A Vice Pair for Damnation
A vice pair, from a reader:
and when I speak the word of God with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them.
–with sharpness, they tremble and anger
–with no sharpness, they harden their hearts
They respond to pointed rebukes by getting mad at the rebuker – ‘how dare you talk to me this way’
But if someone tries a gentler approach they ignore it, laugh ‘em off.
they have made themselves impervious to criticism and therefore to improvement. Being unable to progress is the definition of damnation.
A lot of popular modern psychotherapy is designed to achieve damnation as far as I can tell. There is a non-damnable version of “learning to love myself” but that version doesn’t seem to be what’s often on offer.
Filed under: We transcend your bourgeois categories | No Tag
Lewis
February 9, 2026
He thinks great folly, child,’ said Aslan. “This world is bursting with life for these few days because the song with which I called it into life still hangs in the air and rumbles in the ground. It will not be so for long. But I cannot tell that to this old sinner, and I cannot comfort him either; he has made himself unable to hear my voice. If I spoke to him, he would hear only growlings and roarings. Oh, Adam’s son, how cleverly you defend yourself against all that might do you good!
Aslan in the Magician’s Nephew