TSL Chapter 8

... sigh... when I started this blog I was all excited about this, and I was like, "I'm gonna write a blog post EVERY DAY!" and all that, and now I'm all, "eh. I've got stuff to do," and it seems like so much effort, and no one's commenting... I guess I just don't feel... inspired.

You know?

Summary

Uncle Screwtape schools Worms on the law (no caps) of Undulation (caps). Apparently humans work in cycles of interest / activity and then disinterest / inertia. Screwtape instructs that these cycles will do no good unless they're properly exploited.

By way of explanation, he expounds significantly Hell's plans for humans as well as Gods: Hell wants cattle. God wants sons. Or more bizarrely: Hell wants all matter in the universe to ultimately be Satan (even Screwtape? Apparently), while Heaven wants to create a huge number of low-fidelity images of God.

Uncle Tape also mentions tactics: God can't coerce. He demands free will, and even abandons (or appears to abandon) his creations so they can find him on their own, without help.

Screwtape, having laid this out, doesn't explain in depth how to exploit the natural troughs in focus and activity -- that comes next-letter.

Literary

lower case laws

So the law of Undulation has no capital L, but a capital U. What's up with that? A quick look at other laws suggests that in English specific laws as in "The Law of X" come with a capital L. Sources like Wikipedia follow this pattern for a variety of laws such as the Second Law of Thermodynamics (capital S, L, and T -- a veritable bonanza of big, bold capitals).

However, when we're talking about a law that belongs to someone (Murphy's), the law itself is not capitalized. And in the case of "laws" such as the 'law of unintended consequences,' capital letters need not apply.

After some consideration and a bit more googling, I could not find anything that explained this to me. I could dismiss it as an error, but I haven't found any similar errors, and Lewis seems a careful writer.

I have another theory:

Slubgob's law

Screwtape introduce the loU with a petty dig at old Slubgob -- the current administrator of the Training College (not "a training college" -- Junior Tempters do not study at technical schools, apparently ruling out the possibility of commercials where a peer tempter damns a dozen souls as a perplexed, astonished friend looks on, and is then told, "I got my degree at Pandaemonium Technical Institute -- you should go! You'll be glad you did!" But I digress).

He says that things have gone "to pieces" since Ol' Slub has taken over.

Note that he did not say, "have gone to Hell" since that would be either vulgar or redundant. He could have said, "Gone to Heaven," but that doesn't seem like a likely idiom given their relationship with the celestial realms. Screwtape, despite his demoniacal nature does not use the scatological which would fit here,  and he doesn't say, "Pear Shaped" which would would have outed him as a brit.

But I digress.

I think that the weird capitalization is a subtle sign from CSL to show us that whoever taught Screwy English did a poor job, and that we shouldn't take his criticisms of academics seriously.

That said,

Infernal Ambitions

The idea that Hell wants to make everyone part of Satan is reasonable and kind of cool. It seems demonic and hungry and empty and gluttonous all at once. I do wonder what happens to an immortal soul that becomes part of the devil. Are you still you, but now you're a tendon? Or is the self dissolved? It sort of implies the later, but that kind of implies an end to suffering -- either oblivion, or something close to it.

Anyway, these end-game visions are pretty good.

I was going to talk about something else, but I think I'll do the Theology.

Theology

I don't know where he gets this Undulation stuff, but it doesn't seem biblical. I don't buy it at all. I'm also not sure about God valuing freedom over everything.

Firstly, God does prime the pump. He's willing to intervene to get things started, but then he wants people to pull themselves along by their own power and -- at least in CSL's theology -- he's willing to watch them end up damned forever if they can't quite make it.

I think absolute dedication to freedom is a valid explanation for letting people be damned -- but what we're seeing here isn't quite absolute.

Of course Lewis's conceit is that he can explain God's objectives and reasons; I think he knows better, but at some level apologism is about explaining God to people, with a fallback that if the person doesn't quite buy my logic, I can always shrug appeal to the infinite unknowability of the maximally-omni and them move in a mysterious way.

Personally I prefer "we have no idea why things are this way" to partial explanations. A friend of mine was shot and killed and his mother (a holidays-and-weddings Catholic) went to a priest to arrange for a service and to seek... some kind of explanation.

The man told her flat out he had nothing, and frankly, I'm not sure anything he could have said to try to explain God's purpose could have made a positive difference. Pain and struggle can be edifying, but they can also be crippling and soul-rending, and explanations that have God wanting us to suffer terrible things to make us better seem a bit horrific to me. 

At the end of the day, I think Lewis is on to something -- we may well be at our best when, during our deep troughs, where we're most discouraged and feel most alone, we seek God because, not because it comforts us, but because it's the right thing to do.

And that may even please God more than our obedience when we're on fire with his presence.

But I am deeply skeptical of anyone who connects this to God's valuation of concepts like free will. 

TSL Chapter 7

Chapter Summary

Screwtape answers a question posed by Wormwood about whether demons should let their presence and reality be known (it's against orders) and then returns to his earlier comment about Pacifism v. Patriotism both (probably) supporting his demoniacal ends.

He argues that both can be made ends in and of themselves, and are therefore good ways to bring an idol between man and God.

Literature & Theology Together

I'm going to do these together because they mesh pretty well in this chapter.

