How Did The Puritans Fight Against Human Nature

Puritanism: The Fight Against Human Nature The Puritans are a people who believe that all the goodness in them comes from a deity. They believe that a human can do nothing but evil. Along with this belief, Puritans follow the concept of theological ethics. This states that the good works that humans preform are a deity working through them. They do good because of their theological ideas. The Puritans are the opposite of humanists. People who follow humanistic ethics believe that humans do good works to benefit humanity because humans naturally want to help each other. They believe that it is the human spirit, not a god, that causes them to do good. The Scarlet Letter, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, and The Crucible all display …show more content…
The Puritans’ theologic values cause them to see Satan in all human acts. They see people with numerous misdeeds as servants of the devil. The “afflicted” girls played on the fact that the Puritans viewed wrong behavior as work of the devil. With this, they could blame other people for their behavior and be called innocent. These girls, being children, took no great belief in Puritanical ethics. Therefore, when asked if they were lying about witchcraft, said no to save themselves and because they did not a fully except the Puritans’ beliefs. The girls pretended, in dramatic fashion, to want God when really they only wanted to hide their bad behavior. This can be seen when Mary screams, “No, I love God; I go your way no more, I love God, I bless God… Abby, Abby, I‘ll never hurt you more!” The adults in the village went mad when they heard this. They were so excited that Mary had turned from Satan. They believed that she was giving up humanism and embracing God. The whole ordeal in Salem shows why human nature cannot be contained. These people are forced to give up their humanistic ethics to be Puritan and it causes them to act insanely. They are willing to condemn people to death just to hold up their guise of