“You must have wondered why the enemy (God) does not make
more use of his power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree he
chooses and at any moment. But you now see that the irresistible and the
indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of his scheme forbids him
to use. Merely to over-ride a human will (as his felt 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….Sooner or later he
withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all
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…He cannot “tempt”
to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take
away his hand…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 has been
forsaken, and still obeys.”
Uncle Screwtape
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters.
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