The devil’s strategies, and how humility defeats them

In chapters 27–32 of the spiritual classic The Spiritual Combat, Lorenzo Scupoli outlines the various strategies used by the devil to hinder souls at different stages of the spiritual life.

The devil's primary weapon against souls in mortal sin is blindness. St. Gregory the Great warns that “the crafty foe first blinds the minds of those whom he succeeds in casting down, lest they should see the light of truth.”

The devil keeps sinners in serious sin from thinking—from any penetrating awareness of their true state. He floods them with distractions and new occasions of sin so that blindness deepens with each sin, creating a vicious cycle that can only be broken by God's grace.

Scupoli insists that the remedy for this bondage is immediate action. The sinner must cry out to God for help, seek spiritual counsel without hesitation, and turn to Christ crucified in urgent prayer.

For those who recognize their sinfulness and desire to change, the devil employs a different tactic: procrastination. He cries like a raven: “Tomorrow, tomorrow.” People say, “When I have finished this business, when this trouble passes, then I will serve God more peacefully.” Yet salvation is not a side project to be scheduled; it is the one necessary thing.

Scupoli warns that resolutions to change often fail for three critical reasons. First, they are rooted in self-trust rather than reliance on God. Second, resolutions fail when they focus on the beauty and consolation of virtue rather than the cross that accompanies it. We are drawn by romantic visions of holiness but shrink from the daily sacrifices required. Third, resolutions often spring from self-seeking rather than pure love of God and submission to his will.

The remedy is clear: our resolves must be firmly founded on distrust of self and trust in God alone. We must learn to love the difficulties that accompany virtue, for they strengthen the will and prove our commitment genuine.

Once the soul begins to make progress, a subtle new danger emerges: spiritual delusion. The devil distracts us with grand aspirations for future heroism while we neglect present duties and cannot bear small daily annoyances. 

St. John Climacus exposes this self-deception: “Do not trust in your imagination, saying to yourself, ‘I can easily endure torture for Christ,’ when you cannot even bear a slighting word from your neighbour.”

Such souls dream of martyrdom but cannot accept criticism. They imagine bearing great sufferings for God while complaining about minor inconveniences. Thomas à Kempis warns: “What do proud imaginations avail you? The humble knowledge of yourself is a surer way to God than the deepest search after science.” St. Isaac the Syrian said, “He who senses his sins is greater than he who raises the dead with his prayer.”

As the soul grows stronger, the devil becomes more cunning, tempting through apparently holy desires. A sick person, for instance, may become restless thinking of all the good works he could do if only he were healthy. This seemingly pious desire breeds impatience with God's providence and eventually rebellion against his will.

St. Francis de Sales addresses this directly: “We must not desire health in order to serve God, but accept sickness to serve him; we must not desire life to praise him, but accept death to glorify him.”

The remedy is patient acceptance of one's present state, recognizing that obedience and patience in trial please God more than the grand but unrealized works we imagine.

Finally, the devil attacks even those who have acquired genuine virtues, turning their very goodness into an occasion for pride and vainglory. Here the devil whispers not “sin,” but “you are holy.” He presses the soul to look at its prayer, fasting, charity, or successes and to savour them as its own.

Scupoli's remedy is meditating continually on one's own nothingness. Apart from God's grace, we are nothing, know nothing, can do nothing, and deserve nothing but eternal damnation. St. Paul asks the essential question: “What have you that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a gift?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

St. Anthony the Great saw all the snares of the enemy spread out over the whole earth, and groaning he said, “What can get through from such snares?” Then he heard a voice saying to him, “Humility.”

The deeper we dig into the earth of our nothingness, the loftier God can build the edifice of holiness in us.