__________ The Crimpnail Letters __________

Why the Human Creatures Reject God

When to use the Bible to encourage their natural rebelliousness, and when not to!

A parody of The Screwtape Letters, In the style of C.S. Lewis

Gary Hoge

My Dear Slugpost,

I am dismayed at your amateurish and heavy-handed attempts to undermine your patient’s faith in the Bible. Do you not know that such tactics are generally effective only against those excessively rationalistic humans who have already rejected the Enemy and cast their lot with us? Is it possible that you do not know that when this strategy is applied against those who are already firmly in the Enemy’s camp, it almost always produces an even greater faith in them? 

I should have thought you had learned that at the Training College, but I have long been convinced that the place went straight to Heaven when they put old Screwtape in charge of it, and now I am sure of it. If that ancient serpent had any competence at all, the College would not be turning out tempters as deficient in their basic training as you have proven to be. But because of his failures, it falls to supervisors such as myself to pick up the pieces. Very well, so be it. Pay attention, and I will attempt to explain what you should already know.

Our rationalistic arguments are not designed to destroy men’s faith in the Bible, once they have such faith; they are designed to give them reasons to avoid such faith in the first place. They are intended to confirm the human creatures in their rebellion against the Enemy, and to give them a justification for that rebellion. In fine, they are intended to provide an intellectual excuse for what is in truth a moral decision. 

You see, the human creatures reject the Enemy primarily because they resent being told what to do, not because they have made a careful study of the Bible and found it wanting. Most of them have never picked it up, and our arguments are designed to insure that they never do.

These creatures have cast their lot with us because they are unwilling to change their behavior, and because they are unwilling to submit to the Enemy’s authority. Thanks to our efforts they are entirely enslaved by their sins, a condition which we have taught them to call “freedom.” They cannot bear the thought of giving them up, which they know the enemy, in His usual prudish way, would require them to do. However, because they fancy themselves “intellectuals” they are loath to admit the moral dimension of their rebellion, even to themselves. Thus, they look for more tangible reasons to reject the Enemy, and these we are only too happy to provide. 

Over the centuries we have concocted literally hundreds of arguments against the reliability of the Bible, arguments that would fall apart under the slightest scrutiny, to be sure, but they work because these rebellious creatures will not subject them to the slightest scrutiny. No, for all their talk of intellectualism, they accept these arguments uncritically, and they parrot them back to anyone who wants to know why they do not believe.

On the remote chance that they may become aware of the profoundly un-intellectual nature of their rebellion, we appeal to their ego and vanity, and we puff them up with pride. We tell them how smart they are for rejecting religion. They are the elite, the pinnacle of human evolution, the rational and enlightened souls that dare to embrace their autonomy. We encourage them to look down on their religious peers as superstitious, mentally-challenged, unevolved troglodytes. Like cattle to be slaughtered, we fatten them up with their own pride and rebelliousness. Even now I am salivating at the prospect of feasting on such choice morsels! They are fuddled indeed, Slugpost, and I tell you, it is most entertaining to see their reaction when they finally perceive religion with the singular clarity that Hell affords.

But your man is not like this, he is already entrenched in the Enemy’s camp, and in him these arguments will actually have the affect of strengthening his faith in the Bible. You see, he is eager to believe that the Bible is true, and so he will research our arguments, and he will discover that they are based on taking verses out of context, or else they are the result of translational difficulties, or cultural misunderstandings. 

Surely even you can see how this insidious process works: When your man first reads of a supposed contradiction, he may be stumped, but he will seek out an answer, and when he finds it, his faith in the Bible will be that much the stronger. Worse yet, these exercises provide him with a very dangerous lesson in faith. They instill in him the habit of giving the Bible the benefit of the doubt when he runs across problems with it, the very opposite of the incredulity and skepticism you are trying to foster in him! 

As the creature gains more and more experience finding answers to our arguments, he gains more and more confidence in that accursed book, and he builds within himself a base of experience from which to exercise real faith on those occasions when he cannot find an answer. Then he will remember the many times he did find an answer, and he will assume, with disgusting and puerile credulity, that an answer exists, even if he doesn’t know what it is. Such an attitude is most hostile to our whole campaign!

Your Affectionate Uncle,

Crimpnail