Love is Voluntary... | Ruminations on The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
This week I began enjoying CS Lewis' Screwtape letters, a compilation of instructional epistles from one demon to his pupil.
In the book, Lewis illustrates how devils aim to mislead and confound our lives and an important point struck me while reading the book: Love is Voluntary.
Relief of the Jesus carries his Cross (1675-1677) by Lucas Faydherbe in the Basilica of Our Lady of Hanswijk (Mechelen, Flanders, Belgium).
© Ad Meskens / Wikimedia Commons
Love is Voluntary:
In one chapter, Lewis has the "teacher" (Screwtape) write to his nephew, Wormwood, and stress a primary aim of the devil who wishes the worse for humanity. The aim is to draw a human's attention to all the "disappointment or anticlimax coming to him...", force our focus to remain on how reality falls short of our dreams.
According to Screwtape, the Enemy (God) allows disappointment in our lives, because of God's "curious fantasy of making disgusting little human vermin" into his free lovers and servants.
"He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks... to us a human is primarily food... But the obedience which the Enemy (God) demands of men is quite a different thing... He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself-- creatures whose life, on its miniature scale, will be qualitatively like His own, not because he has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His."
-- C.S. Lewis, Screwtape Letters, Chapter 8
God is real, sovereign, omniscient and omnipotent, yet he allows free will, despite all the pain, suffering and loss it enables, why?
Because in his infinite wisdom he recognizes, that forcing mankind to love, respect and do good, is not simultaneously possible. While an omnipotent God can command compliance by subverting our will, he in that same moment sacrifices our freedom itself, and prevents genuine love.
What do we learn from this choice?
- God desires not just our obedience, but more precisely our freely given devotion, and love,
- Apparently God thinks the value of free will, and voluntary love, is worth enduring great suffering, even upon a cross.
Philippians 2:8 (ESV)
"8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."
Love is Voluntary, Vulnerable, Humble and Sacrificial:
“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
-- C.S. Lewis
God desires our love and love cannot exist without vulnerable voluntary humble submission to our lover. Whether wife, husband, or God, to love someone is to voluntarily put them above yourself, to without free will, love is not possible. God knew this, and so we are free to love... or hate... which will we choose?
That is all for today, thank you so much for your time and attention, have an amazing day and God bless.
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Awesome posts! I never really thought about God and religion before listening to Jordan Peterson. Now I can finally begin to see the wisdom in all of it.
Oh yeah? I can relate to that sentiment.
For a long time I thought no one smart gave any time to metaphysical stuff, then I heard about some exceptions that got me asking more questions. People like CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien, Peterson, and Ravi Zacharias, to name a few and I felt a new world was opening up, that I had never heard about before.
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