The Role Of Faith In The Screwtape Letters By C. S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a book made up of 31 letters of teaching, communication, and familial advice communicated with the only two physical tempters in the book, Screwtape, the mentor, and his young eager to learn “nephew” or mentee, Wormworth. Screwtape uses the letters to aid him in influencing his nephew to do as he does in actions, thoughts, and in his work and convinces him to follow the way of Satan, their “Father” and to follow in both Screwtape and the Devil’s path. Wormworth’s “patient” is a young male who has newly tried to connect with the “Enemy”, God. Screwtape uses very common flaws, some of which are, materialism, physical attraction, and gluttony to try to draw him away from God, and brainwash him into believing all of his thoughts and detesting all outside sources as much as he can.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a book of thirty –one letters in which a retired, senior demon named Screwtape coaches his newly educated nephew, Wormwood. Wormwood is quite troubled when it comes to tempting his “patient.” Nevertheless, he need not fear because faithful uncle Screwtape has offered his services. A unique character featured in the letters is, “The Enemy.” This character refers to God, the natural enemy of Satan. Of course Satan is referred to as “Our Lord.” In the letters, and Wormwood and Screwtape try their very best to please Satan and bring him glory. Although the book is written from the demons’ perspective, Lewis naturally uses it to highlight important truths of the Christian faith.

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).

Have you ever wondered how demons try and lead us away from God and begin to sin? In the Screwtape Letters C.S Lewis shows us how a demon named Screwtape guides his nephew Wormwood on how to make sure their “patient” stays away from Christianity. The Screwtape Letters is an Epistolary novel that was written during World War II. In this novel God is considered “The Enemy” and Satan is “Our Father.” The main characters in this novel are Wormwood, Screwtape, and the patient. Screwtape is a demon who writes his nephew Wormwood from hell. Screwtape teaches his nephew the different steps of keeping his “patient” away from God. Humans are called patients by demons because they are trying to lead humans away from God. In this novel we don’t really

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 Letters, C.S. Lewis proposes a dialog between an experienced devil and a young inexperienced devil. We only get to read letters from the senior, Screwtape, to the junior, Wormwood. In these letters we overhear how Wormwood’s first assignment is going, what tempting strategies he should try, and what might happen to him if he fails. Screwtape comes across cordial in all his letters, but just beneath his tone he seems to dislike his young mentee. In every letter, Screwtape belittles Wormwood in some way or another, and by the end we hear Screwtape’s outright anger and outrage at Wormwood’s failure when his patient dies a Christian. Lewis’ style of writing equips me to better recognise Satin’s subtle deceptions, and does not make

“The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged diversity are excellent campaigning weather.” Screwtape wished to drag out the Christian’s life and turn it into a purposeless, repeating roll-play. He wanted to slowly and despairingly tear the Christian from God and so tear him from the only true hope and life and joy there is in this world. Do not be alarmed, though, because God is stronger that the demons and He, “having oddly destined these mere animals to life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else.” Screwtape admits that God insures his children a place in his forever home and an everlasting joy. Additionally, Screwtape refers to humans as “mere animals.” God created us in His image, which sets us apart from the animals. Screwtape therefore was trying to degrade humankind, to lower us, and how can any of us, humans, feel sympathy for one who so hates us

The patient in The Screwtape Letters is an interesting character. He is a struggle for Wormwood who is trying to keep him close to the Devil. I see him as a writer who has been put into the army to do defence work. I see him as a writer who was a professor so his knowledge is very extensive in many things in life.

In the Screwtape Letters, it talked a lot about how the devil can distract a Christian. A devil can shift a person’s focus on God with random thoughts and actions. In the book, Wormwood is told by Screwtape to distract his patient from converting to Christianity. Even along the patient's journey of getting into church and being a better follower of God, Wormwood found any little way to make his mind wander. Even today the devil can shift a Christians focus to mundane thoughts. So as we go through Screwtape letters looking at the distractions used by Screwtape lets also think about what mundane things the devil can do to us today.

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.

I chose to do my research and reading on The Screwtape Letters written by C.S Lewis, which is a novel written in unique perspective of a Senior Devil named Screwtape who writes thirty-one letters to his nephew Wormwood who can be considered somewhat of a novice devil or demon of some sort. In these letters, as readers, we find that they are undated and that they are meant to offer advice to his younger demon nephew as he attempts to steal the soul of a human, referred to as “the patient”. We are first introduced to the concept of “the patient” rather than “the human” when Screwtape explains to Wormwood about one of his first experiences with one. In his first letter, Screwtape explains that the best way to lose the human is if the human somehow decides to use reason because at that point, his reason will take him to God. He does this by teaching his nephew that, “Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it “real-life” and don 't let him ask what he means by real” (2). Ironically, the devil 's resort to calling God, “the Enemy”. We are first introduced to this idea in the introduction on the first letter when Screwtape states that “The trouble about argument is that it moves the whole struggle on to the Enemy 's ground” (2). Wormwood must find his opportunities by getting his patient to make unwise choices or let his emotions get the best of him. When the patient turns to

According to an article by Larry D. Harwood , “Lewis’s Screwtape Letters: the Ascetic Devil and Aesthetic God”, he states The Screwtape Letters portrays Lewis’s evil character and the principles of the “realism, dignity, and austerity of Hell” (2004). “In The Screwtape Letters Lewis portrays God as a lavish materialist affirming delight in a sensual as a part of being human. Lewis depicts the pleasures of sense...To Screwtape it appears that God took a gamble that not only makes little sense, but also appears to have come with costs to himself.” (Harwood, 2004). According to the article “Lewis's Screwtape Letters: the Ascetic Devil and the Aesthetic God” the mood of The Screwtape Letters is dusty, gritty as Lewis depicts Hell, due to the tone

Screwtape wants to destroy the patient and his mother's relationship all together. They both already had a mutual annoyance for each other despite what screwtape was trying to do. First method he wants to use is keeping the patient's mind on himself. This will cause anger and annoyance towards his mother in doing so. This all relates towards logos by being factual evidence to cause anger. With pathos, C.S. Lewis wants to show emotion that the reader can relate to. He does this by showing tone in the story with the patient and his mother. “I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moments notice from impassioned prayer for a wife’s or son’s soul to beating or insulting the real wife or son without qualm.” This gives us the sense of how evil devils can be towards

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 1942 in the United Kingdom C.S. Lewis published his book, The Screwtape Letters. This book is filled with the deep contemplating and theology that Lewis incorporates into much of his work. Whether it is allusions that come from the Bible or the personification of demons, C.S. Lewis is undeniably a prolific and talented author. The Emanuel Church in Rochester believes that the Screwtape Letters have a different twist from normal Christian books as it is from the demon’s perspective. The Church stated, “C.S. Lewis masterfully uses this unique style of writing to present many of the common weaknesses in a Christians life and then gives the reader encouragement… Lewis is known as a skilled writer and may be a little difficult at first to get