Textbook: The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis
Envision suddenly receiving a call from God. Imagine this call not being a small. quick task, but an incredibly significant role that will dramatically impact the course of entire nations. Picture in your mind this call being so important to God that He sends an angel to visibly and audibly declare it to assure you it is the Lord’s will. However, as the burden of this gargantuan undertaking weighs heavy on your mind and tremendous stress vigorously stirs up your emotions, a growing sense of fear shifts your attention to yourself. Thoughts about your weaknesses, failures, and limitations begin to build a wall of evidence in your mind that you are unfit for the calling God set before you. Thus, rather than your first response being a “yes, Lord” backed by unwavering faith and obedient devotion to Him, a fearfully dismissive and self-conscious “How can I do that?” is delivered instead.
Gideon’s account in Judges 6-8 begins very similarly to this. Here, an angel delivers God’s calling for Gideon to rise and be used to deliver Israel from the Midianites’ brutal tyranny. However, because he examined the calling through self-consciousness and self-loathing rather than God’s sovereignty, omniscience, and omnipotence, he declared himself woefully inadequate to obey God. This chapter in The Screwtape Letters shows how demons utilize varying forms of pride, from self-loathing to self-exaltation, to severely limit our capacity to serve God. Thankfully, Scripture reveals we can overcome these attacks, live in true humility, and be wholly available to serve the Lord by living in God-consciousness via our new life in Christ and avoiding self-conscious examinations of ourselves through the flesh.
The Screwtape Letters is a collection of fictional letters written by a made-up demon named Screwtape. Each letter sees him teach various tactics to his nephew Wormwood for use against a spiritually young Christian they call “the patient.”
When studying this book, it is crucial to remember that it is satirical and fictional. Its author, C. S. Lewis, advises us, “not everything that Screwtape says should be assumed to be true even from his own angle.” The book was not written to explain how demons communicate with one another nor how they are ranked in Satan’s army. Furthermore, it is not an authoritative source on doctrines such as eternal security. Rather, this book’s purpose is to provide deep insights into the various temptations and tactics demons use against us as believers. This is a worthwhile study, for 2 Corinthians 2:11 says, “So that we would not be outwitted by Satan; for we are not ignorant of his designs.” Furthermore, Ephesians 6:11 calls us to, “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” Thus, our goal in studying The Screwtape Letters is to learn how to recognize and resist demonic attacks by tying its content to the Bible’s teachings.
“The most alarming thing in your last account of the patient is that he is making none of those confident resolutions which marked his original conversion. No more lavish promises of perpetual virtue, I gather; not even the expectation of an endowment of “grace” for life, but only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly temptation! This is very bad.
“I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By Jove! I'm being humble”, and almost immediately pride — pride at his own humility — will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt — and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.” (Lewis)
In Letter XII, we saw the patient in his lowest moments thus far in his Christian walk, having been led by his flesh and the demon Wormwood to stray from God through shame from his sins and fear of dealing with them. In the proceeding letter, he repented and was delivered from Wormwood’s deception. Now, in our current letter, the patient has grown spiritually, with him living in Christ’s peace, praying without ceasing, overcoming temptation, and being humble. This is possible for him, as it is for us, because of his submission to the Holy Spirit, as Galatians 5:16 states, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” This walk is only possible through receiving the Holy Spirit’s power to live the co-crucified life described in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is the life that can live victoriously against the flesh and Satan’s army because, through a surrendered will, it reckons our self-life (i.e., life in the flesh) dead and no longer futilely struggles to fight temptation through natural willpower and mind tactics that are incapable of contending with the supernatural. Rather, this life sees victory through Jesus Christ because it obediently chooses God-consciousness over selfishly dwelling in the self-life. Furthermore, this life remains in total dependence on the Holy Spirit’s infallible power to recognize and resist temptation.
