pleasure {srewtape #2}

(remember the The Enemy is God and Our Father is Satan because these are letters between fellow demons...)

“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 of 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 pleasures to that in which it is least natural, least redolent [strongly reminiscent or suggestive of something] of it’s Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula .... To get the man’s soul and to give him nothing in return- that is what really gladdens Our Father’s heart.” (Lewis, 1976, pg 54)

Last night our Church received a sermon that is for me one of the cornerstones of proper theological thinking, and of a correct understanding of man in relation to God: the message was that the pursuit of pleasure for a Christian is not a bad thing. For many decades and centuries, the church has has been a kill-joy. It has given the world the idea that pleasure is a bad thing, and if something feels good then perhaps it is not good.

This is perhaps the greatest lie that the real enemy has told and had believed. C.S Lewis arguing this point in a sermon one day, while discussing joy in God said the following: “The problem is not that we don’t persue happiness but that we dont persue it hard enough. We are too easily satisfied.”

If we ran after pleasure and only found rest in the highest forms of it, then we would find ourselves resting with God.