It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds: in reality our best work is done by keeping things out. (20)
[The Enemy] wants men to be concerned about what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them. (28)
The great thing is to direct his malice to his immediate neighbors whom he meets every day and to thrust his benevolence out to the remote circumference, to people he does not know. . . . Think of your man as a series of concentric circles, his will being the innermost, hie intellect coming next, and finally his fantasy. You can hardly hope, at once, to exclude from all the circles everything that smells of the Enemy: but you must keep on shoving all virtues outward till they are finally located in the circle of fantasy, and all the desirable qualities inward into the Will. (31)
Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than prayers and sacraments and charity, he is ours - and the more "religious" (one those terms), the more securely ours. I could show you a pretty cage-full down here. (35)
You now see that the the Irresistible and Indisputable are the two weapons which the very nautre of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override the human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble purpose is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves. (38)
We always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of it Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. (42)
A moderated religion is as good for us as no religion at all - and more amusing. (43)
[When your patient realizes] that his own faith is in direct opposition to the assumptions on which all the conversation of his new friends is based, . . . he will be silent when he ought to speak and laugh when he ought to be silent. . . . All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are pretending to be. (46)
If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armor plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practice it. (52)
The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. (56)
The deepest likings and impulses of any man are the raw material, the starting point, with which the Enemy has furnished him. (59)
The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents - or in a sunrise, and elephant, or a waterfall. . . . When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. (64)
The truth is that wherever a man lies with a woman, there, whether they like it or not, a transcendental relation is set up which must be eternally enjoyed of eternally endured. (83)
Much of the modern resistance to chastity comes from men's belief that they "own" their bodies. . . . They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong - certain not to them, whatever happens. (98)
Prosperity knits a man to the World, He feels that he is "finding his place in it," while really it is finding its place in him. (132)
Nowhere do we tempt so successfully as on the very steps on the altar. (172)The work of spiritual warfare seems to be more tactics than force. According to Lewis, we find ourselves more outmaneuvered by Satan than overpowered by him. In the end, we are defeated by our own desires. It is this end to which the Devil works. "Get behind me Satan! You are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men!"
What sorts of things keep my mind from being set on God? Forgetfulness brought on by keeping God on the outskirts of my life through "great" causes, diminishing pleasures, trust in God "moderated" into mere talk, being of the World, holding onto my body as if I owned it, etc. The options are endless and yet surprisingly repetitive.
If I were to sum up Screwtape's strategy, it would be to keep God out of the mind. He talks of the many ways of using the flesh (natural human ability, status, and experience apart from God) and the World (organized, historically-moving, institutional flesh) to keep God out of the picture. The gospel is intended to "renew the mind" for the transformation of my life. The good news is that I do not have to forget or neglect God, but can live with his continual presence in my mind, and also in my life. The kingdom that Jesus rules is the continual, eternal, working influence of God in each life and outward into all the universe.
Satan's tactics certainly do make for a strong assault. Through lies and temptation, I am easily led to destruction. Without God to lead me elsewhere, I will go astray. Unlike Satan, God does not intend to control me, but to influence me deeply, fill me, work in and through me. He is a loving Father always near, not a calculating tyrant, always coercing and manipulating. Satan's main lie and temptation is simple: "You can't trust Jesus. Trust yourself instead."
Lord, it is one thing to talk about Satan academically and another to face his lies and temptation in my life. Let me continually set my mind on you. Let me not listen to those lies, but only to your truth. "May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." Amen.
The small temptations and sins lead to bigger ones. The battles begin with arguments and skirmishes before they become all out war. I cannot patrol the borders of my life alone. The Lord is my shield and fortress and an ever-present help in trouble.
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