TSL Chapter 13 -- a walk through country he really likes

Summary

Bad news! Wormwood has blown it big-time, and Uncle Screwtape is there to let him know it. The Patient went for a walk in the country and read a good book and those Honest, Simple Pleasures (my caps on Honest & Simple, but Screwtape's on the 'P') re-awakened his Christian spirit.

Screwtape calls this tantamount to a "second conversion" and probably a deeper one than the first! What to do?

Screwtape, for once, is somewhat lacking on the practical advise front -- he more or less just scolds and lectures Wormwood, saving his pragmatic ideas for the next chapter. He does provide some warnings about keeping the target disconnected from the real and distrusting honest pleasures, even if they're not Godly.

He concludes with a bit of advice -- that perhaps the best way to keep someone in the realm of the imaginary and away from the real is to have them "write a book" about whatever it is they think they have a passion for.

My Reaction

Imaginary Distresses & Vanity, Bustle, Irony and Expensive Tedium as Pleasures

Screwtape echoes his earlier advice about keeping the target in the realm of the imaginary and out of action of any kind, advising keeping the Patient 'of the World but not in it,' so-to-speak.

I liked this. And I like that CSL isn't against intellectualism, per se -- finding a book (a purely intellectual pursuit) purely and legitimately Pleasurable works for him, but is very much against 'imaginary' pleasures -- which in this case are things that aren't really pleasures. Or are pleasures born of sin (e.g. prideful feelings coming from reading a trendy book).

This seems like a pretty well aligned with my experience -- imagining something is easier than doing it. A good deal of my daily workout is imaginary.

Simple Pleasures

I'm not quite as taken with CSL's embrace of simple pleasures. While he doesn't seriously misstep, the pleasures he lists are things like walks in the country, stamp collecting, country cricket, and tripe & onions.

He contrasts those to pleasures of vanity, and he does include reading a book... but taken with his examples of Butchers and Grocers, it's getting a little bit God's Country / Salt of the Earth here. Surely there are some honest, simple pleasures commonly enjoyed by Oxford academics, no?

God (really) Gives you back ALL (every bit of) your Personality

Demons and God both try to break a man from himself, but God (who loves men) gives them back their personalities -- once they've joined him.

Uh huh -- and all the having Screwtape call people vermin doesn't do much of anything to make this more credible. 

It might be that CSL is reading some Biblical passage about how we'll get our original (um... fallen) personalities back when we're in Heaven, but I sincerely doubt it.

• Firstly, if our personalities were any good, we wouldn't need to shed them. It's not about making better people, it's about making *new* people, right? (didn't someone say that)? Once you get rid of vanity, greed, and sloth, I'm not sure how much of the original 'me' is left...
• Secondly, once we're in Heaven, we're going to look down, like Abraham, across a vast gulf and see people we liked, if not our loved ones, looking up from Hell, begging us for a drop of water and instead of helping them, we'll scold them righteously for being so evil during life. 
• Or maybe we'll be like Lazarus, and be so blissed out that we don't even notice our friends suffering (Dude... can you turn down the screaming? I'm trying to listen to the harp music...). Either way, that... doesn't sound like me.

I skeptical that we get our personalities back. I think CSL recognizes how horrible this sounds to us, and feels the need to jump in and comfort anyone who thinks being turned into some new, eternal person sounds frightening or like something a Loving God wouldn't do.

I don't like this kind of apologism -- it bothers me. I don't think God's love is recognizably human. That's terrifying, but I can't reach any other conclusion. When we think of God 'loving us' it's not the way our parents love us or how we love our children.

It's some vast, different, potentially horrifying kind of love that might result in our eternal damnation.

I feel like CSL here is trying to sugarcoat that.