The Masquerade & The Materialist Magician

Wormwood has apparently asked if it would be okay to reveal his presence to the patient. Screwtape reminds him that it's forbidden by the High Command (capital letters in the original). 

He examines the obvious tradeoffs: if people accept the existence of demons, they won't be materialists. If they deny them, they won't be magicians. If you have to remain hidden, you can't directly terrorize someone with demonic attacks a la The Exorcist.

He then posits the ideal configuration -- a Materialist Magician: someone who denies the reality of the metaphysical world but nevertheless worships (rather than just "uses") 'Forces,' engaging the forbidden demonic world while still intellectually denying it.

This makes for a pretty good swipe at Scientology, although it considerably pre-dates it. CSL is taking aim at the cults of his time that made use of the trappings of science.

For what it's worth, I think he's right about people "emotionalizing" and "mythologizing" science to their detriment. Science, for better or worse, has a lot of emotional credibility and all sorts of people (secular and religious) who ought to know better routinely claim Science is on Their Side.

Patriot v. Pacifist

CSL addresses all the points of my earlier confusion more than adequately. His issue is less about patriotism v. pacifism and more about the dangers of zealotry in the service of anything other than God. In this view, pacifism motivated by a (pure) desire to serve would be Godly, but almost any corrupted, earthly form of it would amount to the worship of an idol, and therefore deliver the extremist into the hands of the demons.

He also makes some good points about the isolating, extremism-generating nature of sects and cults, finding them good mechanisms for driving corruption.

He's counseling moderation in all things except obedience to and worship of God, and that sounds eminently reasonable and tenable.  

TSL Chapter 6

Chapter Summary

Annnnnd... we're back. Screwtape returns from a brief look at the wider world to the soul of Wormwood's patient. In this chapter, Uncle Screwtape focuses on the nature of Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD), and how (not) to deal with them. He touches on the value of self-consciousness and conscious management of emotions (especially ones that might lead to sin) and then on the surprisingly limited value of hatred (especially hatred aimed at distant people).

Finally, he explains the concentric spheres view of man, with the Heart / Will at the core, the "Intellectual" sphere around that, and the the sphere of "fantasy" which contains things the man believes about himself but are not, in fact, true.

Screwtape advises Nephew Wormwood to concentrate on pushing virtues outward, into the fantasy sphere, and away from the heart -- doing so will make the man act from vice while believing in his own inordinate virtue and such may make him all the more "amusing" when he finally ends up in Hell.

Literature

There's not a lot to say here. The chapter focuses on how fear, will, and self-image / self-delusion may interact. There's an awkward bit where Uncle Screwtape has to explain God's will, supposedly for the purpose of explaining how to subvert it -- the facade of the anti-sermon approach gets a little thin.

The concentric-circles-of-man view is somewhat interesting, but it's less a metaphysical view of the world than a conceptual tool. It does, in some ways, address what I saw in earlier chapters as a bit of confusion around the role of self-awareness. Clearly CSL sees value in self-awareness, self-inspection and intellectual management of emotions -- he just advises us to be wary of believing in our own worthiness.

I do think that the idea that a man who believes himself to be virtuous would be more entertaining to torture forever than one who was evil and acknowledges it is pretty chilling. CSL makes the most of the terrifying prospect of an infinity of torture. And who amongst us would not be astonished to discover ourselves forever in the clutches of the Father Below?

I imagine most people would be quite entertaining by Screwtape's lights.

More Pandering

CSL engages in one element of shameless pandering: apparently the English are more -- objectively more -- virtuous than other peoples: Screwtape complains about their hypocrisy in treatment of enemies. While they may intellectually hate Germans, when actually presented with one, their innate virtue of kindness and charity shines through and they treat their sworn enemy decently and humanely.

This is doubly annoying since as a patriotic American I would like our people to have the moral high-ground, but I've seen pictures of how we treat our prisoners taken in wartime and it's neither humane nor infused with charity. I suspect Uncle Screwtape would be less irritated with our management of the prison facilities we ran in Iraq.

The Theology of F.U.D.

If the literary / world-building aspects are light, Chapter 6's theology is somewhat meatier. It deals with Fear, Uncertainty, and indirectly, with Doubt (F.U.D.)

(Fear) Fear is the Mind Killer

Fear -- and the bearing of fear -- as a trial we are expected to endure, is interesting and perhaps even rises to the level of being insightful. CSL counsels patience and forbearance in the face of uncertainty instead of praying for help with imagined, not-yet-manifest circumstances.

I like this, since it fits with my experience that fear does tend to eclipse other concerns. We know that people who live under constant fear have a harder time performing intelligently -- it really does wear down the will and corrupt the heart.

I think CSL's advice is good here, even if it does, somewhat, come from Screwtape's mouth (as I said, his more-or-less-straight-up exposition crumples the conceit of the work a little.)

(Uncertainty) The Circle of Fantasy

In this chapter Lewis illustrates how managing vices and growing in virtue require a clear headed view of one's own internal states. He explicitly describes how a man might identify and react to a potentially problematic emotion through clarity and how a demon subvert that by having the target focus on believed virtues -- ones which don't actually exist.

This is both advice and a warning. The advice is to have clarity about our emotional states. The warning is to be uncertain about our perceived moral position.

Anyone reading Screwtape's advice is invited to wonder: are my virtues really "virtues?" Are they embedded in my Heart, or do they exist in the Circle of Fantasy, where they do me no good? Of course this invites an accounting, but it's inevitably a subjective accounting: humans are notoriously good at self-deception, and any honest man must acknowledge that there's no way he can be sure.

