Job 13:15 Though he slay me, I will
hope in him; yet I will argue my ways to his face.
Screwtape
(the senior demon instructing his nephew, a minor demon) elaborates on the
Enemy's intentions:
Merely to
override a human will (as His presence in any but the faintest and most
mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot
ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it;
the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel
them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little
overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His
presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and
easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to
last long. Sooner or later he withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their
conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature
to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have
lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the
peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be.
Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him
best. .... He cannot 'tempt' to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn
to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is
really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived,
Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer
desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a
universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he
has been forsaken, and still obeys.
1 Samuel 15:22 And Samuel said, “Has
the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the
voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than
the fat of rams.
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