What Is The Purpose Of The Devil In Wormwood's'screwtape Letters?

The devil at the dawn of Christianity bore little resemblance to the ruler of hell, the antichrist and agent of evil that he is known as in present day. Satan makes few overt or implied appearances in the Old Testament. For the important role of God’s greatest adversary, early Christians had to flesh out great parts of Satan’s story in order to develop him into his present, fearsome persona. The Christian story of the Devil is heavily influenced by earlier Greek mythology, and early Christian writings about the Devil co-opted local mythology in order to gain new converts and discredit popular pagan beliefs.

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

“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

Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, is an interesting novel containing the interaction between a devil named Screwtape and his young nephew Wormwood. The book is comprised of letters corresponding between the two devils. Screwtape is a senior devil and is tasked as a mentor to his less experienced nephew. Screwtape instructs Wormwood on how to tempt a new Christian, or "patient". He suggest many different intricate ways of using human emotions, thoughts, and weaknesses to tempt their faith, and keep them from the kingdom of heaven. The ultimate goal to attain humans for their master in hell. Wormwood is at first encouraged by his uncle Screwtape, but is later criticized because he can't control his patient, and fails at keeping him from church.

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.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis is a book with thirty-one chapters written by Screwtape, a highly-ranked assistant to the Devil, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior demon. The chapters are presented as letters and provide instruction on how Wormwood can corrupt his Patient, an ordinary man, and lead him from a life of Christian faith towards the Devil. Throughout the letters, Screwtape serves as a first-person narrator, “character within the story narrates” (“Fiction terminology”). In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis uses satire, sarcasm, and analogies to highlight the difference between God, Satan, and man while emphasizing the importance of timing in manipulating the Patient towards Satan and away from God.

In the Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis provides a series of lessons in the importance of taking a deliberate role in Christian faith by portraying a typical human life, with all its temptations, and failings, seen from the devils’ viewpoints. Screwtape holds an administrative post in the government of Hell, and acts as a mentor to his nephew Wormwood, an inexperienced (and incompetent) tempter. In the 31

It changes the way how I look at each side of a situation. In today’s society, no one talks about how ‘good’ the devil is or how ‘evil’ God is. Instead, we are taught what is ‘good’ and ‘bad.’ The Screwtape Letters is a take and a look into the ‘evil’ side. Rather than being praised, God was condemned. He was the evil to all the good work accomplished by the Devil. The role reversal made me realize that not only are there two sides to every belief, but there is also no right or wrong answer. Each side has his or her own belief and each person is entitled to believe in anything. In the eyes of Wormwood and Screwtape, Christianity is the death of all. The religion kills off many people who should belong to Hell. Just like God and Heaven, the Devil and Hell are trying to create their own following. They are trying to be their own personal

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

One of the reasons the devil is the worst thing un the world is because he tales advantage of people un need, to make them do things the should not do, which causes pain to others and themselves.

If more emphasis is placed on the devil it will create fear in the heart of the church. Spiritual warfare becomes bad when the church continuously blame the devil as the source of our weakness even when we know that our failure comes from our personal weak points. The more we give attention to the devil the more he is gaining more strength to attack us. Personally, one area that I feel that the church has failed is not recognizing that we fight against our flesh, world and the devil.

He does this by making us unable to hear the word with inattention, ill will, and ignorance. When we let things get in the way of our being able to be present and pay attention on Sunday morning the devil wins. When we have ill will towards members of the clergy or congregation or any other thing that goes along with the service, it causes us to have an aversion to the words we are hearing. Servants of Satan are so deceived by him that they are not able to understand the meaning of the word of God, so God blinds their mind to keep them from seeing the glory of

Satan’s attack is immediate and does not wait for one to receive some understanding of God’s Word, but angrily promotes an attack full of lies and deception. He immediately attacks letting the babe in Christ hear “God can’t save you”. He continues to bombard the babe in Christ, creating more and more doubt that God only wants what is best for you.

Satan comes to man with his temptations as an angel of light, as he came to Christ. He has been working to bring man into a condition of physical and moral weakness, that he may overcome him with his temptations, and then triumph over his ruin. ...He well knows that it is impossible for man to discharge his obligations to God and to his fellow-men, while he impairs the faculties God has given him. The brain is the capital of the body... pg. 236

If you look back at that verse in Helaman it says, "When the devil shall send forth his mighty winds." Not if he may, or it might happen every now and then. It says WHEN. This means that it is going to happen and that the fact that you are built upon Christ doesn 't make you impervious to bad things happening in your life. In fact I would say when you are doing good that 's when satan wants to attack you even more!