Screwtape XXVI-XXXI

XXVI- “Avail yourself of the ambiguity in the word "Love": let them think they have solved by Love problems they have in fact only waived or postponed under the influence of the enchantment.” - The word “Love” is a word that is misunderstood by humans all the time. Sometimes, we expect “Love” to fix everything and neglect to actually fix a problem that we are faced with when semi-blinded or distracted by the feeling of “Love.”
XXVII- “Why that creative act leaves room for their free will is the problem of problems, the secret behind the Enemy's nonsense about "Love".”
- We as humans cannot fully understand the fill extent of God’s love, and we never will. Its part of what makes Him God. He loves us so much that He gives of free will, to make decisions for ourselves and choose to obey Him not as robots, but as His children.
XXVIII- “I know it seems strange that your chief aim at the moment should be the very same thing for which the patient's lover and his mother are praying—namely his bodily safety.”
- Screwtape is expressing the importance of keeping Wormwood’s “patient” alive. This is not because of his true concern of the man’s safety in the way that we might think, Screwtape means to make the point of how important it is that a human die at the right time, which is not when he’s in the right spiritual mindset.
XXIX- “For remember, the act of cowardice is all that matters; the emotion of fear is, in itself, no sin and, though we enjoy it, does us no good,”
- The emotion of fear is not necessarily a sin. When you use that fear as an excuse to disobey God, when you act on that fear by forgetting that He is there for you and neglect God, then it is a sin.
XXX- “It need not be much shorter; in attacks on patience, chastity, and fortitude, the fun is to make the man yield just when (had he but known it) relief was almost in sight.”
- Screwtape also stated in a past chapter that humans are incapable to “persevere.” Humans, especially me, find it hard to keep going when it seems like things just refuse to ever end. Impatience can sometimes cause us to lose hope and give up when we cannot see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ whether it’s there or not.
XXXI- “Did you mark how naturally—as if he'd been born for it—the earthborn vermin entered the new life?”
- Here, Screwtape is talking about the “patient” that has recently died. We are not meant for this world, we are merely “passing through.” So, technically, we really are “born for it.” And for me, this is an extremely comforting thought.