Lewis' "Screwtape Letters" had a major impact on me which led me to subscribe to weekly quotes from his books. Can someone interpret this one?

"There’s something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on. But there’s also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly. Brass is mistaken for gold more easily than clay is. And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil."

I can’t guess what he meant by “eternal love,” but my interpretation of the difference between affection and appetite is that it’s much more common for affection to wane and die than for something we would refer to as an “appetite.” Appetite usually involves a desire for something: power, wealth, hunger, thirst, sex, etc. They are often referred to as the “lower” or “baser” things, but they don’t often fade to any great extent, at least not in the short term or abruptly.

Affection, or love for something, be it another person or even something like a hobby, can change quickly and dramatically. Think of all the people who are married to spouses that they have no affection for at all. While it remains it can lead to deep commitments or even obsession, but once it fades it can die completely and even reverse itself to contempt and hatred. Another affection can be for religious belief: most adult atheists or other “nonbelievers” started out as Christians or adherents of other faiths, but when they changed, they changed completely.

I assume that in Lewis’ opinion the committed Christian’s affection for his religion can lead to the highest form of love, but if he becomes a skeptic—which is easily possible because it is an affection rather than an appetite—that will put him on the path to hell.

Read it a couple of times, I think it's mostly how people believe 'love' is 'meant to be' when in reality there are hundreds if not thousands of people in the world you could be in love with if the time, location, meeting was right. And when it goes wrong, it goes wrong much worse.

Or maybe he was high on drugs, IDK.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: parabellum,

That's a quote from his The Great Divorce.

Affection versus appetite. Affection is akin to the grace of the human soul. Appetite arises from our animal (base) nature.

A person recognizes their appetites to be part of their animal nature of which lust is a part. Affection, however, can be mistaken for (or lead to) love, which we expect to be reciprocated, and when love is not reciprocal, we feel betrayed, and we feel betrayal of the heart more strongly than we feel the rejection of our appretites.

"natural affection vs natural appetite"

Affection is a thing we must give some of ourselves to, whereas appetite is a "lust" or "desire", more "instinct or drive" than an actionable and directed mindset to a thing.

As the desire for food or water is base, and without forethought, the affection, for instance as we have for our children, is with forethought and consideration.

But the paradox of seeing the "natural affection" because it is with forethought, that one may and often ascribes a "higher/superior" weight to the thing "of one's mind", and that often leads to a greater "damage" when if manifests itself in acts of selfish and evil.

One driven to steal bread to survive, is a lessor than a passion driven crime of murder.

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Originally posted by parabellum:
That's a quote from his The Great Divorce.

Affection versus appetite. Affection is akin to the grace of the human soul. Appetite arises from our animal (base) nature.

A person recognizes their appetites to be part of their animal nature of which lust is a part. Affection, however, can be mistaken for (or lead to) love, which we expect to be reciprocated, and when love is not reciprocal, we feel betrayed, and we feel betrayal of the heart more strongly than we feel the rejection of our appretites.

This, absolutely. I'm adding Lewis's (a remarkable and globally recognized religious philosopher, and a great friend of J.R.R. Tolkien, though later estranged) preface to The Great Divorce - a longer read but worth it. He is referring, of course, to the Divorce of Heaven from Hell, in contrast to Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell.

BLAKE wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error. You cannot take all luggage with you on all journeys; on one journey even your right hand and your right eye may be among the things you have to leave behind. We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision. Even on the biological level life is not like a river but like a tree. It does not move towards unity but away from it and the creatures grow further apart as they increase in perfection. Good, as it ripens, becomes continually more different not only from evil but from other good.

I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good. Time does not heal it. The spell must be unwound, bit by bit, ‘with backward mutters of dissevering power’—or else not. It is still ‘either-or’. If we insist on keeping Hell (or even Earth) we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell. I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his, right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in ‘the High Countries’. In that sense it will be true for those who have completed the journey (and for no others) to say that good is everything and Heaven everywhere. But we, at this end of the road, must not try to anticipate that retrospective vision. If we do, we are likely to embrace the false and disastrous converse and fancy that everything is good and everywhere is Heaven.

