The Screwtape Letters Session Notes #7 | All But One Extreme & Exalting Our Causes
Letter #7
These sessions continue to be immensely fun. I am glad we waited until now to discuss The Screwtape Letters because we see so much of Lewis’ other themes woven into this epistolary novella. There are any number of post-worthy quotes but we agreed the one below stands out. I mean, what else is there to say? Lewis masterfully condenses Screwtape’s hellish strategy into one pithy sentence.
“Once you have made the world an end and faith a means you have almost won your man.” ~ Uncle Screwtape
Key Topics We Explored
Elevating a Good Thing to the Greatest Thing
We had a good conversation about how every where we turn, someone is marketing what they think is worthy of our attention. From Costco, to annoying YouTube ads, even to activity in the narthex following Holy Mass; somebody wants us to champion their cause and financially support it and believe it is the most important thing. Screwtape makes it clear that any cause - even a Faith-based or Faith-focused cause - will do just fine so long as the Patient places that thing above God.
We thought back to Pam the grieving mother in The Great Divorce who decided that Mother Love was the greatest of all loves. We also thought of Weston in Out of the Silent Planet who elevated his love of humanity above human life. Lewis famously said in The Four Loves (quoting M. Denis de Rougemont),
“Love ceases to be a demon only when it ceases to be a god.”
Extreme Pacifism and Extreme Patriotism
Screwtape illustrated the above point very well in his discussion of extreme pacifism or extreme patriotism. We discussed the importance of loving our country and wanting her to succeed, win, and be the best example of a free nation. But we acknowledged this can lead to the temptation to hold our country in higher esteem and with greater devotion than what is due to God.
Clearly Lewis is tapping into British sentiment in 1942 during World War II where these two ideologies were in competition. We note how Screwtape seems not to care whether Wormwood’s Patient is one or the other; so long as his allegiance to either side becomes confused and hazy. Ultimately, Screwtape will be successful if Wormwood can get his Patient to switch from one extreme to the other.
We also noted another famous quote from Screwtape where he tells Wormwood that any extreme will suit their purpose except one:
“All extremes, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged.”
Causes Backed by Christianity
This topic is really a click-down of the previous topics so just a few things more need to be said. Again, we saw that Screwtape is willing to take anything that we hold as important and deceive us into thinking there is nothing more important.
Even within the Church, we can very easily find important causes and elevate their importance because the Church supports it. Screwtape wants us to forget that the most important thing is to love and serve God. Further, he wants us to use the Faith to justify our causes so we delude ourselves into thinking we are good Catholics if we are pursuing a cause that squares with Church teaching.
Take a cause such as collecting food for the poor during the holidays. The danger is thinking that feeding the poor is of the utmost importance and nothing else matters unless it is in service to that end. Taking this to the extreme, setting up feeding the poor as the greatest good can create a slippery slope where anything can be justified so long as those things work towards the desired end. At the other end of the spectrum, it can be easy to get so caught up in the cause of feeding the poor that we forget our duty to God, our families, or our jobs.
As we note in the intro above, Screwtape wants us to make the world our end and Faith the means to achieve it. We must be careful not to love the world so much that we take our eyes away from Him who is greater than all worlds.
Letter #7 Summary
Screwtape returns to materialism and magic in reply to Wormwood’s question whether devils should reveal themselves to humans. The policy as dictated by Hell’s upper management is for demons to remain hidden. Screwtape tells Wormwood to encourage a comic depiction of devils while also trying to create “Materialist Magicians”. Turning again to extremes, Screwtape encourages Wormwood to push his Patient to extreme pacifism or extreme patriotism. For Screwtape, any extreme will suit his purpose except extreme devotion to the Enemy. Screwtape concludes with advice on getting humans to find a cause and elevate its importance above everything else. For Screwtape, it is even better when that cause is supported by the Christian faith. When attention, commitment, and love of a cause is placed above love for God, it becomes a hellish opportunity for Screwtape to secure a soul.
Themes and Advice from Screwtape
Materialism and Magic: Screwtape pivots back to this topic from the preface. He sees a tradeoff on the question whether devils should reveal themselves; if they reveal themselves they lose all the materialists but gain overly spiritual magicians; conversely not revealing themselves may increase the supply of materialists but they do not gain magicians. Interestingly, Screwtape’s ideal is the ‘materialist magician’. This made us think of Frost and Wither from That Hideous Strength.
Revealing the True Self: Screwtape addresses the question of whether devils should reveal their true selves to humans. While it is prohibited per their higher-ups, Screwtape sees tradeoffs (see previous topic above). We found it interesting that Christ reveals His true self to us willingly (though sometimes we cannot see Him) whereas the devils remain hidden and obscure; moving within the shadows as this favors their game of deceit.
Everything is a Zero Sum Game: this topic is the logical conclusion of Screwtape’s obsession with extremes. He sees everything in terms of winning and losing - either / or, this / that, etc. where a victory for one means a complete loss for another. He cannot see that Christianity consists of multiple both / ands e.g. Christ is both fully God AND fully man; God loves us when we follow Him AND when we sin. Etc. Etc.
Confusion: no surprise here, the more confusion the better from Screwtape’s point of view. Screwtape says to first force the Patient into either the Pacifist camp or Patriot camp, and then create confusion about his choice so that he eventually switches to the other side. Ping pong back and forth, rinse, repeat.
Elevating a Good to the Greatest Good: any worldly end, even if it is objectively good, becomes a demon when we make it a god. This is exactly what Screwtape wants us to do. It doesn’t matter what we hold as the most important thing so long as we see it as more important than serving God.
Using and Exploiting: Screwtape reminds Wormwood to look for opportunities to use and exploit the war to his advantage. He had previously reminded Wormwood that there is a danger in war because of the greater risk of humans dying with their souls more prepared for death. Screwtape sees everything as something to exploit for his own ends. It works the other way too as Screwtape wants us to use our Faith as a way to justify commitment to and importance of our causes.