Christian Truths in the Screwtape Lettters by C.S. Lewis Essay

The demons that lurk around each and every one of us, in the darkness and shadows, can use things like reality or bad influences and many other ways to get in their “patient’s” head. The demons can’t even use the same things that God uses, to get to us; the demons just use it in an evil way. In The Screwtape letters, all of these pains plus many more pains are used to lure “Patients” towards the darkness. In the Gospel of Matthew, we are warned about demons and other false teachings, “beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they ravening wolves” (Matthew 7:15).

“The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away. Once there was this and that; and now- and the ship had gone.” Pg 91

Lewis refers to God, Satan and Hell many different ways. When mentioning God, he uses the term “The Enemy” which in our minds, would normally be in reference to Satan. He also refers to him as “The Father Above,” and to Satan as “Our Father Below” and “High Command.” Hell is referred to as “Our Father’s House.” “Screwtape Letters” is written with this context because it is from the point of view of a demon who goes by the name of Screwtape. This is satirical, it is the opposite of the way we would normally think. In our minds, we think of God as “High Command,” and as Our Father, not as “The

In the Screwtape Letter, by C.S. Lewis, Srewtape insists that all pleasures are created by the Enemy, meaning God, and that demons have not figured out how to create them. It’s an idea commonly seen in Christian theology. God brought all things into this world to be good, and those things can and have been corrupted by demons and the lot. What Screwtape is saying is that, God wants people to experience pleasure, and that it is a demon’s job to corrupt a person’s sense of that pleasure.

demon, Screwtape, addressed to his nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is assigned his first “patient” and it is his skilled Uncle Screwtape’s job to help him through the process. A patient is the demon’s human that they are assigned to keep away from God and to constantly face with temptation. Screwtape receives reports from Wormwood each week and then responds with advice and techniques. Screwtape highlights many different ways to keep us from following God, especially with limiting our understanding of “real” to mean only the material (23). In other words, demons don’t want us to think about the spiritual world around us, only about real materials lacking the meaning of the purpose of life so that we don’t ask questions about what will happen to us after death.

C.S. Lewis covers many topics in his fourth book contained in Mere Christianity titled BEYOND PERSONALITY: OR FIRST STEPS IN THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY. He addresses such topics as theology, what it means to be the Son of God, the three personal God, the relationship of God and time, the cost of being a Christian, how God works to turn us into image of Christ, why Christian growth is both hard and easy, and also what he thinks about our old personalities before becoming Christians. These are all relative topics that apply to us and our daily lives. Learning and understanding this book can help a Christian tremendously in forming a deeper relationship with God.

The Screwtape Letters is an inverted approach to Christianity that parallels the ideals in Ignatian spirituality. In a discussion of hell as a means of business, an Uncle, Screwtape, writes letters of psychological insight for his nephew, Wormwood, to coax his subject into turning towards Hell. Though C.S. Lewis writes from the perspective of demons, this organically highlights the truths of Christianity. Screwtape pushes Wormwood to have the patient discover evil in every dimension of his life as the patient begins to become a follower of Christianity. To note, the Christian God is labeled as the “Enemy” whereas the Devil is labeled as “Our Father Below”. In order to turn the subject away

In The Screwtape Letters, the topic of love appears continuously throughout the text. In different ways, it is seen that the theme of love is used. Love is commonly understood as a deep feeling for another but C.S describes God’s love as so much more. God’s love is unchanging and no matter what wrong is committed, he will continue to love. Whether it is seen in the patients love of Christ, his love of his mother, or his love for his romantic partner, they all point to one prominent thing, God. Screwtape and Wormwood continuously fight throughout the book to strip the patient of the things that he loves in his life to ultimately lead him away from the true source of love, which they call the enemy, Christ.

In the book The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, Uncle Screwtape sends a collection of letters to Wormwood, always signing your affectionate Uncle Screwtape. Screwtape, the older demon, counsels Wormwood on how to tempt “the patient”, a human. Through the course of the letters his “Patient” becomes a Christian. When his “patient” die, the human ascends to heaven and Wormwood descends to Hell. We can all agree these demons were manipulative and harmful, but we disagree whether they are pitiable.