However, Screwtape’s dialogue shows that living in our new life in Christ still requires us to be on guard against temptations from demons and our flesh, even when exhibiting Christ’s attributes. This is especially true for humility, which ironically can lead to pride through thoughts such as, “Wow, I’m actually being humble!” If we do not immediately take such thoughts captive and rebuke them in Christ’s name, our mind will entertain them, cause us to think too highly of our worth and traits, and perform unjust self-attribution (note this transition from God-consciousness to self-consciousness). God makes no secret about His righteous hatred for prideful behaviors such as these, with Scripture giving examples of Him stripping King Nebuchadnezzar of his sanity for arrogantly crediting himself for his kingdom, striking King Uzziah with leprosy for trying to burn incense on the altar, and killing Herod for allowing his people to call him a god. As James 4:6 warns, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
Fortunately, Scripture provides multiple ways to guard against temptations to be prideful, especially when exhibiting humility. First, it is crucial to remember that all things, especially whatever humility we have, are from God, for James 1:17 states, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” Second, we should remember that true service to Christ is done to obey and bring Him glory, not to satisfy our pride, agendas, or emotions, for Philippians 2:3 states, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Finally, we should rebuke any boasting within us that is not directed to God in praise, for 1 Corinthians 1:31 states, “So that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”” Thus, by maintaining a God-conscious view of everything He gave us, especially humility, we properly guard ourselves against temptations to take pride in what we have and falsely attribute it to ourselves.
“But there are other profitable ways of fixing his attention on the virtue of Humility. By this virtue, as by all the others, our Enemy wants to turn the man's attention away from self to Him, and to the man's neighbours. All the abjection and self-hatred are designed, in the long run, solely for this end; unless they attain this end they do us little harm; and they may even do us good if they keep the man concerned with himself, and, above all, if self-contempt can be made the starting-point for contempt of other selves, and thus for gloom, cynicism, and cruelty.
“You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self-forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he really has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt they are in fact less valuable than he believes, but that is not the point. The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible.” (Lewis)
As the book’s dialogue correctly states, it is among Jesus’ highest priorities to bring us as believers to the point where our attention is entirely directed on Him (in other words, living in full, constant God-consciousness). However, this cannot happen unless our mind, will, and emotions are surrendered to His authority. This is why Jesus states in Luke 9:23, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.” This means reckoning all aspects of our own self-life in the flesh as being crucified on the Cross with Christ. Through this surrender, we no longer live as if we own any aspect of ourselves, even our very life. Instead, we live according to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.” This is the life of self-forgetfulness mentioned by Screwtape, which is the purpose and end of true humility.
However, demons strive to derail our submission to our new life in Christ by twisting our perception of humility. Specifically, they project thoughts into our minds that claim humility is not self-forgetfulness, but self-loathing. Unfortunately, many believers see the downplaying and even hatred of themselves, their attributes, and their talents as a form of godliness. However, such behavior is of the flesh, for it turns our attention away from God to examine ourselves according to our own or the world’s assessments. Because of this, self-loathing through fleshly self-consciousness impedes our fellowship with God, hinders our ability to serve Him, and makes us vulnerable to depressed, cynical, and even cruel attitudes that can negatively affect how we treat others.
Gideon illustrated these consequences when God called him to deliver Israel from the Midianites. For example, instead of acknowledging that God could make him a mighty man of valor, Gideon instead falls into self-consciousness in Judges 6:15, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” Furthermore, this attitude hardened his heart towards God with cynicism, as seen in Judges 6:13, “And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”” Because his self-loathing had moved his focus from God to himself, Gideon was initially unwilling to obey the Lord and even accused Him of abandoning all Israel.
A major step in countering temptations to devalue and loathe ourselves is to humbly accept Christ’s assessment of us. Many verses in Scripture beautifully explain the tremendous value He places on us:
Thus, true humility is not produced from undervaluing or loathing all we are and have, but thanking God for all of it, declaring it is from Him, and using it to bring Him glory.
