Clive Staples Lewis, author of The Screwtape Letters, was a famous novelist throughout the 20th century, and a prominent Oxford professor. He grew up hating God as an atheist writing works like “De Profundis” in which he curses God. Lewis fought in the first world war as a second lieutenant, and was pulled out for a million dollar wound. J.R.R. Tolkien and he were very good friends, Tolkien playing an important part of Lewis' conversion in 1931. From this he developed a firm faith which greatly changed his perspective, both in his writing career and his teaching. The Screwtape Letters, was written by Lewis to aid us in dealing with the temptations and mindsets that are prevalent in our day. This book is from the perspective of Screwtape a senior demon, counseling his nephew, Wormwood, through a series of correspondences. Screwtape teaches Wormwood how to deal …show more content…
with certain virtues and inspire sin in his “patients”. One of the main topics that Screwtape addresses is the patients view of time. He talks of the patient's view of the future (chapter 6), tries to get him to fear it (chapter 15), and make sure he views time as his own (chapter 21). In his sixth letter to Wormwood, Screwtape confronts the topic of dealing with your daily burden and the Lord's will being done. He concludes that Wormwood should seek to make his patient view the things in the future, the things that may be. “see that the patient never thinks of the present fear as his appointed cross, but only of the things he is afraid of” (Lewis 26). Through the brilliant hand of Lewis, Screwtape tells us exactly what not to do as is the purpose with these antonyms of truth. Lewis in this way is trying to minister into our hearts the thought of praying for what you are dealing with now, the problems, the temptations, and the struggles. Rather than praying for things that may not even be possible, so why should we worry about them. Paul says about this, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (ESV Philippians 4:6-7). Paul and Lewis don't want us to worry over the things that don't matter but rather to trust on God wholly. Moreover, in his fifteenth letter to Wormwood he discusses getting his patient to live in the future. Screwtape writes, “Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future... fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead” (Lewis 76). Since humans live time linearly rather than outside of it, and therefore tend to look ahead of us and not in the moment of time called the present. When one misperceives time and only looks to the future, they are opening the gateway to sin. It can also leave us in a state of stupor never able to focus, or get done what we need to because we are too focused on what might be ahead. As Screwtape said, “We want a man hag-ridden by the Future-haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth-ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by doing so we make him think he can attain one or avert the other” (Lewis 77). In all of this Lewis is trying to give us special hints into how to view time, we need to live in the present. This is where we are best suited to serve God as James says, Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”—yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (ESV James 4:13-15). He is saying that we cant know about tomorrow or what will happen in the future so we shouldn't plan with out remembering we are not in control. We should rather seek to worry about today and how we are using it to the best of our ability and to God's glory. Screwtape closes the theme of time in the twenty-first chapter.
He describes men as wanting to stake ownership on anything and everything just like the colonial world, where they would plant a flag somewhere and just declare ownership (even when there were people already living there like the Native Americans). However, we our typically led on with the thought, “My time is my own”(Lewis 112), as Screwtape so wisely puts it. This is flawed thinking, we truly own nothing screwtape states that if he was to question his ownership, “even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defence”(Lewis 112). This view is very prevelant in modern society, we have our own morals, our own bodies, our own lives to do with as we wish, yet this is exactly what Screwtape wants us to think. If we take the opposite of his advice which is always a good idea we will find that we we should view this time as the Lord's we are on borrowed time and so we should set it to the best possible use. As Paul says in, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 "You are not your own; you were bought at a price"(ESV). We don't even own ourselves we are the
Lord's. In summary, Lewis through the lens of a demon gives us vital insight into many topics of which or Christian faith greatly rely on. One of the major topics Lewis deals with is that of the use of time, through Screwtape's letters, we learn that we should pray for our present struggles, while we live in the present, and to remember we are only but stewards of this time.
