Oedipus and Christianity

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Responsibility was a big deal in the story Oedipus Rex. Even though the gods knew what he was going to do, he still had the free will to do so. This is quite similar to the beliefs of the Christian religion. Christians are accustomed to the idea that God is all knowing, yet we as humans have the gift of free will and that makes us responsible for our own actions. It seems to be similar in the tale of Oedipus Rex and in Greek mythology as a whole.

The ideas of this story within the bounds of Greek mythology seem to coincide quite well with the Christian faith; it is almost as if Sophocles meant to copy the ideas of a religion that was not invented until 425 years after his story was written. That makes this impossible, yet it may just prove again the point that there are many similarities within all of the different religions and denominations of these faiths.

The whole idea of similarities of free will within Christianity and this story seem to keep flowing. In both Christianity and Oedipus Rex there are omniscient forces that created everything and spend eternity surveying over their glorious works of art. For the most part, these "greater beings" let people figure things out for themselves. The inhabitants of their creations are not completely the God or god's marionette puppets though. They have to figure things out on their own, they think act, and feel very much so and totally on their own. This is called free will. The basic idea is that the "higher being or beings" know exactly what is going to occur, but they let the humans figure things out on their own.

Which brings us to our title character Oedipus. There was a prophecy at birth that he would take the life of his father and then shortly after he would take his mo...

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...hing that was going to happen and what the consequences would be. It would make life cheap and it would not prove anything to him as far as what type of person you really are and whether or not you deserve to go to heaven. This is why God relies so heavily on the choices you make, because these choices along with all the others you will make or already have made will dictate the life you lead.

So basically it is not too difficult to see where the paths of the Christian religion and the story of Oedipus Rex cross. It happens on many different levels and for many different reasons. These reasons are not obvious when you first look at the story. If you look deep down in between the lines you will eventually find many different versions of why free will so oh so very obvious to anyone with any sort of background in both the tale of Oedipus Rex and the Christian faith.

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