But what, you ask, of earth? Earth, I think, will not be found by anyone to be in the end a very distinct place. I think earth, if chosen instead of Heaven, will turn out to have been, all along, only a region in Hell: and earth, if put second to Heaven, to have been from the beginning a part of Heaven itself.

There are only two things more to be said about this small book. Firstly, I must acknowledge my debt to a writer whose name I have forgotten and whom I read several years ago in a highly coloured American magazine of what they call ‘Scientifiction’. The unbendable and unbreakable quality of my heavenly matter was suggested to me by him, though he used the fancy for a different and most ingenious purpose. His hero travelled into the past: and there, very properly, found raindrops that would pierce him like bullets and sandwiches that no strength could bite—because, of course, nothing in the past can be altered. I, with less originality but (I hope) equal propriety; have transferred this to the eternal. If the writer of that story ever reads these lines I ask him to accept my grateful acknowledgement. The second thing is this. I beg readers to remember that this is a fantasy. It has of course—or I intended it to have—a moral. But the trans-mortal conditions are solely an imaginative supposai: they are not even a guess or a speculation at what may actually await us. The last thing I wish is to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the after-world.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Doc H.,

Para seems to be spot on. (Probably helps that he is familiar with the work the quote came from.)

How I analogize it: think of a teenage couple in love. "In love" unfortunately may mean something different to the two participants.

The young man's intentions are not quite so lofty. He is acting out of lust, and for this example nothing more. He understands this perfectly well, and would never mistake his feelings for anything but a base drive. It's plain old Biblical lust and he knows it.

The poor young girl has a different perspective. Her feelings are emotional, what most people would consider a more noble impetus. It would be much easier to mistake these feelings for true love (what Lewis probably meant by "eternal love").

But is it? The girl's father recognizes the boy's intentions for what they are. Difficult to disguise basic animal lust. Different story for his hapless daughter- she believes it's the real thing, but Daddy knows it's fleeting teenage infatuation, and anything but eternal. When the corruption finally reveals itself, it will be the girl's feelings that will be the more difficult to unravel.

Brass is the more dangerous substance because it is actually closer to gold than clay. No-one would mistake clay for gold.

I understand it but I can't explain it without sounding repetitive.

Lust is temporary. Love is eternal.

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Originally posted by mr kablammo:
Lust is temporary. Love is eternal .

But has the potential to be far worse if it goes South than if lust does.

"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned"...William Congreve from ‘Love for Love’ 1695.

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Originally posted by darthfuster:

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Originally posted by mr kablammo:
Lust is temporary. Love is eternal .

But has the potential to be far worse if it goes South than if lust does.

That’s my take on it as well.

I asked sigmonkey what it means, and he said, "I could explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you."

Since The Great Divorce is a Christian allegory about the ascension from dead existence to eternal life in Christ, it seems best to examine it from that perspective.

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There’s something in natural affection which will lead it on to eternal love more easily than natural appetite could be led on.

It seems that Lewis is alluding to the innate knowledge that exists in all men of the existence of God, and man’s innate desire to know God.

“For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” Romans 1:20.

All men know that God exists whether they acknowledge it or deny it. That innate knowledge leads man to a desire to know and understand God, either through his own understanding or by faith in God through his revelations about Himself.

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But there’s also something in it which makes it easier to stop at the natural level and mistake it for the heavenly.

Man has an innate knowledge of the existence of God, and has an innate desire to understand Him. However, man has attempted to understand God on the level of his own understanding, without realizing that God is on a level so much higher than man that he cannot be understood fully in human terms. Man, through his own pride, concludes that he can know what there is to know about God based on, among other human means of understanding, science.

The Pharisees, among others, made this mistake. And they mistook their inadequate understanding and error for holiness. Christ himself addressed the issue:

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.” John 3:1-8

Man cannot understand God on his own, with his own intellect. Oh, he attempts to, and calls it a form of holiness. But on the human level, man may only know and understand God based on the revelation of Himself in the Bible. Beyond that that, He must be approached in faith and not understanding. Approaching the fullness of God with human understanding is folly. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones said it best, “If you approach God with your intellect, He will leave you baffled, He will leave you amazed, He will leave you as you are. You must approach God as a little child and admit that you know nothing.”

