Sunday, October 12, 2008

Evangeblogization of Oedipus

The first fact that stands out to me as I read Oedipus is the fact that there is a punishment for sin. Oedipus sins in his anger, in his tragic flaw he kills his father. In his anger he hastily damns the unknown murderer. Through his anger he is eventually run out by his own hands, caused to gouge out his own eyes. His sin of murder, and the acompanying sin of marrying his own mother, while it seems he gets away with it, are in the end dealt with. Man understands the idea that sin cannot go unpunished because it is engrained into our souls by God Himself.
The other more suddle idea is the idea of fate. While wrong in calling it fate the greeks know instinctively that there is something other than them in control of the reality that they live in. The idea of God is replaced with the idea of a force that controls the entire area of every facet of our life. As a Christian we can see that the world is controlled by God and that the idea of fate is directly influenced by the idea of a ominpotent God.
With these two ideas we can see from the Greek perspective;
Fate leads to the fulfilling of a prophecy of destruction
and from the Christian perspective;
God sees to the Destruction of those who go against that that He has set down as law