In
chapter 8 of “The Screwtape Letters” Screwtape makes a powerful claim, “Our
cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still
intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon the universe from which
every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken,
and still obeys.” The Devils mission is most endangered when, in the face of
all reason for doubting God, one continues to do God’s will. Another C.S. Lewis
quote might help expand upon this idea, “Faith is the art of hanging on to
things your reason has once accepted in spite of your changing moods.” True
faith, which is what is exercised in the first quote, is an act of hanging on to
what you know, despite what may be happening around you. In this respect, faith
transgresses the rational.
An interesting example of this in
film can be found in the classic film “The Seventh Seal” Where Joseph, despite
not fully understanding death or what is happening around him, knows to follow
his faith away from the plague. All reason would lead him to believe that God
is not at work with the plague surrounding him. However, he holds to the faith
he knows.
Lewis’ promotion of faith also
promotes a sort of epistemological agnosticism. It supposes that there are, in
life, instances when one cannot fully know what is true around him and where
truth can be found because that truth exists outside of the phenomenal. At the
same time though, his promotion of faith indicates that there is something
greater than the phenomenal that mankind must hold to.
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