The Crux of Action

What is Lewis driving at in Letter VI? While he uses the word "action" only once, I believe he wants Wormwood to keep his patient from acting to form virtuous habits, which are stable patterns of good behavior.

Screwtape says, "in all activities of mind which favor our cause, encourage the patient to be un-selfconscious . . . [l]et an insult or a woman's body so fix his attention outward that he does not reflect "I am now entering into the state called Anger - or the state called Lust. Contrariwise let the reflection 'My feelings are now growing more devout, or more charitable,' so fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our Enemy or his own neighbors."

Screwtape counsels raising impediments to the patient's awareness and reasonable appraisal of the situation he is in, so he is not able to respond appropriately. For to act, to respond appropriately and intelligently to a situation, entails a reasonable appraisal of the situation. An act is done consciously, for a reason. Reason saturates an action. And the "will" jump starts it, prods it out of the starting blocks, "into action." ("Indeed, what is called 'the will' is nothing but intelligence in doing; in denying 'will' to an ebbing tide we are refusing to recognize it as an exhibition of intelligence." Michael Oakeshott, On Human Conduct, p. 39.)

The word "action" stands opposite in meaning to the word "reaction," which in its pure form of physical law is automatic and admits of no deliberation or will. (Newton's Third Law: "If body A exerts a force on body B (an 'action'), then body B exerts a force of equal magnitude but opposite direction on body A (a 'reaction').")

As Screwtape admits, true action emerges out of the center of the concentric circles Screwtape tells Wormwood that he should think of humans as possessing, i.e., will [at the core], then intellect, then fantasy (imagination?). True action, as rational action, springs from the center, the "Heart" of the human being!

At bottom, Screwtape wants to discourage the patient from taking actions that form good habits or virtues. For only actions - not fantasies, thoughts or wishes - build up virtues and a virtuous life. As Screwtape observes, "All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from Our Father's house: indeed they make make him more amusing when he gets there."

What "amuses" Screwtape? Isn't it puncturing the pretense? Disenchanting King Midas? Smirking, while watching a person who thought he was "clothed to the nines" in virtue, protest in indignation as his garments are stripped off one by one to reveal the naked, ugly truth?

Screwtape's m.o.? Keep virtue from forming by keeping the patient from truly acting. The antidote? Engage your intelligence and your will. And act. Pick up your cross and carry it, don't just fantasize about it, approve of it, desire it (or write about it!). Act. That's what's crucial!