The devil knows that pleasure is a good thing. In fact, he knows that God created the numerous pleasures in life. Instead of allowing us to enjoy the natural pleasures in life, the Enemy knows he must distort pleasure into something unnatural that drags our soul into the depths of Hell.
[featured-image single_newwindow=”false”]The Drunkard’s Progress: A lithograph by Nathaniel Currier supporting the temperance movement, January 1846.[/featured-image]
The Enemy knows our nature and he knows exactly how to twist something that is meant to be good into something that is the cause of our fall from God’s embrace.
Screwtape paints the situation very clearly:
You are much more likely to make your man a sound drunkard by pressing drink on him as an anodyne when he is dull and weary than by encouraging him to use it as a means of merriment among his friends when he is happy and expansive. Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy’s ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and lease pleasurable. (44, emphasis added)
As members of American society, we do not always realize that pleasure is actually a good thing. We pride ourselves in our Puritan past and too often believe that policies like the Prohibition are what we need to get our culture back on track. Far from it. Pleasure is not the culprit. It is our inordinate use of it.
Pleasure is Good
Here is one example of how pleasure is something designed specifically by the Creator:
CCC 2362 “The acts in marriage by which the intimate and chaste union of the spouses takes place are noble and honorable; the truly human performance of these acts fosters the self-giving they signify and enriches the spouses in joy and gratitude.” Sexuality is a source of joy and pleasure:
- The Creator himself . . . established that in the [generative] function, spouses should experience pleasure and enjoyment of body and spirit. Therefore, the spouses do nothing evil in seeking this pleasure and enjoyment. They accept what the Creator has intended for them. At the same time, spouses should know how to keep themselves within the limits of just moderation. (emphasis added)
Pleasure, in its natural context, is something good. It is the devil who tries to distort pleasure and turns it in on itself.
The Distortion
Screwtape specifically mentions that, “All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden.” This is where pleasure becomes sinful. Instead of enjoying what God created in its natural context, we are tempted to use it excessively or in the wrong situation.
Sex, while inherently good, has been twisted by the Enemy and our culture tells us to have sex all the time and with whomever we want. Alcohol, something created by man using the natural elements of the earth, is perverted and we are tempted to drink our sorrows away or to say something like, “I can only have fun when I am drunk.” We give in to the lies of the Enemy and take what God has created and use it in such a way that it takes us away from Him.
Takeaway Point #8: Let us remember that pleasure is something good that God created and it is only when Satan turns it around upon itself that we are led into sin to seek pleasure for its own sake.
Read the Entire Series
- The Enemy’s Tactic #7: How the Devil Hides his Existence with Red Tights and a Pitchfork
- The Enemy’s Tactic #6: How Satan Encourages us to be Charitable to People we Do Not Know
- The Enemy’s Tactic #5: How the Devil Tricks us into Believing that Death Will Never Come
- The Enemy’s Tactic #4: Stripping the Liturgy
- The Enemy’s Tactic #3: Daily Pinpricks
- The Enemy’s Tactic #2: Focusing on Sinners in the Church
- The Enemy’s Tactic #1: The Loss of Reason
- In the Enemy’s Camp: An In-depth Look at the Tactics of the Devil
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***If you would like to follow-along reading the The Screwtape Letters, I suggest to purchase your own copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters
