The Present Against the Future

The Screwtape Letters

This flow tracks the struggle between faithful action in the present and anxious or utopian investment in imagined futures.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

A Future-Facing Mind A Future-Facing Mind from "The Screwtape Letters". Anticipation Takes Over Fear and Hope The patient can be absorbed by possible call-up, danger, and future outcomes.

A Future-Facing Mind from "The Screwtape Letters". Anticipation Takes Over Fear and Hope The patient can be absorbed by possible call-up, danger, and future outcomes.

Anticipation Takes Over Fear and Hope The patient can be absorbed by possible call-up, danger, and future outcomes. Both anxious fear and comforting hope can remove his attention from current duties. Demonic Advantage Screwtape favors the future because it is uncertain and easily filled with imagined scenarios. The present is harder to distort when the patient attends to what is actually required.

A Political Future A Political Future from "The Screwtape Letters". Utopia as an Excuse Promise A future political order can tempt the patient to treat immediate moral obligations as expendable.

A Political Future from "The Screwtape Letters". Utopia as an Excuse Promise A future political order can tempt the patient to treat immediate moral obligations as expendable.

Utopia as an Excuse Promise A future political order can tempt the patient to treat immediate moral obligations as expendable. A cause becomes the imagined destination that justifies present disobedience. Distortion The problem is not planning for tomorrow but giving the future one’s heart. The patient risks turning faith into an instrument of worldly success.

The Present Cross The Present Cross from "The Screwtape Letters". What Is Already Here Actual Trial The patient’s present uncertainty is itself a burden he can bear.

The Present Cross from "The Screwtape Letters". What Is Already Here Actual Trial The patient’s present uncertainty is itself a burden he can bear.

What Is Already Here Actual Trial The patient’s present uncertainty is itself a burden he can bear. He does not need to rehearse every incompatible disaster as though all were already his duty. Practice Patience becomes a response to a real moment rather than an imagined future. This shift weakens suspense’s power to occupy the whole mind.

Duty in the Raid Duty in the Raid from "The Screwtape Letters". Action in the Now Reality The patient meets an immediate danger and performs his work while afraid.

Duty in the Raid from "The Screwtape Letters". Action in the Now Reality The patient meets an immediate danger and performs his work while afraid.

Action in the Now Reality The patient meets an immediate danger and performs his work while afraid. His obligations are no longer abstract possibilities but concrete demands. Moral Testing The raid reveals whether a virtue can withstand risk. The patient’s conduct matters more than speculation about a future in which he might be braver.

Beyond Temporal Hope Beyond Temporal Hope from "The Screwtape Letters". Time Opens into Eternity End of Anticipation The patient’s earthly future ends unexpectedly, bringing the war and its imagined outcomes to an abrupt close.

Beyond Temporal Hope from "The Screwtape Letters". Time Opens into Eternity End of Anticipation The patient’s earthly future ends unexpectedly, bringing the war and its imagined outcomes to an abrupt close.

Time Opens into Eternity End of Anticipation The patient’s earthly future ends unexpectedly, bringing the war and its imagined outcomes to an abrupt close. The demons lose their hoped-for years of gradual influence. Fulfillment His entrance into Heaven reframes the present as a point of contact with eternity. The future mattered less than the choices he made while it was still ahead.

At the beginning of wartime uncertainty

As the patient considers political responses to the war

While the patient awaits news about his wartime role

During the first air raid

At the patient’s death