These pages describe how a novice demon named Wormwood was given the huge task of securing the damnation of a young man identified as the patient. In addition, a senior demon named Screwtape, the uncle of Wormwood, was in charge of coaching his young inexperienced nephew. After reading the first few pages in this book, I was reminded of personal stories I heard regarding Adolph Hitler. When I was younger in History class, I heard how Hitler attempted to wipe out the Jews, God's chosen people. I remember hearing someone say, “There's a special place in hell for him”. While reading the pages in the Screwtape Letters, I understand why this was said. I have concluded that this would mean that there are different degrees to hell. Since it's

“The Screwtape Letters” written by C.S. Lewis and first published in 1942 formed a new perspective in which christians could recognize the evil in temptation easier. Displaying the demon’s side of the story and adding a bit of humor in the process. C.S. Lewis was playing with the idea of how us humans are being tempted daily and we don’t even notice it. Yet he still adds an interesting way to express the story by making it look like his uncle “Screwtape” is attempting to help his nephew “Wormwood” learn to take someone's soul by tempting them into hell. His so called “patient” is his test subject as he attacks his christian mindset and even uses it against him. The demon uses friends, families and knowledge against the patient in order to take

The Screwtape Letters is a novel that's written in an epistolary and satirical style. The novel is comprised of letters that's written from the perspective of a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood, who is a less experienced demon. Screwtape is trying to mentor him through a series of letters since Wormwood is trying to guide a human toward “Our Father Below” from "the Enemy”. According to The New Yorker, “For believers, the letters are theology in reverse, teaching the love of God through the wiles of the Devil, but for all readers, regardless of belief, the letters frame human experience as a familiar sequence of trials…..” Justice Scalia, , also said “that’s a great book. It really is, just as a study of human nature”. Love is an important theme in “The Screwtape Letters”. Screwtape fails to fully comprehend God’s love for man, which he understands as real but irrational. C.S. Lewis mentions that love is vital for human civilization but that we can’t let love replace other human qualities. In the story, Lewis put forth the idea through the protagonist in the story, Screwtape, that human love is selfish and that divine love is faithful. Lewis implies that we shouldn’t fully rely on as well as love imperfect things. He says that he wants people to lessen their love with other emotions and ethics such as respect and loyalty. He

In the book The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis, one of the major themes is war. War is not just a conflict between one country and another; it is what people make out of it, and how people respond to it. In the book, The Screwtape Letters, it’s not talking about war against another country, the theme war is between heaven and hell. The book gives the reader a spiritual side of reality. C.S. Lewis gives us understandings into how the powers of evil work to trap and destroy humans who want to follow Christ. For Lewis, it is not an “obligation that we must be delivered from demons that possess and control us”; it is that we are constantly influenced and manipulated by them. The demons are finding new ways to corrupt and pollute, trying to make

Through the past four months, I have learned a lot by reading The Screwtape Letters and writing many reflective essays. When I started to read the book, I saw it only as a school assignment that I needed to complete to make sure I kept my grades up. However, after the first couple of essays, I actually started to get interested in the book and what it had to say. Before this book, I thought I knew almost all I needed to know about sins and what was a sin and what was not. I quickly found out that I was wrong and I had a lot to learn about sin and temptation by the Devil. By reading this book, I really learned more about my spiritual life and areas of life I need to take a deeper look at and make some changes. I would have never known I needed to change certain parts of my life had I not read this book. It is scary to think if I had not read this book, I could be committing a lot of sins I never knew about. For this reflection, I chose the four chapters that I thought I could best relater to and see in my everyday life. I chose chapters one through four. My mom also read these chapters, and we discussed how each of us

The plot of the book is the young tempter Wormwood trying to turn his “patient” away from God and towards Satan. Satan demands worship out of hate for God and love of himself above all other living beings. He left Heaven because he had his own ideas of what was right and wrong and wanted to be like God. On page 121, Screwtape even revealed that Satan doesn’t worship anything but himself. Satan doesn’t care about how others feel: he can only see how it feels good for him. Unfortunately for Satan, he needs to completely take over our lives in order to get worship.