Unfortunately, the nature of man is to assume he can know God on his own and he stops at that level. And, accordingly, never develops needed faith.

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And if it finally refuses conversion its corruption will be worse than the corruption of what ye call the lower passions. It is a stronger angel, and therefore, when it falls, a fiercer devil.

It’s been said that Hell is filled with people that admired Jesus Christ. Human understanding, even admiration, is fatal. The Bible isn’t a book of good advice. It’s not a story about a really good teacher and a good man.

Too many people see it as something it isn’t and never realized it is God’s revelation of himself, and his plan for the redemption of those who realize what the bible says about them is true, that they can’t save themselves, and that they need a Savior. Those people refuse to see themselves as they are in light of the revelation of the Bible. They never develop faith in Christ as the only one that can save them from their own corrupt selves, their own sin. Their hearts are hardened. Those that develop saving faith never lose it. Those that don’t double down on their denial of the truth, even in the plain light of that truth. Once man receives the knowledge of the truth and rejects it, he is doomed. As John Calvin said, the man who casts away free Grace offered by God will receive, and deserves, his greatest vengeance. Unlike the converted always-corrupt man who sins and can be pardoned, the always-corrupt man who rejects Grace becomes an unpardonable sinner. He literally becomes equal to Satan in that he will not, and cannot, receive pardon. A lust-filled, hate-filled man, full of his lower passions, who has saving faith will receive eternal life. And the best man that ever lived, holy in his own sight but unconverted to saving faith, will die to his eternal doom.

“For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” Hebrews 6:4-6

So, the quote seems to be an allegorical statement that man knows that God exists, seeks to understand him, either through his own knowledge which is limited by pride and a limited intellect, or though faith. Those that develop faith pass to eternal life. Those that don’t become like Satan and cannot be pardoned and receive the harshest wrath.

As others have mentioned, it mostly boils down to affection vs appetite. Appetite is inherently self-facing... the desire to satisfy yourself. Affection is a fondness for something... a sort of watered down image of love.

So both of those things, desire and fondness, can lead to love but since affection is outward-facing, it is more easily adapted.

And yet still, both of them are mere facsimiles of actual love. And because affection seems closer to love and more easily parades itself as love, it is a bigger let down when it is not actually love.

Micro already went deep by referencing Calvin and thus I can only pile on at this point! But a few adds follow.

Lewis, in The Four Loves, wrote:

“St. John's saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that ‘love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god’; which of course can be re-stated in the form ‘begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god’. This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God.
I suppose that everyone who has thought about the matter will see what M. de Rougemont meant. Every human love, at its height, has a tendency to claim for itself a divine authority. Its voice tends to sound as if it were the will of God Himself.”

Lewis is describing a manifestation (via love in particular) of man’s pervasive tendency to self justify himself. In a similar manner, it plays out with the Rich Young Man in the Gospel of Matthew:

And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.
And Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly, I say to you, only with difficulty will a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished, saying, “Who then can be saved?” But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:16-26)

It ain’t a matter of doing, it is a matter of grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone.

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Originally posted by YellowJacket:

And yet still, both of them are mere facsimiles of actual love. And because affection seems closer to love and more easily parades itself as love, it is a bigger let down when it is not actually love.

So what is actual love? Could we say that love is the creator of all that is? That God and love are interchangeable? Actual love (aka God) is ineffable and unconditional and as such we humans, who profess love for each other, are really feeling affection? No doubt there are varying degrees of affection, from feelings we have for a good friend to those we have for our child or spouse, but affection nevertheless.

People say that they fall into or out of love, but in truth it's a waxing or waning of affection that we mistakenly think of as love. Actual love, being unconditional, never varies.

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Originally posted by RogB:

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Originally posted by YellowJacket:

And yet still, both of them are mere facsimiles of actual love. And because affection seems closer to love and more easily parades itself as love, it is a bigger let down when it is not actually love.

So what is actual love? Could we say that love is the creator of all that is? That God and love are interchangeable? Actual love (aka God) is ineffable and unconditional and as such we humans, who profess love for each other, are really feeling affection? No doubt there are varying degrees of affection, from feelings we have for a good friend to those we have for our child or spouse, but affection nevertheless.