Hence, uncertainty. I think that's where Lewis feels we're supposed to be. While Screwtape doesn't explicitly say this, his examples all suggest that a man who feels certain of his virtue or even his progress toward virtue is a deluded fool -- a plaything of demons and his own fallen nature.

Better then to always be uneasy and uncertain, and thus striving to better, right?

It is, of course, possible to read TSL and think, "Ah -- well, yes -- others ought to be uncertain, but not me, but not me. I'm quite secure in my virtue," or -- for the more sophisticated pallet, who recognizes the abject absence of humility in the previous paragraph, to loudly proclaim, "And I am the worst sinner of all!" and yet feel adequately assured. After all, though worst-sinner, I may be, am I not (by virtue of my salvation) on an inexorable upward track?

(Doubt) Chicks Dig Confidence

I think an intellectually honest Christian would have to exist in a state of doubt. Am I good enough? Am I saved? Am I trending better (evidence of election) or is my positive trend just a laughable, self-deluded fantasy? How could I tell, when my fallen senses and logic will work against me?

Of course in practice we don't see a lot of this kind of doubt. Christians by and large are assured of their salvation. Why is this?

I don't have a definitive answer, but I can find some parallels:

I recall reading an assessment of depression in Japanese culture which pointed out an apparent contradiction: in Japanese culture, people are expected to be self-deprecating. Self-promotion is seen as intolerably rude and arrogant and a gross violation of cultural norms.

However, looking at culture, one noticed that the successful people fully obeyed the norm -- they were quick to enthusiastically declare themselves to be the worst of the worst, the slowest, least capable of the lot... but they didn't seem to internalize those perceptions. At some level they were very much playing the game: their affect and manner, as well as their actions demonstrated a profound confidence in their ability.

And, of course, society reacted: they were praised both for their capability and for their humility. They were winning in both ways.

Depressed people (apparently a lot of them in Japan), on the other hand, often internalized those self-criticisms. They took them to heart, and as a result felt (predictably) miserable. They were meek, effacing, tentative, and often socially isolated and ineffective. Their behavior and affect matched their words.

As a character in the South Park movie (whom I shall decline to name) says, "Chicks dig confidence." I think that's right: we want people who say the right things, but doubt -- honest doubt -- not only isn't attractive, it may be debilitating. It's not what we can afford from our leaders.

At some point, to function, we have to believe in our salvation -- to truly take F.U.D. to heart, would be to stare into the abyss of the unthinkable with no assurance of any kind. Not many people could handle that sort of thing and keep going.

TSL Chapter 5

War!

War has broken out in Europe. Nephew Wormwood is apparently ecstatic, which is to say, drunk and incoherent on human fear and suffering. Uncle Screwtape, ever the model of temperance councils moderation, reasonable expectations, and goal-oriented, big-picture behavior.

He acknowledges that war is full of delightful suffering and bad behavior but feels it is, in large, not a net-win for the forces Hell. He enumerates his thinking:

• In times of tribulation, people may flock to God
• Even if they don't, they may find themselves drawn to their better natures
• Men killed in warfare are prepared and may have been given last rites
• While some people may lose faith in suffering, faith that can be lost through suffering isn't real faith at all
• While someone might, in a moment of terror or pain, renounce God, they also might go the other way

The Literature

What a chapter! Firstly, after four chapters of edifying lectures on what not to do, this chapter steps away from the personal to look at the big picture and, as such, brings in a good deal of CSL's world and moral thinking. As such its a fascinating chapter.

A brim-full living chalice of despair and horror and astonishment -- forever

Screwtape's chilling description of a human suffering eternally in hell. Demons enjoy human agony (mental or physical) as fine spirits or a delicious meal. And this isn't just an aesthetic appreciation or pleasure at getting revenge on God by tormenting his creations: it actually impairs them the way strong drink does.

While I have no evidence this explanation is biblical, it works well here, both by being terrifying and by answering questions about motive: why do Demons do it? In part, because they enjoy it. I find myself wondering if human emotional states would have this effect on angels, or is the ability to take pleasure in pain something Demons only acquire after they've fallen? No answers here, but interesting stuff to think about.

I also like that Lewis has included "astonishment" -- this is particularly chilling because one might suppose that after a few centuries of diabolic torment, your typical human would be an incoherent wreck. Not so -- they are perpetually astonished. I also think it implies that humans are -- for eternity -- surprised to find themselves in the clutches of demons -- astonished at the horrible, but never-for-a-second-in-question outcome of it all.

I wonder how many of us are selected for this particularly kind of eternal astonishment.

Temperance and Strategic Thought

I keep calling out the admirable traits of Demons. It's clear that Lewis finds the idea of a demon acting affectionately and nurturingly toward his relative amusing: these letters are in some ways satire on the sorts of instructive letters an earthly uncle might write to his mortal nephew, but then bent rather extremely by their diabolical nature.

In the sense of being funny, the joke isn't overplayed enough to get old but it ceases to be surprising. What I find remains interesting, though, is the implication that there's a functional demonic bureaucracy which would rely on just such values to function. While Lewis is a deep enough thinker to imagine demons that are profoundly alien in thought processes and aspect, I think he also imagines that extensive coordinated action would probably require values and structures not too dissimilar from humans.

