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.