Demons are creatures that play an important role in the Bible and Christianity in general, yet they are barely mentioned anymore.
C.S. Lewis didn’t follow the trend that many preachers do today – skipping the tough verses implying that behind the physical earth is a spiritual battlefield between good and evil. Lewis clearly states this belief that “there is a good God in Heaven and everything is alright” as “Christianity-and-water” (Lewis, Mere Christianity 47)
Mere Christianity doesn’t go into great details about the devil, but it does acknowledge his existence and attempts to thwart the human race from going to the side of God. Lewis argues that because evil is made of the same stuff as good, but being twisted and distorted to something hideous, it is understandable why Satan himself is mentioned as a fallen angel (50). Lewis says Satan, who was originally designed to be good, went wrong was when he became prideful to the point he thought he was better than God (54).
The Bible first backs up this explanation in the story of Genesis, which points the Devil out as tempting the first humans to become self-serving. His temptation to Eve was not “when you eat of it you’ll be bad” but “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God” (Gen. 3:5).
Satan makes his next appearance in the Book of Job, not yet as the rebel Lewis portrays in Mere Christianity, but more of the accuser of the human race. He says to God face-to-face, “Does Job fear God for nothing?” (Job 1:9) implying that Job’s righteousness is not valid, since he only serves God to receive his due reward.
However, toward the New Testament, Satan appears to lose standing with God. If taken chronologically, Revelation 12 seems to describe the behind the world scene with Satan being thrown out of Heaven after the birth of Christ. Jesus himself described it saying, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).
It’s here where The Screwtape Letters identify Satan’s new objective: to keep people from following Christ using any means possible. The devils and demons, who are other good angels that went bad, follow Satan and refer to him as Our Father Below. God, who in their eyes is the true opposition, is labeled the “Enemy”.
In the book, Wormwood is a devil who’s main objective is to foil a man’s new faith in Christ. Wormwood’s Uncle Screwtape corresponds with him, giving him advice on how to bring this man to Hell. He suggests a flurry of ways to lead astray people from the straight and narrow.
Oddly enough, Screwtape scolds Wormwood for rejoicing over the destruction caused by the world war, atrocities most people today would assume the Devil would leap over. Screwtape writes, “Of course a war is entertaining. The immediate fear and suffering of the humans is a legitimate and pleasing refreshment for myriads of toiling workers…But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters 18)
The book suggests as though war itself is not something Satan directly causes, only a result of humanity’s devil-taught self-centeredness. Satan merely deceives people into putting themselves above God, trying to live without God. Then “out of that hopeless attempt has come nearly all that we human history – money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery” (Lewis, Mere Christianity 54)
In reality, Satan is not the villain seen in movies like The Devil’s Advocate or End of Days, who wrists his hands together, doing evil for evil’s sakes, causing buildings to explode with a snap of a finger and leading legions of demon-possessed followers who have sold their souls for earthly rewards. No, Satan is more subtle than that, and therefore more dangerous. He doesn’t scream to frighten, he whispers softly, “playing on our conceit and laziness and intellectual snobbery” (51).
“You cannot be bad for the mere sake of badness,” Lewis writes, “No one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong – only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him” (50).
In Satan’s eyes, he believes he’s doing the right thing. Maybe he thinks he’s doing God a favor, since from the beginning of the Bible, it seems the Devil never thought highly of people. Or perhaps he thinks he’s doing the right thing for the human race, believing that they should be in complete control of their own lives and not subject to their Creator. That’s how the demons feel and the way a lot of Americans feel. Not that a lot of Americans are Satan worshippers, but they follow Satan in the regards that they put themselves above God.
Indeed, that’s precisely what Satan wants, people following their own way, which indirectly becomes his way. Lewis describes throughout The Screwtape Letters that the Devil’s agenda is to throw anything at people to get them away from Christ. Even false spirituality, church hopping, false humility and religion itself are options for demons to sidetrack people. He’s not necessarily interested in a bunch of people following demons verbatim, because to make them more effective, Screwtape says, “Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves” (Lewis, The Screwtape Letters 25).
Someone once said, “the greatest lie the Devil told was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Secrecy is the Devil’s ally. After all, who suspects being tempted when there’s no one to tempt? Screwtape warns his nephew that if his patient suspected he was being tempted to “suggest to him a picture of something in red tights, and persuade him that since he cannot believe in that he therefore cannot believe in you” (26).
Woody Allen once said, “To you, I’m an atheist. To God, I’m the loyal opposition.” Actually, Satan and the demons are the true opposition, and they know who their Enemy is. “You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that – and shudder” (James 2:19). It appears Satan even believes in the authority of the Bible, quoting it while trying to tempt Jesus to use bits of Scripture for his own personal benefit.
It’s important to have a general knowledge of who Satan is and how he works in the world. He’s obviously not the Al Pacino-looking guy seen in the movies or the devil on the canned hams. Instead, Lewis describes Satan as the lead instigator against the heavenly kingdom of God, fighting “a civil war, a rebellion, and that we are living in a part of the universe occupied by the rebel” (Mere Christianity 51).
Works Cited
Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. Glasgow: Harper Collins, 1998.
The Quest Study Bible. New International Version. Colorado Springs: Zondervan, 1997.