Pope St. John Paul II wrote, “Life with Christ is a wonderful adventure.” While this is true, life with Christ is also a battle against evil. Understanding the strategy of an opponent is essential to victory, and C.S. Lewis’ haunting epistolary, The Screwtape Letters, provides a glance at the enemy’s playbook. The demonic correspondence reveals the tactics of evil and provides us with knowledge to defend ourselves against temptation.
In a series of letters, Screwtape instructs his nephew, Wormwood, in the art of temptation. It is a devastating read, because we see shadows of ourselves in each note. The strategies that the demon suggests seem to be ripped right from our own inner monologues and daily habits. This is not someone else’s story; it’s our story and our souls at stake. This makes the letters an occasion for examination, not entertainment. In Screwtape’s letters, we recognize ourselves first as victims of demonic attack and then as potential villains if we fail to fight back. We may note three maneuvers that demons employ, along with corresponding strategies for defense and response.
1. Progress is made slowly
The young demon is taught to tempt with subtlety and tact. Throughout the letters, the elder demon reminds the incorrigible young tempter to slow down and patiently pursue his prey. Unexpectedly, Screwtape wishes his patient, as he calls the target in question, to live a long life. With time, the demons will be able to chip away at the man’s desire for God. He notes that “real worldliness is a work of time.” In time, the novelty of the patient’s conversion should wear off. As long as faith takes no root, the comforts or trials of life will be enough to besiege the patient, settle him in mediocrity, and keep him from seeking God at all.
It is a devastating read, because we see shadows of ourselves in each note.
With this in mind, we can counter the devil’s attack. Screwtape is happy to wear a person down over time but fears that someone might become aware of the long road to holiness. When we stop making grand promises and ask for grace to endure momentary temptations, then there is the potential for real growth. Just as evil takes its time to gain ground, holiness must also grow inch by inch. In seeking God’s grace to overcome in small choices and tiny battles, we counter the devil’s plan and make time an ally, not a liability.
2. The integration or disintegration of body and soul
Screwtape describes humans as “amphibians”—spirit and animal, soul and body. Screwtape targets human nature, separating and distorting these elements of humanity. Neither the body nor the soul need to be destroyed outright; they merely need to be disassociated from one another. If the patient cannot integrate the body and soul, then he will never fully know himself or his Creator.
Evil separates prayer from action. Screwtape suggests that the patient prays for his mother but fails to attend to her rheumatism, focusing on her spiritually without thought of her body at all. We may succumb to similar temptations. We pray for someone to feel well but never pay a visit. We donate funds but never lift up the intention by prayer. We fast during Lent but do not pray. The fruits of physical or spiritual discipline need not be destroyed by the devil, merely weakened and distorted by their lack of context with one another.
This disintegration can also be used to diminish the life of prayer. Wormwood is taught that humans “can be persuaded that the bodily position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.” The lack of bodily discipline will surely bear fruit as in lax and dulled—aberrations of prayer. While we tell ourselves that God wants us to be comfortable and pray as we prefer, the devil rejoices as our prayers devolve into an egocentric exercise.
A final attack on the body-soul relationship is made by preventing the patient from enjoying pleasure. Screwtape chides Wormwood for letting his man enjoy a walk, a cup of tea, or a book. He teaches that man should not be permitted to experience proper bodily joy, as it may awaken a sense of reality and simplicity—awaken him to God. Pleasure, Screwtape knows, is God’s territory. While Satan may be able to distort pleasure, a true taste of it will lead man to Christ.
When we stop making grand promises and ask for grace to endure momentary temptations, then there is the potential for real growth.
The devil disintegrates, but Christ and the Church offer the antidotes. It is the Incarnation that reveals the portrait of the integrated man. The resurrection puts into context our identity as body-soul composites. Unlike the demons, Jesus knows what it means to be human. He sympathizes with our experiences and shows us how to live. Christ’s mission in the Church safeguards the coalescence of body and soul. If we are tempted to divorce prayer from service, the social doctrine of the Church moves our hearts from contemplation to charity. Should we be tempted to disregard the importance of the body in prayer, the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church form our bodies and souls as the active Body of Christ. The moral teaching of the Church instructs us in true freedom, allowing us to enjoy pleasures without becoming enslaved to them. Evil intends to tear us apart, whereas the endowment of Christ is the integrated man.
3. Remaining Hidden
Evil is not typically tempting in and of itself. Even going back to the Garden of Eden, the motives that prompted Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree were not malice but wisdom, nourishment, and beauty (Gen. 3:6). Deception is key in luring humans to vice, and the demons would prefer that we never realize our sinful situations, lest we attempt to work with grace to overcome them.
The patient need not be kept from prayer. His prayers can simply be rerouted from God himself to the patient’s thoughts about God. Humility may not be prevented, but the man may be lulled into pride alongside it. He may act unselfishly, but can be prevented from becoming positively charitable. If the demon cannot halt the patient’s thoughts of Christ, he can be led to think about the “historical Jesus” instead of the incarnate Lord with whom he can have a real relationship. Even slight redirections can send a person far off course.
It is a brilliant tactic, warping the mind and heart, leaving no discernible trace of error to help the man to realize how wrong he has gone. How are we to overcome this attack in Christ? God also remains hidden. Jesus has ascended, and so we must look through the veil of the sacraments to encounter Christ. This hiddenness of God is not a strategy to deceive but a decision to ensure our freedom. In hiddenness, he is always present but never pressuring, supportive but not overwhelming. The devil hides in order to ensnare us, God veils himself in order that we may freely seek and find him awaiting us (Matt. 7:7).
C.S. Lewis offers us a look into the logic of evil, leaving us with horror and hope. The Screwtape Letters are terrifying in their accuracy, revealing the subtle and diabolical tactics by which humans are ensnared by evil. They terrify us, and should terrify us, because these attacks are both fraudulent and effective. However, Lewis gives us an advantage against evil by providing a look into the devil’s playbook. Understanding the schemes of Screwtape, we can turn to our great weapon of resistance—cooperation with the grace won by Jesus’ Paschal Mystery.