The Theology

Chapter 5 steps back to look at some broad, moral concerns through the eyes of a narrator who can see Objective Morality. Fascinating. Inevitably, this raises questions about Lewis's perspective and invites comparisons to biblical guidelines. Let's look at where this goes:

Extreme Patriot v. Ardent Pacifist

Evidently both are good (meaning bad)! Uncle Screwtape doesn't explain, and while it's easy to see how "extreme" patriotism (what I would probably call nationalism) could serve the "Father Below," it's not as clear that ardent pacifism is damming.

Certainly ardent pacifists are annoying, and it's amusing to imagine Hell filled with them -- maybe next pit over from the vegans and the PETA people -- but Lewis has already warned us against assuming someone is damned because they're irritating. Screwtape doesn't really get into why, so there's not much to go on here, but it is interesting, and somewhat (to me) counter-intuitive:

Nationalism would almost certainly be a kind of idol. It's hard to imagine a sincere nationalist who didn't treat his country that way. Pacifism, on the other hand, could be driven by any number of motivations including Christian ones. Certainly some flavors of pacifism would be sinful, but I can imagine, say, Quakers who founded their pacifism in a Christian framework. I don't know anything about Quakers except that they invented prisons and oatmeal, so maybe they're all hell-bound heretics, but that seems like a bit of a jump.

Monstrous Sophistry

A bit more theologically challenging is the assertion that God gives humans credit for championing causes that he disapproves of because humans "thought them good" and were following "the best they knew."

I find this strange and fascinating and I'd love to know how CSL arrives at that conclusion. He's already mocked humanity for justifying their own behavior and surely he's aware that the most ardent Nazi's thought they were doing good and dying for a just cause. It's hard to imagine him assuming God gives people credit for that.

Also, Screwtape's ambiguous wording suggests that salvation (God 'making prizes' of humans) can be granted because God in some way approved of the dying human's morality. I get that Anglicans appear to be focused on deeds than 'by faith alone,' but I wonder how far CSL would take this.

Faith that fails under trial isn't really faith

This is the same conclusion Calvinists reach -- if you lose your faith, you weren't actually ever faithful (or saved) to begin with (nuance alert: can't see human heart, maybe still had faith, don't imagine grandpa burning in hell, it'll keep you up at night, etc.)

It's necessary for all versions of Christianity, of course -- but it raises the dismal specter of a lack of assurance in one's own salvation. It's also depressing: I read a book by a psychologist who had interviewed torture victims, and discovered that many of them had lost their faith after being tortured. He said that most people walk around with a basic belief that God "won't let anything really bad happen to them," and for torture victims, that obviously turned out not to be true.

Clearly those folks didn't have the True Faith -- a sophisticated understanding that the promises in scripture are not necessarily for our corruptible, mortal lives -- and if they really did "lose faith," then they really weren't saved to begin with. Still, it's sad to think that for those poor people, the worst hours of their lives, while they were being tormented into despair, were happier and more pleasant than the eternity they're in store for.

Catching a man at the moment of death

Screwtape concludes that it might be possible to catch a man in a moment of terror and pain, presumably as he's dying or when someone close to him is dying -- but that he also might break the other way. This sort of terrifying coin-flip (along with theologies that need last rites) is a pretty grim look at the conclusions one comes to if you need to be saved by your current belief.

The Calvinist idea that you're saved from the moment of (true) conversion and from then on its all okay at least doesn't leave you wondering how you'll do when you're bleeding out on the floor.

My reaction

I liked this chapter -- it was, as I said, a break from the high-nutrient diet of spiritual self-improvement. It provided a view of a broader spiritual (demonic) world, and a look at over-arching ethics. Interesting stuff.

I also like Screwtape as a character. I like that he's a bit of a wet-blanket on his Nephew's ecstasy and contrarian about the war.

I suspect that despite his warnings and dour nature, WWII proved to be a bonanza for the Devil, at least in terms of the accounting approach TSL implies.

TSL Chapter 4

Chapter Summary

Apparently Screwtape's advice on prayer didn't quite hit the mark for Wormwood. Some unspecified problem arose concerning The Patient praying for his mother, and Screwtape is compelled to offer more advice on the neutralization / misdirection of prayer.

Screwtape doesn't number this time, but I will.

1. Suppress the intention to pray, so that the target engages in seemingly prayer-like activities that aren't actually prayer
2. Have the target try to answer his own prayers rather than ask for intervention
3. Redirect the target so that he prayers to the wrong god -- probably a god of his imagination and own creation

Screwtape then concedes / reminds Wormwood that if The Patient actually does pray -- and to God, himself -- then they're (for the time) defeated and adds one last bit of encouragement: Humans don't really want a connection with God... at least not as much as they say they do.

Literary Assess

Department Undersecretary

We get another sense of how Demons think and work. Screwtape reveals that he is a Department Undersecretary, and gently scolds Wormwood for trying to shift the blame and reminds him of their difference in status. Demons respect (if don't necessarily adhere to) the value of personal responsibility and respect for one's superiors.

Enduring God's Omnipresence: Demonic Pain Management

God, being everywhere, always (omnipresent?) is a constant source of condemnation and pain for the demons. Screwtape describes His presence as a "ghastly luminosity" and "stabbing and searing" pain. This is a reasonable way to reconcile omnipresence with the damned, although it raises all the usual questions about why evil doesn't just wilt and vanish in God's light. 

