Temptation In The Screwtape Letter

Living out the teachings of the Catholic faith every day is something that many Catholics struggle with. It is difficult to keep our minds focused on God’s love for us and our love for Him in return, especially in the modern world. People are surrounded by temptation to sin every single day. We see pathways leading people to sin through things on television, articles in magazines, photos on the internet, and music on the radio. However, although the temptations to sin appear to come from these objects, the source of temptation comes from the demons who utilize these immoral pathways and lead us to sin through the earthly materials. The Screwtape Letters, by C.S. Lewis, is about a senior demon, Screwtape, who writes multiple letters to his nephew,

Wormwood, giving advice on how to tempt Wormwood’s patient into falling further away from the path that leads to God. The major theme in The Screwtape Letters is the constant conflict between God and Satan over the human soul. The most important point of the book is to give insight of how demons manipulate humans into falling astray from the path of righteousness. Through teaching us how to be bad Christians, C.S. Lewis also teaches us how to be good Christians. Two of the major themes in the book are the various temptations of the devil and the prevailing righteousness of God.

Temptation is the first major theme that is evident to the reader from the first letter.

Screwtape explains to Wormwood how easily humans are distracted from “the Enemy”, who from the demons’ viewpoint is God, through the material world around us. By emphasizing the theme of temptation throughout the book, Lewis makes the reader realize how easily the material world distracts us from God and keeps our attention diverted from Him. In speaking through the demon letters, Lewis helps his audience to combat temptations by understanding the methods that the devil uses to fight Christianity.

Other examples of utilizing temptation is when Screwtape tells Wormwood to put thoughts of arrogance and pride into his patient’s mind so that the man will believe that he is greater than non-Christians, and when Screwtape claims that God’s idea of love is actually contradictory, and tells Wormwood to implant thoughts of lust in his patient. Screwtape sees manipulation of the man’s mind as the essential key to keeping a man separated from God. The demons use mental manipulation to invoke sinful thinking, sinful actions, and doubt of the faith. This belief is demonstrated when Screwtape becomes angry with Wormwood for allowing the man to do things that are spiritually pleasurable to him. The man reads an enlightening book and goes on a walk through nature, which ultimately opens his eyes and heart as a pathway for the love of God. Screwtape is angry with Wormwood for not planting sinful and distracting

thoughts into the man’s mind, resulting in a greater potential for closeness to God.
Through the many letters of advising Wormwood on how to tempt his patient, the demons ultimately fail. The man who was converted to Christianity at the beginning of the book is drafted by the military, dies in World War II, and goes to heaven, not hell.
God ultimately wins. In the end of the novel, Screwtape recognizes that the demons can’t win by corrupting humans. Previously in his letters, Screwtape acknowledges possible defeat when he says, “Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. (Page 47, Letter 8)” This statement foreshadows God’s victory over the temptations of the demons.
Even when humans are weak and question their infortune, many choose to believe in a God that they can’t see, feel, or hear because they long for the ultimate union that God will reward them with. Humans can be distracted, tempted, and even fall into great sin, but in the end the man seeks love of God and trusts in Him. Almost all of the attempts to drive the human soul away from God fail. This couples with the Christian belief that good can come from evil. Based on the plot of the story, Lewis shows readers that invoking evil is ultimately paradoxical, and helps lead his audience back on the path of morality through his book.
The Screwtape Letters is a composition of letters giving instructions on how to keep a man away from God.

I thought the most profound aspect of the book was the way in which Lewis cleverly teaches his readers to fight the devil’s schemes and stay spiritually strong with respect to having a relationship with God. Sun Tzu, the author of an ancient influential book on Chinese military strategy wrote, “To know your enemy, you must become your enemy.” This book puts the reader into the mindset of a demon attempting to lure a man’s soul to hell. In a sense, by examining the mind of the demon, we become the demon; by becoming the demon, we know the demon; and by knowing the demon, we know how to fight against his perpetual temptations that pull us away from the light of God and into the darkness of

hell.
This book was very intriguing to read. As the letters progressed, they presented new areas in which the devil attempts to defile a man’s relationship with God through temptation. Looking at how the devil works from a different point of view, being the offense rather than the defense, was a true eye-opener and allows me to recognize the works of the devil in the world around me, and know how to fight against the immoral urges and thoughts that are presented in my mind by demons.