The Pride that Comes After a Fall
Let’s continue our blog
series on Paradise Lost by
looking at Book 2.
Summary
Satan and his minions plot their course of action. Molech
argues they should renew their war with God and seek victory through military
effort. Belial advises they lie low, hoping that God may forget them and just
leave them alone. Mammon proposes they build a better Hell so they can learn to
enjoy their new home even more than Heaven. Satan already has a plan, but he
uses Beelzebub to propose it to the crowd so that the demons think it is their
own idea. Beelzebub wins the throng’s approval, and they all agree to seek
revenge against God by corrupting His newest creations—humans. Satan offers to
do this difficult task himself, receiving honor and applause. He then
approaches the gates of hell, which are guarded by Sin and Death. Satan demands
passage, and he and Death argue. Sin steps in to appease them both, and finally
all agree on Satan’s plan. With Hell’s gates opened before him, Satan embarks
on his mission through the vast gulf that exists between him and his
destination.
Meditation
Satan does not want to simply strike back at Heaven for his
humiliation. No, he wants to spite God by seeking something greater than
revenge; he wishes to “interrupt [God’s] joy” (line 371) by attacking and
defiling the crown of His creation—i.e., humans. His goal is to seduce mankind
to his side and to drive out the “puny inhabitants” of earth (line 367) from
the pleasures of Eden.
These passages give us insight into the essence of all sin:
pride. Satan hates the joys of God and man because they remind him of what he
rejected. As we will see in Book 4, when “the Fiend” (as Satan is called) sees
the delight of creation, he is thoroughly undelighted
(line 286). If he must be without these joys, so must everyone else. Of course,
only pride would sink to such depths.
As C. S. Lewis states in chapter 8 of Mere Christianity, pride is essentially competitive in nature. It
is not content to be rich or clever or beautiful—it is content only when it is more rich or more clever or more
beautiful than everyone else.
If I am a proud man, then, as long
as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer
than I, he is my rival and my enemy. . . . In God you come up against something
which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. . . . [But God]
wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things
of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will,
in fact, be humble—delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having
for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has
made you restless and unhappy all your life.
In rejection of this humble state, Satan clings to the
“silly nonsense about [his] own dignity.” Or, as Lewis says in Chapter 13 of A Preface to Paradise Lost, “In the
midst of a world of light and love, of song and feast and dance, [Satan] could
find nothing to think of more interesting than his own prestige.”
The seed of this pride resides in every human heart. Like
Satan, we cling to notions of our own prestige, our own worth, our perceived
right to rule and govern our lives without interference. When we succumb to
this mindset, it is easy for the words and actions of our sovereign Creator to
produce within us a “sense of injured merit” (PL, Book 1, line 98), as was the
case with Satan. When we insist on our own way, we demonstrate the pride of
unbelief. But if we succumb to the merciful Lordship of our Creator and Savior,
we demonstrate the “delightedly humble” state Lewis talked about—the humility
of faith in the goodness of God as reveled in the gospel.
Next week, we will see a beautiful portrayal of this gospel
in Book 3.