Theology Assess

Chapter 4 makes it clear that prayer -- actual prayer -- is unbeatable and God's intervention is beyond the power of demons to repel. Screwtape's advice is less about subverting prayer and more about killing the urge to pray.

I'm unsure of the theology of this, but I think it probably works slightly better in the anti-sermon sense. Lewis is reminding us to pray specifically, to pray to an eternal God, rather than one of our own making, and so-on.

These errors (not actually praying or praying to some incorrect deity) strike me as more likely to fail than his previous chapter where prayers could be directed correctly and sincerely, but fail on somewhat technical grounds.

My Reaction

I sometimes get the impression that Lewis hides his most important points in the final paragraphs of the chapter, intending to leave the reader with a lasting thought of some depth. In this case, he points out what might be the biggest issue with prayer -- that we're probably rightly scared of direct intervention by God on his terms.

In addition to being asked to give up all kinds of earthly comforts, God's plan for us (we're told) may involve edifying misery and loss. While it's all well and good to applaud how much of a better person Job became when his family was slaughtered, it's not something I would invite on myself.

We console ourselves with the idea that while God might test us, he wouldn't test us in ways that would destroy us. That might be true, but it's a cold, technical comfort, when we remember that we're talking about an eternal soul that's not being destroyed and not about our sanity or wellbeing here in this earthly realm. My worst nightmares and deepest fears could come horrifyingly true, and I wouldn't be "destroyed"in any eternal sense -- simply improved.

Thy Will Be Done, indeed.

TSL Chapter 3

Chapter Summary

Nephew Wormwood has written something about The Patient's poor relationship with his mother; it's implied that they live together although not clearly stated. Uncle Screwtape is pleased to hear that they don't get along but is quick to suggest that Wormwood work proactively to make things even worse. Screwtape offers four points of advice, numbered for Worm's convenience:

1. Wormwood is to keep The Patient focused inwardly in navel-gazing self reflection rather than externally, toward the physical world.
2. Wormwood should work to neutralize The Patient's prayers by keeping them focused on judging and condemning his mother's irritating habits and, wherever possible by having him pray for some idealized version of the woman rather than herself
3. He should play up The Patient's irritation at his mothers' habits and expressions and encourage The Patient to view these as intentional slights and insults
4. Encourage the risible double standard of demanding to have one's own words taken at face value, while feeling entitled to view other's words as subject to uncharitable interpretation

Finally, Uncle Screwtape concludes by asking if the mother seems to harbor any resentment or annoyance over The Patient's recent conversion to Christianity.

Literary Assessment

Welcome, Glubose!

There's a little world building here. The introduction of the charming Glubose, the first of several unappetizingly named unclean spirits we'll be hearing about. Glubose is The Patient's mother's Persecuting Devil (presumably the counterpart to the heavenly Guardian Angel). Devils, it seems, collaborate and work together like people do, to achieve their diabolical objectives.

Domestic Hatred & Self Awareness

The theme of this chapter, following Lewis's anti-sermon approach is about domestic tranquility. Instead of focusing on dramatic problems (which would be both hard to present in his chosen, unilateral format, and hard to relate to), and as in his previous chapters, he's focused to the details of human interactions and how contempt (which he calls "domestic hatred") can find purchase on things as simple as expressions. He uses words like irritate, aggravate, annoyance, and so-on in almost every paragraph. This isn't about the big fights, it's about the daily friction of living with another human-being.

This is insightful: it's easy to focus on any number of visible, dramatic problems but at least some researchers find contempt to be the most reliable indicator of divorce. Certainly it's something everyone involved in intimate, live-in relationships (whether with romantic partners, roommates, or parents) should be on guard against.

While the chapter focuses on a live-in mother, it could really focus on any domestic scenario -- if The Patient were married, it would doubtless be his wife.

I think Lewis's prescription is right minded, but probably ineffective: he reminds the reader to view one's mother charitably (she probably isn't really trying to piss you off with her eyebrows), and to act fairly, holding others to the same standards one holds one's self.

As far as it goes, that's fine -- but I wonder how many people would disagree with those ideas while calm. Probably not many. Holding to ideas of fairness and charity when one is in the middle of an emotionally charged interaction (Those EYEBROWS! SHE'S DOING THE THING WITH THE EYEBROWS!!!) is really the trick, and Lewis's prescription doesn't so much help with that.

All of which requires a degree of self-awareness, but Lewis is against self self-reflection, or at least (maybe) doing it to the exclusion of worrying about the external world. Of course given the nature of the work, it's not telling us so much what to do as what to avoid.

 

Prayer in Chapter 3(Theology & Literary Together)

Why mix theology and literary considerations to talk about prayer in Chapter 3? Because the way it's presented in this chapter (less so in the next one), is weird and is probably rendered the way it is, in part, in service to the story.

Weird? How so: To begin with, the idea of demons rendering prayer "innocuous" seems bizarrely over powered. How can fallen spirits get between God and man? The answer is even stranger: they cannot directly intercede -- the can't "jam" the transmission, for example -- but they can mess with The Patient's prayer guidance system. 

If they can take his prayers off-target, either by having him pray for a purely imaginary person or for sins that aren't really sins, the prayer fails (or -- maybe -- succeeds, but has no desired effect).

