C. S. LEWIS, The Screwtape Letters (1942) | Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one--the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.
This book is such a gift to conversation…meaningful conversation…that we can have with our children about the most existential matters of life.
We began this discussion of C. S. Lewis’ masterful investigation into the nature of evil with “The Screwtape Letters Revisited” and are continuing with an examination of one of humanity’s most incredible gifts…free will.
Screwtape’s second letter begins with the “distressing” news that Wormwood’s Patient has become a Christian. The elder demon encourages Wormwood not to despair, since many humans have embraced God only to later revert to their lifestyles of sin.
MATTHEW 13:18-23 CJB | 18 “So listen to what the parable of the sower means. 19 Whoever hears the message about the Kingdom, but doesn’t understand it, is like the seed sown along the path — the Evil One comes and seizes what was sown in his heart. 20 The seed sown on rocky ground is like a person who hears the message and accepts it with joy at once, 21 but has no root in himself. So he stays on for a while; but as soon as some trouble or persecution arises on account of the message, he immediately falls away. 22 Now the seed sown among thorns stands for someone who hears the message, but it is choked by the worries of the world and the deceitful glamor of wealth, so that it produces nothing. 23 However, what was sown on rich soil is the one who hears the message and understands it; such a person will surely bear fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
While religious literature is full of stories about seemingly devout Christians who abandoned their faith to become atheists or returned to their sinful pursuits, Lewis offers a different take on the question by describing an immoral man who “loses his way” by becoming a Christian.
You see, the devil doesn’t mind people converting to “religion” so long as they can be prevented from ever becoming “personal” with God. As G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) wisely noted in What’s Wrong with the World (1910), “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult, and left untried.”
This is why Screwtape is quick to suggest that the devils’ greatest ally is actually the Church itself. Humans lack the historical perspective to the see the Christian church in its original majesty—instead, they see half-ruined old buildings, hypocritical cliches, and powerless uninspired lifestyles exhibited by those who claim to be followers of Jesus. As a result, they quite naturally come to disrespect the Church, and gravitate toward the worship of self.
While the Church is certainly part of the problem, the lion’s share of blame falls on the hypocrisy, selective indignation, and powerless lives that unbelievers see among those claiming to be followers of Jesus. (I discuss this in greater detail here). Lewis is essentially describing a passionless faith that bypasses union with God on its way to becoming false religion.
Rather than attack the Patient’s newfound faith directly, Screwtape advises Wormwood to exploit human vanity and insecurity by directing his attention away from God to the shortcomings of his fellow congregants. Distracted by this, the Patient can be more easily persuaded of his own “superiority”…all while remaining blissfully unaware of his own. So long as Wormwood can influence the Patient to confuse false Christianity with true Christianity, it will become much simpler to convince him to (a) outright leave, or (b) remain comfortably immune from intimately experiencing God.
SCREWTAPE: In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.
Screwtape also reminds his young demon apprentice that one of the most effective weapons against faith in God is disappointment. In the aftermath of any courageous decision to begin something new (e.g., marriage, school, job, or, in the Patient’s case, conversion to faith), all humans feel disappointment. And the source of this disappointment is…free will.
Thus, God-given free will is both an advantage and a disadvantage for the demons. On the one hand, freedom allows their arsenal of temptations to grow exponentially larger…but on the other hand, freedom empowers humans to discover the Truth, presenting the devils with…ah…a rather hellish challenge.
Free will is powerful precisely because it is freely given. The eternal question is what we will choose to do with it. In The Great Divorce (1946) Lewis frames the question this way: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’”
Humans can choose to find life in the offerings of the evil one…or in the offerings of God. The fact of human proclivity toward sin makes it all the more impressive when they choose God instead. Over time, they come to find more and more of their reward in relationship with Him until one day…the reward lasts forever without ever losing its wonder.
In Paradise Lost, English poet John Milton (1562-1647) speaks to the idea of free will as being “sufficient to have stood yet free to fall.” Consequently, being “free to fall” demands that Screwtape and Wormwood devote considerable time and effort to tempting the humans under their care.
SCREWTAPE: All you then have to do is to keep out of his mind the question, ‘If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?’
Screwtape urges Wormwood to allow the Patient to continue sitting in church while taking special notice of the awkward, plain, ill-dressed people around him…in order to cultivate a smug sense of superiority to his neighbors. Moreover, Wormwood is warned that he must never allow the Patient to become aware of the grossly un-Christian nature of such thoughts. It must never occur to the human that he should never look down on anyone unless it is to help them up.
Lewis’ point here is this: one can’t simply dismiss the Christian faith on the basis that individual Christians are imperfect.
[NOTE: This is the third of a series. You can start with the first post here.]