People say that they fall into or out of love, but in truth it's a waxing or waning of affection that we mistakenly think of as love. Actual love, being unconditional, never varies.

I believe affection is often a step into love. I don't think there is anything wrong with affection... it is just a symptom of love, as are other emotions like infatuation, passion, sympathy, compassion, respect, admiration, et al. But I disagree that humans don't feel true love. There is no doubt in my mind that what I feel for my wife and my two boys is love. God made us in his image and I believe we are fully capable of love. If "no greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for a friend," then there are millions and millions of people who have shown the ultimate true love and there are millions more who are willing.

I think 1 Corinthians 13 shows us a definition of love: patience, kindness, does not boast or envy, is not self-seeking, does not delight in evil, keeps no record of wrongs, never fails, etc.

While God is not an emotional being, Jesus certainly was. He was fully man which means the emotions he was capable of are emotions that we are capable of. He experienced everything that we do (Hebrews 4:15.)

Sin is the issue when it comes to the human capability of unconditional love. I believe we have the ability but it is extremely difficult because 1. we are sinful and 2. the object of our love is sinful.

I may be misreading your comment, but I think we are being too distracted by what is possible by man alone.

I agree that 1 Cor 13 quickly describes perfect love, but it is describing that shown in Christ. Absent the work of Christ, some men are certainly more loving than others. But if we read that passage as describing one of those more loving men, we have missed the whole gospel message and we are indeed mistaking brass for gold (to borrow from Lewis). We are assuming that some of us are more capable of climbing Jacob’s ladder to ascend to God. That is our original sin, symbolized by the name of that tree in the garden, which a Lutheran theologian (Ted Peters) paraphrased with, “Our daily inclination is to draw a line between good and evil and then place ourselves on the good side of the line.”

Furthermore, your quote from John 15 is describing Christ’s sacrifice for us. And though John uses the term “friends”, such is within the context of the saved sinner’s responsive life as a foreign branch grafted onto the true Vine (Christ). As stated earlier in that passage, that branch will not produce fruit (i.e. will not obey the command to love God and neighbor) on its own. Such fruit is only produced by the branch’s union with the vine and specifically effected by the sap – i.e. the Spirit – as it sanctifies that sinner throughout his present life. Thus, we should not view that passage as confirmation that such love is exhibited by a soldier’s willing sacrifice for his comrade or a father’s willingness to die for his sick son.

As Paul explained quite clearly in Romans 5, “while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

I do not mean to belittle the sacrifice of a fallen soldier or dismiss the angst of a sick son’s father. My wife has been struggling with a malignant brain tumor this year. I personally understand the desire to give one’s life to save / extend the life of a loved one. But, if my wife’s situation instead resulted from an attacker’s violent blow, would I be willing to spare that convicted man by taking his place in the chair? Sadly, I’m not that strong or loving. But Christ is and he died such a death for a man who cursed him and rejected him – i.e. he died such a death for me and for you. That, my brothers, is love.

And to expand on my earlier quote from Ted Peters, “What the gospel reveals is surprising. It is counterintuitive. When we draw the line between good and evil and then place ourselves on the good side of that line, the gospel reports that God is on the evil side of the line. Really!? Yes, truly. When we pursue what we deem to be the good, God sides with those who become victimized by our pursuit…To say it another way, our virtues are just as deadly as our vices, and God, among others, suffers from our virtues.”

I truly believe such was the point being made by Lewis with respect to brass, gold and clay. May God bless each of you and your families this Christmas.

I actually found YellowJacket's observations to be spot on. The topic isn't the nature of eternal/true/Divine love, and whether man can attain it. That's an important issue, but not what the C.S. Lewis quote was talking about.

Lewis was making a comparison of the lower affections (all of which fall short of divine). Specifically that animal attraction or lust, while base, is less likely to be confused with divine love. It is the clay that would never be mistaken for gold.

Contrast this with emotional attraction, a more noble affection. Because it is the more noble, it would be much easier to confuse with divine love. It is the brass that is more easily mistaken for gold. In reality it too falls short, but may cause much more damage in the confusion. It is the fallen angel that can be corrupted into a devil.