This is an extremely mechanistic view of prayer and curious because, biblically, Your Father knows what you need before you ask him. While I don't know how Anglicans pray, I bet that they don't count on doing it exactly right all the time to make it worthwhile.

I think that Lewis does this because of his didactic agenda: as an anti-sermon, he's teaching us how 'not to pray' and so warns us against errors we might make -- being judgmental and arrogant (assuming we know the sins of another... or that sin is somehow against us), or about being hypocritical -- praying for the ineffable soul, while neglecting the wellbeing of the corporeal person.

In this sense, warning against those errors requires some kind of in-story construct, and he's chosen to make those prayers metaphysically ineffective.

In this chapter. In the next one he's quick to correct this impression -- so perhaps he felt Chapter 3 was some what lacking theologically and sought to correct that impression directly. I'll note that his preface caveat about devils being liars is useful here: maybe Screwtape was intentionally misleading Nephew Wormwood about the inefficacy of prayer?

Looking ahead, it certainly seems to have gotten him in trouble!

My Reaction

As I said above, I think Lewis is eminently reasonable, but somewhat weak on relationship counseling front.

I'm also nonplussed by his guidance on prayer. I don't think I've ever prayed for God to fix someone who I found annoying or for someone's "soul" in the edification sense that Lewis uses. Intellectually, I can see how either of those approaches might be lacking, but it wasn't something that resonated with me.

I think I'll be more engaged by the next chapter.

TSL Chapter 2

Chapter Summary

Oh no! The Patient has become a Christian! Fear not, Uncle Screwtape says -- there's still hope for damning him. Screwtape provides an overview of strategies that Nephew Wormwood might use to de-Christianize someone which basically amount on getting them to give up in disgust and change their mind about their Christianity he suggests

• Influence them to be judgmental about the (fairly ridiculous & unattractive) fellow Christians and the ritual of the Church
• Play (somehow) on the inevitable disappointment the man will feel after he's started on his path to Christianity and it's not easy
• Play up the hypocrisy of his fellow Christians -- surely some of them are sinners and the Patient, himself, is almost certainly infused with an extremely (although by no-means extraordinarily) false humility

He concludes by suggesting that Wormwood keep his target convinced of his own righteousness for "as long as you can."

Literary

There's a little bit of world building in this chapter. Most interestingly, Uncle Screwtape alludes to "usual penalties" that demons suffer when their patient becomes Christian. While he doesn't explain what these might be, he does suggest that a True Believer wouldn't seek to escape them and would genuinely welcome punishment for failure.

I like the idea, both here and in Milton's Paradise Lost that the Devil, even with a full view of heaven, sincerely feels his cause is just and worthy of inspired loyalty. I also like the idea of a diabolical bureaucracy where there is a systematized schedule of "usual penalties" for failures.

I also like Screwtape's contempt for humans. He calls them 'fools' (thanks to demonic influence?) and 'disgusting little human vermin.' It's important to the work to keep Screwtape enjoyably hate-able, and contempt is a good way to do that: the anti-sermon nature of the work has to inspire the reader to want to thwart and frustrate Screwtape and prove him wrong (at least about them).

Finally, there's a line that suggests that Wormwood will get to torment his damned patient for eternity with the "peculiar clarity which Hell affords." The idea that your personal demon gets to torture you forever with an infinite reminder of the mistakes you made to fall into his clutches is breathtakingly diabolical. Lewis outdoes himself!

The Theology

I'm going to break this into a couple of sections

Perseverance of the saints

This introduces, and makes cannon (in the fictional universe  of TSL) the, I think, intuitive sense that becoming Christian involves a decision and then a lot of focus and hard, dry work on the part of the Christian.

And that it's easy, even likely, to fall off the wagon.

It's more like dieting (or maybe quitting smoking) than a singular moment of transformation after which salvation is assured. 

I called this "intuitive" because I think it tracks any earthly program of self-transformation anyone has ever tried. Certainly trying to learn a skill, or a language, or lose weight follows this exact trajectory, to say nothing of breaking an addiction: it's hard, dry work, and everything in you is working against you. The only way to make it work is to rally willpower and overcome what feel like baser urges -- the whisperings of Wormwood???

In Calvinist theology, once a person is saved, they're always saved and being in the elect means an inexorable proceeding to salvation and (perhaps) earthly and eternal glory. In practice, though, it's the same thing: if someone decides they're Christian, declares their Christianity, gets baptized, but then (during the hard, dry work of self-improvement) falls away, they were obviously never saved to begin with.

From an earthly perspective, the Calvanist and Anglican perspectives arrive at the same conclusion: some of those people in the pews with you are headed for Hell.

And for all you know, you might be, too! Sure, you're on the wagon right now... but what happens tomorrow? Or the next day? You might discover that your faith was insufficient to get you through, and therefore (Calvanistically) that it wasn't (ever) the faith of a saint, at all.

Whether you're an Anglican or a Calvinist, I think the feeling of being Christian is the same, and even if we are predestined or elect in some sense, the illusion of self-empowering free will is strong enough that it's indistinguishable.

Kill Bill Part III -- Uma Thurman is The Bride (of Christ)

C.S. Lewis isn't above pandering to his readers. He (amusingly) describes Christian in the pews as potentially, "a great warrior on the Enemy's side" and The Church itself as "terrible as an army with banners."