“To anticipate the Enemy's strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbour's talents — or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognise all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love — a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbours as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbours. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.
“His whole effort, therefore, will be to get the man's mind off the subject of his own value altogether. He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than that he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one. Your efforts to instill either vainglory or false modesty into the patient will therefore be met from the Enemy's side with the obvious reminder that a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame. You must try to exclude this reminder from the patient's consciousness at all costs. The Enemy will also try to render real in the patient's mind a doctrine which they all profess but find it difficult to bring home to their feelings — the doctrine that they did not create themselves, that their talents were given them, and that they might as well be proud of the colour of their hair. But always and by all methods the Enemy's aim will be to get the patient's mind off such questions, and yours will be to fix it on them. Even of his sins the Enemy does not want him to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased.” (Lewis)
As noted in the dialogue, it is God’s goal to completely renew our mind so it no longer focuses on ourselves or the things of this world. This is stated in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” As the Holy Spirit conforms our mind to Christ’s, self-conscious, fleshly thoughts concerning our value, talents, works, and sins are traded at the Cross for thoughts on worshipping our Savior, serving to bring Him glory, and caring for others’ needs. Also, this transformation keeps us humble when we choose to receive from the Spirit a continuous gratitude for everything God has given us, including our talents and accomplishments. In addition, this mental renewal gives us Christ’s love for others, enabling us to rejoice when they prosper and accomplish great works for God. This process of mental renewal is necessary to overcome the distractions of our self-life and fully experience our new life in Christ. This is seen in the commands given in Ephesians 4:22-24, “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Gideon’s account demonstrates the tremendous difference this refocusing of our mind makes. As we previously saw, when Gideon’s mind was focused on himself, he fell into self-loathing and considered himself unqualified for God’s calling to liberate Israel. However, as God patiently worked with Gideon with various signs to prove his calling, he gradually moved from self-consciousness to God-consciousness. This began when he obeyed God and destroyed his family’s altar to Baal, albeit waiting until night due to fear. After this, he obediently reduced his army to a mere 300 men, despite attempting to draw a significantly larger one. Finally, after God allowed him to overhear two Midianites’ discussing a dream confirming their nation’s defeat, he obeyed the Lord’s unique battle instructions and brought Him great glory in overseeing the Midianites’ defeat. By moving his focus from himself to God, Gideon went from spiritual paralysis due to self-loathing to being used by God to miraculously deliver Israel.
For us, when we, through the Holy Spirit’s power, overcome the paralysis of carnal self-consciousness, we gain the capacity to effectively serve God through our new life in Christ. For example, our mind is freed from the distractions of fleshly self-consciousness, allowing us to obey Matthew 6:33 by making the Lord our top priority. Also, as Romans 12:2 states, our mind being renewed enables it to receive and know God’s will through the Holy Spirit. In addition, as James 4:7 states, this submitted life is empowered by the Spirit to effectively resist Satan’s attacks. Finally, as Gideon experienced and Ephesians 3:20 proclaims, God will be with us, “who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us.” Thus, a God-conscious life unburdened from the paralysis of carnal self-consciousness enables us to be the active, effective, and humble servants He uses to successfully advance His Kingdom.
All believers, regardless of their spiritual maturity, are warned in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” This is especially true in humility, where Satan will strive to drive us from God-consciousness into fleshly self-consciousness. Regardless of whether he convinces us to take pride in our humility or obsessively loathe ourselves, both take our eyes off Christ and impede our ability to serve Him. The key to overcoming both attacks is to reckon our natural life dead through co-crucifixion with Christ, which nullifies any need to evaluate ourselves apart from our new life in Him. By accepting the perfect value God has assigned to us and our abilities, we, like Gideon, make ourselves available to receive the blessings of God-conscious living and effectively serve Him through the power and leading of His Holy Spirit.
Reference:
Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters. Self-published, 2025.
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