the Present is the point /at which time touches eternity.

the Present is the point /at which time touches eternity. 

[The demon Screwtape writes:] 

 

The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. 

 

He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things,

 to eternity itself, and to that point of time //which they call the Present. 

 

For the Present is the point /at which time touches eternity. 

 

Of the present moment, and of it only, 

humans have an experience /analogous to the experience //which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; 

in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them.

 

* 후치수식 형용사구  /analogous to the experience //which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; 

* 형절/관대절  //which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; 

* analogous adj (comparable, similar in some ways) 유사한, 비슷한, 닮은

 

 He would therefore have [them] [continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present]

—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself,

or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross,

receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Our business is [to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present].

With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. 

 

But this is of limited value, 

for they have some real knowledge of the past 

and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity.

 

 It is far better to make them live in the Future. 

 

Biological necessity makes [all their passions] [point in that direction already],

so that [thought about the Future] inflames hope and fear. 

 

Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make [them] [think of unrealities]. 

 

In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. 

 

It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.

From The Screwtape Letters
Compiled in Words to Live By

The Screwtape Letters. Copyright © 1942, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Words to Live By: A Guide for the Merely Christian. Copyright © 2007 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission of HarperCollins Publishers.