While Paul (once, I recall) describes Christians as good soldiers, enduring hardships, and engaging in warfare, the passages I can recall  that describe the Church tend to use a much more passive, gentle, and even effeminate imagery: collectively, in most of the passages I'm familiar with, we're The Bride of Christ.

And even Paul's metaphor falls sadly short of the elite bad-assery implied in Lewis's description. It's more about enduring hardships and avoiding earthly entanglements than it is about terrifying pageantry and martial skills that would impress the Legions of the Prince of the Air.

I kind of like Lewis's take on it better, frankly. I'd like to imagine that Demons fear my deadly spiritual Kung-Fu.

I think the way to cross this divide is to embrace Quentin Tarantino's approach to bride hood -- "Does this dress make me look Dangerous?"

Don't stop believin' -- Hold on to the feelin'

Journey would have us understand that the key to believing (belivin) is emotion ('that feelin') -- but Lewis would have us not put our trust in soft-rock anthems.

Uncle Screwtape makes it clear that once the initial bad habits are broken, the patient will have less emotion involved in his going-to-church decisions. Lewis clearly sees Christianity and the desire to be Christian as rooted in the more rational parts of our natures, while emotional drives and desires work against it.

While this makes a certain, obvious amount of sense, it's also clear that for a long, long time (and very much today), emotion plays a critical role in people's belief, and while we're encouraged to engage logic to connect with God, we're constantly reminded that it won't work: God is beyond our understanding, and while trying to use logic is admirable, we should do so with no expectation of success.

I don't think logical arguments by itself would convince anyone who wasn't already convinced -- to the extent that grappling with Christian theology logically is useful, it's only after one has accepted Christianity as axiomatically correct. And only useful so long as one has no expectations of logical conclusions.

On the other hand, emotional connections are easy to come by -- fear of hell, for instance, is a time-honored (although very, very slightly out of favor these days -- perhaps, after a millennia, it's lost some of its impact?), is a common emotional appeal. More positively, a sense of belonging, acceptance, or forgiveness would seem to be the kinds of emotions that would draw people to a Church.

My Reaction

I find the idea that I might be on a "brief sojourn" in God's camp quite disturbing. I don't know how I'd really tell the difference between actual conversion and false conversion. I'm not sure there is a way -- to the extent that there are empirical tests for salvation (our interpretation of James), I don't think I could convincingly say I pass.

I know people who appear to be absolutely certain of their salvation (although I suspect if asked directly, they'd demure so as not to appear to have a deficit of expected humility), and in many cases it goes back to some experiential event. Maybe if you haven't had one, there's your answer.

And, of course, in Calvinist philosophy, study, hard-work, and (earthly) dedication won't make a difference. If I'm reprobate, no amount of work on my part will make a difference; I might as well sleep in on Sundays.

Of course the idea that salvation could come through hard work is equally terrifying -- no matter how much I do I'm sure it wouldn't quite be enough...

I've thought about these questions a lot, and I don't think they're quite answerable, but I find Lewis's demon-based view fascinating: he puts salvation all on the weak and fallible humans and finds God's love in allowing humans to struggle and fail in the name of freedom -- a bit like an earthly father letting his children play near a busy Interstate so as not to over-watch their development into free-thinking adults...

TSL Chapter 1

An on-going blog of The Screwtape Letters!

Chapter 1

Summary

The first chapter is about five pages long on my Kindle / Nexus 7, and introduces the themes and approach that will be carried through the rest of the book with remarkable economy. I already knew the basic outline of the story (a more senior demon counsels his nephew on the best approach for corrupting his assigned human), when I first picked up the book, but I can only wonder what people who had no idea what it might be about made of it (I guess they read the dust jacket...). 

We're clearly coming in in the middle of a conversation where Wormwood has laid out his approach for his Uncle Screwtape's review. Screwtape finds a little workable, but a lot wanting:

1. Hanging out with materialists is "good" (meaning "bad")
2. Intellectual argumentation is dangerous and inferior to propaganda -- and anyway, modern man wants a worldview that's stylish instead of one that's true
3. Distract people away from the Universal with the every-day; away from the ineffable with the material
4. Soft sciences (economics and sociology) are relatively safe, physics comes too close to intellectual argumentation which might reveal inconvenient truths
5. Better to drive away from science and learning at all -- better to argue that all one needs to understand the universe is a layman's understanding

He concludes with a reminder that the demon's job is to "fuddle" -- certainly not to teach.

My Literary Assessment

There is almost no exposition. Unfamiliar terms (or familiar terms used in unfamiliar ways) are thrown directly at the reader with no explanation -- but unlike a lot of science fiction language play (I'm looking at you, "Clockwork Orange"), this stuff is instantly accessible. We know who the Enemy is, of course, but the use of the term "patient" for the human being damned is clever and the metaphor is accessible and interesting (and raises a variety of questions which may or may not be answered about the organization of perspective of Hell --something that the reader shouldn't find interesting, but which the writer obviously did).

Screwtape is a great character and rightly something of an icon. He combines traits that are admirable and human (a sense of humor, obvious caring for his junior nephew, intellectual capability) with ones that are abhorrent (a desire to confuse, harm, and ultimately damn his "patient," and an explicit willingness to work against what he knows to be the truth. The Truth).

He's also irritating -- gloating, about his own venal victories and the evident weaknesses of weak, fallible humans.

