by “the quest for novelty, and the desire for instant gratification.”

Oddly enough, the cautionary tale our culture needs to hear was written in 1592.

A Cautionary Tale

As Christopher Marlowe’s play “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” begins, John Faustus sits in his college study pondering what we might call his major.

He was bored with studying theology and philosophy. “Be a physician, Faustus,” he muses, “heap up gold, / And be eterniz’d for some wonderous cure.” But even if he discovers “some wonderous cure,” all patients die so why bother?

Perhaps the law, but “This study fits a mercenary drudge, / Who aims at nothing but external trash; / Too servile and illiberal for me.”

Finally he hits on something that appeals to him:

These metaphysics of magicians,

And necromantic books are heavenly;

Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters;

Ay, these are those that Faustus most desires.

O, what a world of profit and delight,

Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,

Is promis’d to the studious artizan!

In the 16th and 17th centuries, magic was the twin brother of science. C.S. Lewis in The Abolition of Man writes, “For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men: the solution is a technique; and both, in the practice of this technique, are ready to do things hitherto regarded as disgusting and impious — such as digging up and mutilating the dead.”

A Bargain With Satan

In order to have vast magical/scientific power, Faustus strikes a bargain with Satan. The demon Mephistophilis will be his servant, granting his every desire for 24 years after which Faustus agrees to give his soul to Satan. Faustus thinks it’s a great deal since it will allow him to “live in all voluptuousness.” While Faustus gains great knowledge, as Lewis notes, “It is not the truth he wants from the devils, but gold and guns and girls.”

When he asks for a wife, “the fairest maid in Germany,” Mephistophilis wonders why he’d want to bed just one woman:

Tut, Faustus,

Marriage is but a ceremonial toy;

If thou lovest me, think no more of it.

I’ll cull thee out the fairest courtezans,

And bring them every morning to thy bed:

She whom thine eye shall like, thy heart shall have….

When Faustus and Mephistophilis visit Rome, Faustus asks for invisibility so he can play schoolboy pranks on the pope. At the Emperor’s court, he conjures up the ghost of Alexander the Great and “his bountiful paramour” to amuse the court and earn “a bounteous reward.” Later he puts cow’s horns on the head of a skeptical knight, “not so much for the injury he offered me here in your presence, as to delight you with some mirth.” Finally after bringing up Helen of Troy’s ghost to see how pretty she was, he asks to have her as his lover in H***, “to glut the longings of my heart’s desire.” H***, of course, isn’t like that.

Education for the Coming Age

Former University of Dallas president Donald Cowan in his book Unbinding Prometheus: Education for the Coming Age writes:

For twenty-four years [Mephistophilis] serves at Faustus’ command, conveying to the magician virtually unlimited power, which Faustus trivializes to satisfy curiosity and appetite.

Marlowe’s drama is a governing myth for modernity, as I believe we could maintain it is, then its portrait of the human psyche should be sobering to us, since it is far less grand than that implied in dramas of previous epochs. In Faustus the dominant motives are individual gratification and inventiveness, rather than the grand old sins — pride, ambition, aspiration — of the ancient world.

In an age when we have power and wealth Marlowe could not have imagined — computers, televisions, cars, airplanes, satellites, phones, vast libraries, electricity, supermarkets, theaters — we like Faustus spend most of that power and most of our time on the trivial: “the quest for novelty, and the desire for instant gratification,” “curiosity and appetite.”

Between study Bibles, books, podcasts, online courses, lectures broadcast on the internet, and websites like The Stream, we Christians today should be the most theologically and biblically literate in history. Our leisure time could be turned to prayer, contemplation, and spiritual growth. But, of course, our theology and Bible knowledge is dumbed down and our spiritual weakness is obvious to all.

Games, memes, celebrity gossip, sports, travel, social media, shopping, the distorted blur of the news cycle, and online pornography suck up our time and feed our craving for novelty, instant gratification, and the curiosity and appetite that go along with them — feed them, but, needless to say, do not satisfy them.

A Warning to Heed

Faustus is repeatedly urged to repent and seek God’s mercy. At the end of his 24 years, an old man tells him:

I see an angel hovers o’er thy head

And, with a vial full of precious grace,

Offers to pour the same into thy soul;

Then call for mercy, and avoid despair.

Faustus refuses and then it’s too late.

Will you and I heed Christopher Marlowe’s warning? If we do, I’m convinced we will change not only our lives, but our world.

James Tonkowich, a senior contributor to The Stream, is a freelance writer, speaker and commentator on spirituality, religion and public life. He is the author of The Liberty Threat: The Attack on Religious Freedom in America Today and Pears, Grapes, and Dates: A Good Life After Mid-Life. Jim serves as Director of Distance Learning at Wyoming Catholic College and is host of the college’s weekly podcast, “The After Dinner Scholar.”