The very word itself grates on the brain, and makes you cringe. When I hear the word greed, I instantly get this dark, dank feeling within, a cave with water dripping from the looming stalactites. According to Webster, greed is excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness. Isn't it obvious? All right, so maybe the Webster definition is full of big words, and is a maze in itself to understand. What it essentially boils down to though, is wanting. Greed is the act of wanting, could it be more simple?.
Now of course, wanting isn't always a bad thing. People want to be happy, and want to feel loved. If you take the Christian perspective, God wants his people to return to him. Now obviously, at least from the common Christian's point of view, God can't sin, and Greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins. So although greed may be wanting, wanting isn't necessarily greed. Now, whether you"re a Christian or not, greed is definitely a bad thing, so what's so bad about it?.
Finally! The answer! Well, in my opinion at least, what differentiates greed from wanting are the motives. Let us meet Jim and Bob. Jim is a young businessman, currently working at the Salvation Army, volunteering much of his time to the people. Now Jim is also currently attending College, taking business courses so he can learn the ways of the money-handling guru. But his reasoning for wanting to be good at crunching the numbers is extremely morale. He wants to help people, and always has, he's planning on donating a lot of his wages to charity, and helping his company so it can help those who are less fortunate. On the other hand, we have Bob. .
Now Bob is in a similar situation, but it's not quite the same. He too is a businessman, attending the same college, and taking most of the same courses. Bob however, works for a large oil company. He is totally and fully wrapped up in himself. He owns a large house, and drives some pretty nice cars for a young man of his age.
Although scholarship thrived, the literature of the period exposed the flaws of human nature and frailty that may accompany the acquisition of knowledge. ... There is direct reference to the quadrivium in the beginning of the play, as it appears that Faustus has achieved the acquisition of the trivium, which is the tree branch attainment of knowledge. ...