...e, is the end; Despite all the odds Lewis highlighted important truths of Christian faith through the story of a demon who is not good at being a demon. Wormwood’s helper shows us those truths in thirty-one irrational letters. A message of light brought forth through darkness.
The Screwtape letters is from the perspective of demons. The screwtape letters is put together by 31 letters from a devil named Scretape. In the letters, Screwtape gives his nephew advice as he tries to get the soul of a human being, which they call the patient. In the beginning of the book, the patient has just be converted to Christianity. All through the book,Screwtape is trying to help Wormwood lead the patient away from God.
I believe that Lewis ends the book on such an ambiguous note to demonstrate the persistence of Screwtape’s lack of understanding of God and the power falsely held belief can have over others. This ambiguous view is used as a warning of the power of temptation. Screwtape firmly holds on to the belief of "the conviction that our Realism, our rejection (in the face of all temptations) of all silly nonsense and claptrap, must win in the end” because Screwtape lives with the guarded desperate thought that the kind of relationship God desires with humans places him at an unmistakable disadvantage, but he is always on guard to not be weakened by this realization. The warning that readers receive with the novel’s ending is that
The Screwtape Letters is one of the most popular works of prominent Christian writer C.S. Lewis. It documents the letters sent from the demon Screwtape to his nephew Wormwood regarding the damnation of an English gentleman living just before and during World War II. This novel is considered by many to be one of the best works by Lewis, but whether it is really worth the hype surrounding it is more subjective. Regardless of if it’s that good, however, it’s still a very interesting read and a fascinating glimpse into 1940s Britain and the moral dilemmas that were faced by good Christian people at the time.
After his conversion, C.S. Lewis' writings became less modernistic. Many of his most famous writings, such as Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, and The Chronicles of Narnia series contain his Christian worldview (Stewart 1), which was completely opposite of the mode...
We witness one of these never-ending dances first hand in C.S. Lewis' novel, The Screwtape Letters, as a high-ranked demon named Screwtape advises his naïve and inexperienced nephew on the best methods to use in corrupting his assigned ?Patient? and preventing the ?Enemy? from gaining the ?Patient? for himself. But though it may come from the evil perspective of an expert demon, the piece is really a reflection of the internal struggle in humans between good and evil, Lord and Satan, on a small, subtle, and discreet level. The conflict portrayed in this novel addresses the everyday sins and mindsets that more often than not lead to the downfall of a seemingly good and righteous person (unlike the focus on absolute evils such as outright dishonesty and murder common in other works on morality). The main character?s struggle plays out this idea that it is the little things a person does that have the biggest impact in his or her life, an idea that can be applied not only to the salvation of our spiritual immortality, but also to the value of our mortal lives as well.
The Western Religion text I chose to report on is The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis. Lewis’s mother died at age 9, which lead to atheism and immense amounts of reading and writing at an early age. The Screwtape Letters is comprised of 31 letters. They are written by an Uncle Screwtape, a senior devil, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior apprentice devil. Uncle Screwtape refers to his nephew as the “patient” because he is the person they are trying to turn away from Christianity. Throughout the beginning of the letter, Screwtape explains ways for Wormwood to draw the patient away from religion. Later letters show Uncle Screwtape critiquing and still teaching Wormwood how to effectively convert people away from Christianity.
...ts what is originally good by using false reasoning to subtly encourage gluttony of delicacy, pride in humility, and superiority in being part of an elite Christian social circle, and he uses psychology when directs their prayers to spring from their imagination and emotions instead of their intellect and will. He cleverly uses manipulative behavior to replace the will and intellect in prayer with imagination and emotion. Screwtape subtly makes gluttony of delicacy appear to be a virtue. He also uses subtlety in encouraging pride in humility, and superiority in being part of an elite Christian social circle, to make them seem like virtues. The subtlety and psychology used in C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters, awakens the readers awareness of the devil’s relentless struggle to gain possession of the human soul, and enhances the readers desire to remain close to God.
