The Metaphysics of Hell

Interestingly, in letter 18 Screwtape lays out what we might call the "metaphysics of hell," i.e., Satan's ultimate vision of reality. This vision must not only be opposed to reality, but its very opposite: the cosmos turned upside-down and inside-out. It can't be just a little wrong. Rather, totally wrong. But for this very reason, it will, despite itself, inadvertently point to what must be the case.

Whatever it is, it must be totally reactionary, that is, parasitic on the very truth it denies. Satan cannot create but can only mimic: he is always the ape of God, which is part of his appeal (or seductiveness). In other words, Satan always promises what he can never deliver, but godless apes nevertheless put their heart and soul into the promise, and forget all about its delivery. They trick themselves into believing they are something more than tricky apes, conferring upon themselves a pseudo-divinity or even tenure.

This demonic dynamic applies to literally any subcelestial ideology. Atheistic materialism, for example, makes the outrageous promise of a total explanation of reality. But what does it actually deliver? A permanent and total cosmic stupidity, sealed in a clueless self-aggrandizement. For once you pledge allegiance to nothing, there's no explanation for anything, let alone everything. If nothing is your beginning, it is your end. But it can't really be your beginning, because the beginning is the knowing subject. How do explain that without painting yourself into a coroner?

It seems to me that Satan is a thoroughgoing advocate of logical atomism -- of a cosmos ultimately consisting of radically separate monads:

The whole philosophy of Hell rests on recognition of the axiom that one thing is not another thing, and, specifically, that one self is not another self.

You could say that this is obvious to the senses, but what a lie nonetheless! For an axiom of Christianity is that we are members of one another and of God. This axiom follows from the principle of Trinity, through which ultimate reality isn't any radically separate substance, but rather, irreducible substance-in-relation. This cannot be "seen." It is, however, that through which we see. If this weren't the case, then we could only see like an animal, instead of being able to perceive through the eyes. See?

This next one is a critically important entailment, because it seems to explain the left-wing view of economics. In a free economic exchange, both parties benefit. For example, I'm in the market for a new subwoofer, and I want it more than the money it will cost, whereas the seller wants the money more than the subwoofer. Win-win. Unless I'm a compulsive audiophile, but we'll leave that to the side. My addiction is none of my business.

Why do leftists seem incapable of understanding such a simple truth? A couple days ago, AOC said something to the effect -- her usual blah-blah -- that all wealthy people are thieves. But this simply follows the perennial party line, ever since Marx and Lenin (and Genesis 3, really):

Lenin regarded all interactions as zero-sum. To use the phrase he made famous, the fundamental question is always “Who Whom?” -- who dominates whom, who does what to whom, ultimately who annihilates whom. To the extent that we gain, you lose. Contrast this view with the one taught in basic microeconomics: whenever there is a non-forced transaction, both sides benefit, or they would not make the exchange....

Lenin’s hatred of the market, and his attempts to abolish it entirely during War Communism, derived from the opposite idea, that all buying and selling is necessarily exploitative. When Lenin speaks of “profiteering” or “speculation” (capital crimes), he is referring to every transaction, however small.

Is that not a satanic idea? One needn't even believe in Satan to understand how it leads -- and led -- to hell on earth. Every time. It's certainly not very nice:

Basic books on negotiation teach that you can often do better than split the difference, since people have different concerns. Both sides can come out ahead -- but not for the Soviets, whose negotiating stance JFK once paraphrased as: what’s mine is mine; and what’s yours is negotiable. For us, the word “politics” means a process of give and take, but for Lenin it’s we take, and you give. From this it follows that one must take maximum advantage of one’s position. If the enemy is weak enough to be destroyed, and one stops simply at one’s initial demands, one is objectively helping the enemy, which makes one a traitor.

It's not enough to merely hate President Trump. But while they can't kill him -- or, more to the point, us -- they're attempting the next best thing: political decapitation.

Here's how Screwtape describes the same principle (did Satan plagiarize Lenin, or vice versa?): "My good is my good and your good is yours. What one gains another loses." Conversely, the enemy's -- God's -- metaphysic

is nothing more nor less than one continued attempt to evade this very obvious truth. He aims at a contradiction. Things are to be many, yet somehow also one. The good of one self is to be the good of another. This impossibility he calls love.

Indeed, he doesn't just call it love, he is love, which the Satanic mind literally cannot comprehend, for this mind is literally loveless. There was a time that even I, your preternaturally adequate host, didn't understand the necessary relationship between love and truth. But if you separate the two, you end up with, say, an Adam Schiff, who is at the moment treating the senate to 24 hours of hell. If you think that's bad, imagine what it must be like in his head. Now, imagine that for eternity.

That's enough hell for one day. To be continued...