The Theology

Screwtape's concern that an interest in the hard sciences might lead to thinking (in a rigorous way) about matters within a theological scope is interesting, and certainly at odds with the popular Science v. Religion view.

I think most nuanced views of science and religion align at least a little better with Screwtape's concerns, but it's an interesting thing to start out the book with.

However, the chapter isn't really about science, per-se. It's about an intellectual and rigorous approach to faith. Screwtape prefers to avoid serious thought altogether, advising distractions (newspapers, street traffic), or a trivial level of engagement (either searching for trendy, stylish thought systems or just assuming you know everything because you read a New Yorker article).

Since the whole book operates as an negative-image-sermon (instead of being told that doing something bad will make Baby Jesus Cry, we're reminded that doing something bad will make Uncle Screwtape Cackle -- infinitely more annoying!), it's a reminder to keep focused on the Objective Truth and deeper spiritual matters and not to be distracted by the mundane / every day / lunch.

This is okay as far as it goes, but what I found interesting Theologically was the role of Heaven in this whole thing. In Chapter 1, the forces of Heaven are there -- "at his elbow in a moment" -- but ultimately impotent in the face of human weakness and diabolical whispers. It's clear: it's the human who rejects Divine Council, preferring some less metaphorical daily bread, instead.

Operationally, we have free will, but only to damn ourselves -- we can't save ourselves, but we can reject salvation. In that sense, the message is clear and consistent: we're empowered to make moral choices, but should we ever actually make a morally correct one, it's because we had help from the holy spirit. Every time we fail, it's on us.

In practice, I'd have been interested to see how rigorous thought leads to problems for Screwtape -- does deep thought lead to inaction -- the failure to exercise our free choice to make a bad decision, allowing the possibility of Heavenly intervention? It would have been interesting to see that illustrated.

The Screwtape Letters Startup & Preface

This is a discussion series on C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters (hereafter TSL) at a rate (hopefully) of about one chapter a day for a month.

I'm probably going to revise my approach here, but I'm thinking the best way to approach this is to cover a summary of the chapter, and then my thoughts on it, but from a literary perspective and (to the extent I'm able), a theological perspective, and then any over-arching thoughts.

Preface

Preface Summary

The preface, unlike the chapters I recall from reading this a decade + ago, is first-person from C.S. Lewis's point of view, where he explains that he acquired the letters through some esoteric means (which he declines to share), reminds the reader that his narrator for the rest of the book (Screwtape) is unreliable ("the devil is a liar") and that time may be messed up from a human point of view.

Literary Thoughts on the Preface

Screwtape Letters is a textbook epistolary novel, an authorial decision, Wikipedia informs me, which is sometimes made to add greater realism. I think it works that way here -- Lewis is being a bit audacious, doubly so since the work is clearly intended to have theological heft. 

I think this is critically important to the book: for TSL to work, it's imperative that the reader view not view this as C.S. Lewis's personal perspective and take the viewpoint character seriously. An omniscient narrator in Lewis's voice would ruin that directly. By imagining the material as coming from a mysterious (and therefore more credible) third-party source, it helps distance the author from his work.

Lewis also caveats everything with the remark about the devils being liars, and time being weird which serves to remove objections someone might have on the grounds of any logical or theological inconsistencies which might come up.

I think these elements are subtle, but very effective in setting the stage for the novel.

He also starts of immediately by world-building, which is to say, illustrating the nature his universe: there is accessible magic "anyone" can learn, time is fluid within different realms, devils (like humans) are prone to wishful thinking, etc. While much of the novel itself feels like a gloating lecture (from a particularly unworthy and irritating source), the imaginative aspects of Lewis' cosmology add a lot of the enjoyment and in some cases humor and I can imaging him having a great deal of fun with them (more on this in the first chapter).

Theology of the Preface

Materialist and magicians are equally condemned, and the reader should avoid the esoteric -- except that Lewis obviously has a passable, working knowledge of those arts and is, himself, un-afraid to use them.

And, of course, if the reader is interested in the work beyond self-edification (in the sense of seeking moral improvement) -- which is to say, if you're reading TSL in part because you're interested in the characters or the diabolic cosmology (which Lewis clearly enjoys creating and finds both intellectually interesting and amusing) -- you're likely showing the "unhealthy" interest that Lewis warns about.

I want to be clear that I'm not calling Lewis a hypocrite here: I think it's obvious that he recognizes the mild inconsistency and has fun with it, here and is no doubt directing his warning and criticisms at himself as well as at the reader (I wonder if, in at least some cases, the 'unidentified' humans in the story are various versions of Lewis).

To the extent that humans are going to write about God or a theistic cosmology, I think we're likely to sin, either by falling short of portraying God with the appropriate grandure and glory or by committing some kind of heresy. Some religions prohibit images of God; although I think they do so for different reasons, I can certainly understand the thinking -- you're going to fail (and quite likely offend), so don't try.

I also think that a lot of aspects of Christianity don't work narratively very well, but that's a slightly longer post and well off-topic (I will say that I was surprised at how it made a Christian -- maybe Judeo-Christian -- a view of heroism Indiana Jones has when I watched it with my son for the first time after many, many years).

Anything Else in the Preface?

I like Lewis's authorial voice, here and in other essays I've read from him. He's a compelling writer.

Next up... Chapter 1!