So before I write on Jesus, I was wondering what your thoughts on Screwtape Letters. Obviously if you are a Naturalist, you will doubt anything such thing as Angels and demons. A Bible believing Christian should have no doubt we are in a war between good and evil (although the ultimate battle has already been won of course by Jesus). How do you have a balance between knowing that there are are demons who infiltrate our lives, and they can only do do so much if we battle them with the Word?
Jack
“Whatever their bodies do affects their souls. 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...”
Jack - One thing I like about "Screwtape" is that even a convinced atheist should be able to recognize the same thought-patterns and behaviors in himself which Screwtape encourages Wormwood to produce. Such a person might account for this using psychological categories but would, I believe, come away with an increased respect for Christian anthropology. Would you say this is an example of what I think you called "pre-evangelism"?
ReplyDeleteDoug-welcome back to the blog. I appreciate you commenting again. Pre-evangelism I say are fairy tells that have and stories like Santa Claus that allow us to be ready for the myth that was true, Jesus of Nazareth. Your comment is I believe on point.
DeleteI think pre evangelism is important to peoples understanding of Jesus. I see some people want to rid the world of these stories, but I think that would be tragic. The world in which we live is so much more than just the things we see and feel with our senses, our imagination is so valuable to us. There are angels and demons in Gods creation, and we must be able to deal with them.
DeleteMr Lewis,
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your Screwtape Letters, I wondered if you had been reading my diary! Or my mind. Your description of the sequence of being humble, then being proud of being humble, then humbly realizing one was now proud again, then being proud of catching one's self being proud... was exactly what I had experienced as a child, right down to the "laughing and going to bed" part! You certainly have a keen insight into the human heart, as well as into the things of God. How did you get to be so perceptive about human nature?
Mary-
DeleteThank you very much for the nice compliments, and sharing your wonderful comments. I think part of it was just finally knowing there was a God, and it made sense. After leaving my childhood Christian ways, I came to know there really was God out there, and his name was Jesus. It was a long hard journey away from atheism, but God finally won my heart. After that, I thought and wrote lots about the Christian life, which includes the human heart.
I have a question about your book. In one of the earlier letters, the man who is subject to the demon's tempting converts to Christianity. Screwtape talks about this conversion being only a setback. I would think that after a person becomes a follower of Jesus, a demon would simply give up on the tempting. Throughout the rest of the book the demons imply that they can cause the man to drift away from the faith eventually going back to his previous state. Do Screwtape and Wormwood mean to take away the man's salvation or simply take away meaning and joy from his life as a follower of Christ?
ReplyDeleteI wrote this in Mere Christianity-“There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians…. A Christian can lose the Christ-life which has been put into him, and he has to make efforts to keep it." Why would God hold us captives. If we want the world?
ReplyDelete