In Chapter VII of the eponymous Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, Uncle Screwtape reveals part of the devil's plan of misinformation:
My Dear Wormwood,
I wonder you should ask me whether it is essential to keep the patient in ignorance of your own existence. That question, at least for the present phase of the struggle, has been answered for us by the High Command. Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves. Of course this has not always been so. We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and sceptics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we shall learn in due time how to emotionalise and mythologise their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, belief in us, (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy. The “Life Force”, the worship of sex, and some aspects of Psychoanalysis, may here prove useful. If once we can produce our perfect work – the Materialist Magician, the man, not using, but veritably worshipping, what he vaguely calls “Forces” while denying the existence of “spirits” – then the end of the war will be in sight. But in the meantime we must obey our orders. I do not think you will have much difficulty in keeping the patient in the dark. The fact that “devils” are predominantly comic figures in the modern imagination will help you. If any faint suspicion of your existence begins to arise in his mind, suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that (it is an old textbook method of confusing them) he therefore cannot believe in you.
Screwtape intimates with some surprise at Wormwood's ignorance that concealment is a temporary means to an end, a midpoint tactic between the age of magic, in which hidden demons could terrorize humans with their power, and the end of the world, at which time the demons shall reveal their hatred unreservedly for the rest of eternity. As Lewis may be correct that disbelief in the devil is a temporary setback as well as a pragmatic measure, it seems right to ask whether or not the devil's greatest lie could have been convincing the world he does not exist.
What does the devil gain if he only teaches us to deny his own existence? Surely Satan must also campaign against the existence of God, of Goodness, Truth and Unity to avoid frustrating his own designs. Even if the devil convinces someone that there is nothing in which to place belief, he still has not barred the door against the forces of Existence, Grace, Reason or Will. A person who truly disbelieves everything still passionately thinks that something is worth believing—even if it is the value of his own disbelief, and he may be brought to believe in anything, even the Good God. Once the foot is set to a path, there is no turning back; one must see such a journey of discovery to the end, unless the devil successfully employs his greatest lie. Belief in Another is unnecessary, everything important is contained within oneself, and no journey is needed: the pilgrim is the shrine.
In such a case, the devil does not want people to disbelieve in him or in everything; rather, he wants them to believe very strongly in themselves alone. If he can introduce someone to the cult of self, he can succeed in his other goals: to destroy grace and hope in the soul and to steal the worship due to God. The cult of self strangles grace through all manner of sin; it also imitates the founding member of that cult, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
To look at it in another light, no atheist disbelieves in all gods. The "materialist magician" that Lewis alludes to must believe in some all-powerful force controlling everything, and surely, the most irreligious scientific fanatic must equally accept the existence of some controlling, eternal factor in the universe. Nonetheless, every atheist disbelieves in this or that god. Agnostics, on the other hand, are more universally skeptical. Even though the sophistical command "Doubt everything!" crumbles under rational inspection, it is small wonder that sloth lounges in the shadows of skepticism. It is easy to refuse things one does not want, it is easy to celebrate everything and believe nothing (as the Unitarian Universalists do), but it is difficult to believe. Even more to the point, it is perilous to believe. Every belief has its consequences. How differently men live when they grasp the reality of what they believe!
Accepting the reality of what is perceived, even when it surpasses rational explanation, is called Faith. Faith is an act, a movement of the will to assent to propositions, promises, instructions, commands and consolations revealed by God to His people. Faith is a virtue, a habitual disposition to acquiesce to the authority of God's infinite Wisdom. In short, Faith is a choice to adhere to a body of Truths encompassing every grammatical type from descriptive to imperative. That choice of Faith is embodied in the choice to Love. Men and women of the simplest minds have become the greatest saints because God's Love is as deep as His Wisdom is great, and those who accept God's Love and do as He commands live in the greatness of His Wisdom. For this reason, the devil assaults the will most severely while wracking the intellect with doubts, filling the present moment with lively distractions and chilling the heart with the icy breath of his hatred.
Yet, for all this effort, what new thing does the devil offer besides the stale self-sufficiency of his first temptation? The punishment for Adam's sin is also its cure. Men must first learn to respect their dependence on God through toil and labour. Is it not significant that Adam and Eve sought knowledge from the forbidden tree, that they wanted to be enlightened and not to learn?
Sloth is the deadliest fruit of the tree of deadly sins; it plays upon the natural desire for leisure, and turns the object of that desire to selfish pleasures until the body becomes saturated and the will becomes comatose; it poisons the will against leaving the shade and standing in the light. Until a man burns in the Light of Truth, until he purges his body of the gross humours of his idleness and re-enters the Valley of Tears, until he responds to God's purifying grace against Satan's greatest lie, he cannot be saved.
"If ye love me, keep my commandments."
In such a case, the devil does not want people to disbelieve in him or in everything; rather, he wants them to believe very strongly in themselves alone. If he can introduce someone to the cult of self, he can succeed in his other goals: to destroy grace and hope in the soul and to steal the worship due to God. The cult of self strangles grace through all manner of sin; it also imitates the founding member of that cult, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
To look at it in another light, no atheist disbelieves in all gods. The "materialist magician" that Lewis alludes to must believe in some all-powerful force controlling everything, and surely, the most irreligious scientific fanatic must equally accept the existence of some controlling, eternal factor in the universe. Nonetheless, every atheist disbelieves in this or that god. Agnostics, on the other hand, are more universally skeptical. Even though the sophistical command "Doubt everything!" crumbles under rational inspection, it is small wonder that sloth lounges in the shadows of skepticism. It is easy to refuse things one does not want, it is easy to celebrate everything and believe nothing (as the Unitarian Universalists do), but it is difficult to believe. Even more to the point, it is perilous to believe. Every belief has its consequences. How differently men live when they grasp the reality of what they believe!
Accepting the reality of what is perceived, even when it surpasses rational explanation, is called Faith. Faith is an act, a movement of the will to assent to propositions, promises, instructions, commands and consolations revealed by God to His people. Faith is a virtue, a habitual disposition to acquiesce to the authority of God's infinite Wisdom. In short, Faith is a choice to adhere to a body of Truths encompassing every grammatical type from descriptive to imperative. That choice of Faith is embodied in the choice to Love. Men and women of the simplest minds have become the greatest saints because God's Love is as deep as His Wisdom is great, and those who accept God's Love and do as He commands live in the greatness of His Wisdom. For this reason, the devil assaults the will most severely while wracking the intellect with doubts, filling the present moment with lively distractions and chilling the heart with the icy breath of his hatred.
Yet, for all this effort, what new thing does the devil offer besides the stale self-sufficiency of his first temptation? The punishment for Adam's sin is also its cure. Men must first learn to respect their dependence on God through toil and labour. Is it not significant that Adam and Eve sought knowledge from the forbidden tree, that they wanted to be enlightened and not to learn?
Sloth is the deadliest fruit of the tree of deadly sins; it plays upon the natural desire for leisure, and turns the object of that desire to selfish pleasures until the body becomes saturated and the will becomes comatose; it poisons the will against leaving the shade and standing in the light. Until a man burns in the Light of Truth, until he purges his body of the gross humours of his idleness and re-enters the Valley of Tears, until he responds to God's purifying grace against Satan's greatest lie, he cannot be saved.
"If ye love me, keep my commandments."
