Wormwood, my delicious little slug,
When will you ever learn? As I wrote to you yesterday, questions and doubt do not ultimately serve our purpose. You must always remember that our most potent weapon against the one who must not be named is not doubt but fear. And the fear that serves us best, dear Wormwood, is the one that masquerades as faith. The kind that sees the devil everywhere – how delightful! – among those we know to be our mortal enemies, which fear dressed up as faith mistakes to be our friends.
I refer, of course, to those given to science in the sense that pitiful Roger Bacon believed in. Those who acquire knowledge in this way, it is true, seldom ask how their science is possible; in that sense, at least, we have succeeded in preventing them from asking questions. But this does not alter the sad fact that men and women who devote their lives to the expansion of knowledge according to that pig’s method are among our worst enemies. A proportionally high percentage of them belong to that people our Enemy has never stopped loving, a bad omen if you ask me.
Out of disgusting interest in the unspiritual things our enemy has made, followers of the pig seek to understand ages long ago and the inner workings of the world we so rightfully abhor. They are full of curiosity and genuine doubt, dear Wormwood, characteristically human traits that have never served us well.
“Ask, and you shall receive,” the one we thought we defeated on his own turf once said. Our enemy honors that promise even when the one who asks knows him not, and is ignorant of the promise. How hatefully disinterested is our Enemy.
We must use all our powers to ensure that the followers of the lamb and the followers of the pig regard each other as mortal enemies. A number of issues, which friends of ours refer to as wedges, serve our purpose admirably. Milk them. Suck them like a vampire. It does not matter which side wins. We win no matter what. By all means, discredit those who claim to be followers of both lamb and pig. You will find false followers of the lamb who will do this for you.
Do not sow doubt, dear Wormwood, but faith. Faith that has no need of the quest for knowledge, and with marvelous cowardice challenges the sincerity of the ones who dedicate their lives to that quest, all in the name of obedience to our Enemy! Paradoxes usually work against us, my slug, but this one we can safely work to our advantage.
You should know by now that our Enemy delights in the questions of his wretched creatures. So make them believe that questions and questioners, doubt and doubters, are inimical to the one above. Nay, make them believe that doubt pleases us, not him. Make them believe that we program the doubters with questions and answers of our own suggestion. A better lie we could never tell.
Doubt, my proud Wormwood, too easily turns into humble faith according to a logic we cannot control. And nothing, my lush, is more despicable than humble faith.
A faith afraid of science, on the other hand, expresses itself as presumption, a character trait we love. Presumption, ultimately, is an expression of the will to power, our precious, the ring we continue to grasp for, and which will someday be ours.
Anyone possessed by fear and presumption under guise of faith is on the well-intentioned road to our cozy and beloved hearth. We fear, and we presume, and how far we have gone. Anyone so possessed, my hungry Wormwood, is on the way to becoming one of us.
Our enemy is in the details, dear Wormwood. May you never lose sight of it. In the wake of what humans call the Enlightenment (which we thought would work in our favor, but alas our work is never done, and there is no rest for the wicked), differences among the wretched modes of human expression have become transparent to those who use them. This has caused consternation among some, and we claim the victory. But others possessed of humble faith have learned to accept the truth we hate from strange and improbable sources, inventions of the one above, the worst among them being – Lucifer help us - myth and legend.
Do not sow doubt, dear Wormwood, sow faith. Faith that our Adversary would never be
so human as to use myth and legend for his own purposes. Faith that the one above would never honor myth to the point of making it come true. If only we had infused that Lewis fellow with
such faith, he would never have left us.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
This is the third and last installment in a three-part series. For the first and second installments, go here and here. This installment builds on a brilliant post by Doug Chaplin.
Excellent.
Posted by: Doug Chaplin | August 14, 2007 at 05:22 AM