An Easter meditation on The Screwtape Letters by C.S.Lewis
C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters is a book most Christians know well. It is also one that repays multiple readings—if you can stand how close to home its truths fall.
The edition I have just finished is Macmillan’s 1982 paperback that includes Lewis’s 1960 Preface as well as the 1962 “Screwtape Proposes a Toast” and its Preface, the latter published for the first time in this edition. This comprehensive edition contains so many additions that it is worth buying a copy even if you already own an older version. Though scholars and theologians have written far more eloquently than I on this enlightening book, here are some ideas that stood out.
In the original Preface, Lewis clarifies the idea of devils and Evil (the capital letter is “essential,” he writes). First, he notes that “the Devil” is not the evil counterpart to God, a mirror image, or an equal signifying everything that God is not. “Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael” (vii). Then, in the clear-eyed fashion that is so refreshing and characteristic of Lewis, he adds that this is so because it agrees with the “plain sense of Scripture, the tradition of Christendom, and the beliefs of most men at most times” (vii). Non-believers who think Scripture is full of fairy tales and fantasy would surely find this passage thought-provoking. Without denying the presence of the supernatural in the Bible, Lewis also confirms the paradox of the possibility of faith for beings so dependent on the rational and empirical.
Lewis goes on to note the practicality of devils, pursuing single-mindedly their twin goals of punishment and keeping men hungry. It is easy to see how devils would use the fear of punishment, but this notion of hunger and how evil ones use it on us is one of Lewis’s most fascinating devices. Throughout the book, Screwtape, the senior devil, constantly refers not only to how this impulse may be subverted by evil, but also how, in all too realistic detail, hunger leads to consumption—how sin consumes and transforms us into tasty morsels for the delectation of devils. By the end of the book, Wormwood, Screwtape’s pupil, has failed in his mission so miserably that he too will become “as dainty a morsel as ever I [Screwtape] grew fat on” (145). It is truly diabolical how Screwtape collapses the distinctions of love and affection into the gaping maw of his hunger.
The depredations of evil that pervade this book cannot be separated from the time in which Lewis wrote it, that is, World War II and the Third Reich. When Screwtape admonishes Wormwood to keep his patient focused on the needs of the present or the sweet consolations of the worldly future, the reader recalls that this was the time of the Blitz and nighttime air raids. Bombs were exploding over a great city, food shortages were common, and it was distinctly possible that Hitler might be soon be photographed posing in front of Parliament just as he had in front of the Eiffel Tower. London and indeed Europe as a whole might present a banquet of souls to devils such as Screwtape and Wormwood, most easily captured in the midst of mass complacency or desperation.
We are no longer a world at war, but that doesn’t mean that Lewis isn’t still speaking directly to us. Among his many trenchant observations are those that apply to our relentless requirement for proof as a precursor to belief. In order to believe, we generally demand that the object of our potential admiration demonstrate some kind of transcendence or greatness. We saw this during election season as we eagerly watched for evidence of statesmanship and the promise of greatness from the candidates. We continue to watch avidly to see how the new president will measure up to our concept of greatness—all measurements bounded by the limits of our humanity.
Screwtape addresses the idea of greatness by encouraging the concept of a historical Jesus, an idea frequently broached by believers and non-believers alike. He summarizes the many attempts to understand Jesus by tracking down His footsteps and traces of His existence. He adds that, in order to keep things interesting, the Evil One changes the nature of these constructions every 30 years or so. In turn, man continues to be fascinated by the idea of grasping who Jesus was when essentially He was unhistorical, and therefore unknowable according to the constraints of human perception. In a rare moment of truth, Screwtape clarifies:
“The documents say what they say and cannot be added to; each ‘historical Jesus’ there has to be got out of them by suppression at one point and exaggeration at another, and by that sort of guessing (brilliant is the adjective we take humans to apply to it) on which no one would risk ten shillings in ordinary life…” (106–107).
Put simply, we have to take the Scripture as the authority on Jesus, that it is complete and provides all the evidence we need to arrive at an understanding of Jesus’s time on earth and of His greatness. By demanding more evidence than God’s word provides, man becomes distracted by what He did rather than who He was. “For the real presence of the Enemy, otherwise experienced by men in prayer and sacrament, we substitute a merely probable, remote, shadowy, and uncouth figure, one who spoke a strange language and died a long time ago” (107).
The preceding passage demonstrates one of the most interesting elements of Lewis’s book: how the author maintains the persona of Screwtape. In this world, everything is upside down: the “Enemy” is the Lord, “our Father’s house” is hell, and “our Father” is Satan himself. Screwtape’s language sounds biblical and the hierarchy of his world is modeled on that of heaven; as readers, we must remain constantly on our guard against, first, taking Screwtape at his word and, second, being beguiled by language that sounds comforting and familiar, but is in fact insidiously treacherous.
The book’s final section, the “Toast,” received much criticism when it was first published as it contradicted prevailing ideas about education. Foremost, among these ideas was a preference for the cultivation of self-esteem at the expense of learning. To distinguish smarter children from others led to accusations of elitism, and Lewis notes (in the voice of Screwtape) that from there it was a short step to cries of “I’m as good as you” and contentions that anyone trying to be different was being “undemocratic” (163). The malicious misuse of the notion of democracy is one of the devil’s most powerful weapons; under its guise, sins of resentment and discontent fester. Lewis’s revelation of how democracy can be just another name for envy is somewhat shocking, especially to Americans who take great pride in their democratic heritage. Yet, Lewis counsels us to remember that government—even one as laudable as our own—is simply another human construct. In the end, we have to remember, to paraphrase Lewis, that the fate of nations is hardly as important as that of individual souls.
Leann Davis Alspaugh ©
2009 all rights reserved.
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