When I was little, one of my favorite books of all time was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis. I loved having one or two of the chapters read aloud to me before I went to bed. So when I peeked at the list of seven books, I knew automatically that I would want to read The Screwtape Letters, one of the same author’s earlier writings.
C.S. Lewis begins his book, “Mere Christianity”, by introducing the Law of Right and Wrong or the Laws of Nature. This, however, arises a question. What is the Law of Nature? The Law of Nature is the known difference between right and wrong. That is, mans distinction between what is right and what is wrong. “This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it and did not need to be taught it”(18). Lewis relates the law to how we treat others. We treat others the way we want to be treated and if they treat us poorly in return we become agitated and annoyed with them. He states that we become a society of excuses when something goes wrong. He goes on to say that we want to behave in a certain way when in reality we do the opposite of what is right or what is wrong. We are humans and humans have primal instincts. We are all capable of using our instincts to do right or wrong. Lewis uses an example of a drowning man to prove this point. When one sees a man in trouble two desires or instincts kick into play, to save the man or ignore him because the situation at hand could endanger you. However, there in another impulse that says help the man. With this comes a conflict of instincts. Do you run and forget about it or do you jump in and help. Most people will help even if the situation is going to endanger their life. This is just one way of seeing moral law. The right in a situation will mostly always prevail over the wrong. “Men ought to be unselfish, ought to be fair. Not that men are selfish, nor that they like being unselfish, but they ought to be”(30). We are creatures of habit and logic. Lewis believes that the moral law is not taught to us rather known by us instinctively. He also believes that the law is real. The law is our behaviors in life via good or bad. Lewis states, “there is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behavior”(30). This opens Lewis to believe that the natural law is both alive and active in mans life today. Lewis goes on to say that the law must be something above mans behavior. He begins to relate this to the creation of the world.
The Screwtape letters, was written by C.S.Lewis. In this paper, I will be examining the good versus the evil. In The Screwtape Letters Lewis is trying to talk somebody into doing something wrong or think something that is not true, when it is. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
In the Screwtape Tape Letters, Wormwood was the main character. He has graduated from devil Temptation College and is ready to begin his first assignment. Wormwood is given the task to distract his patient who has just been converted over into Christian lifestyle. With the help from his uncle Screwtape, they begin the process of conversion. Screwtape attempts to help wormwood stir his patient away from heaven. By giving Wormwood several suggestions first suggestion was to enter the patient's mind. Secondly, Wormwood was to influence and take him down the wrong path. Wormwood had several personality traits: such as destructive, dependent, and devious. He is constantly trying to get the patient off the right track for example, in letter number
One of the better known books from C.S. Lewis is The Screwtape Letters. The Screwtape Letters is a fiction book comprised of thirty-one letters from Screwtape, a senior tempter and head in a department in Hell, to his nephew who is a novice tempter Wormwood. These letters are detailed instructions on how to cause Wormwood’s patient to fall from the Christian life. Screwtape, in all his devilish wisdom, pin points certain tribulations that all humans face and gives a devil-sided view to the human responses. The book is fiction, yet can be studied because of the spiritual lessons that are inversely taught throughout the letters.
What are some characteristics of the Crakers, and why did Crake decide to include these characteristics when designing them? If you had a chance tobioengineer a new human species, what characteristics would you include and why?
...le have influenced Lewis greatly in his writing. For example, his Christian faith led him to write The Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and The Screwtape Letters because he was not ashamed of his faith in Christianity. Also, when his wife, Joy Davidman died because of secondary bone cancer, he wrote a book about how he grieved the painful loss of his wife because of secondary bone cancer. In this book, A Grief Observed, he also writes how he doubted his faith and became temporarily angry at God; through this he saw a different view of God and became thankful for the time he had with her and the idea of real and true love. In addition, the Moore family impacted Lewis significantly. Jane Moore was the motherly figure in his life because Lewis’ mother died when he was just ten years old. These were the events and people that affected Lewis’ life tremendously.