Make Believe

"All mortals tend to turn into the thing
they are pretending to be" (46).
C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters (1942)

Points for Reflection

The Screwtape Letters (1942), chps. 1-17

1. which academic disciplines does Screwtape suggest are likely to awaken humanity to God’s presence, and which does he identify as effective tools for drawing folk away from God?
2. is Screwtape’s implied distinction between “visible” church and “real” church valid?
3. why might a preoccupation with the visible church distract one from a “mountaintop” conversion experience?
4. why would demons like Screwtape encourage their human targets to focus on the inner and “spiritual” world at the same time that they discourage attention to the material world?
5. what familial hiccup does Screwtape recommend that Wormwood exacerbate?
6. when it comes to efforts to confound prayer, does Screwtape recommend that Wormwood deemphasize, or overemphasize, the role of emotion in his subject’s mind?
7. does warfare work alongside the demons’ efforts to drawn their targets into hell, or counter those efforts?
8. do the demons attempt to direct humans’ prayers and their malice in similar directions?
9. Lewis’s demons appear eager to use either belief or disbelief in themselves—in demons—to their advantage.  Towards what extremes do they attempt to draw humanity?
10. does Lewis appear to support either patriotism or pacifism in times of war?
11. does Screwtape see the “law of undulation” as inherently beneficial to his demonic machinations?
12. does Lewis configure pleasure as inherently good, or inherently evil?
13. Screwtape likes stoking duality of mind and opinion in his targets.  In your own experience, what circumstances make it more likely that one would life “parallel lives” (47) in this way?
14. what types of humor does Screwtape regard as God’s territory, and which sorts lend themselves to sinful thoughts and behavior?
15. why do these demons prefer that humans experience a continuous, guilty unease to a sharper shame?
16. do these demons see pain and pleasure as equally dangerous threats to their own dark purposes?
17. in what various ways might these dark forces try to use one’s humility against them?
18. assuming the demons speak truth on the issue, does God appear to prefer that humans fixate on the past, present, or future?
19. do these demons encourage church attendees to develop strong opinions about places of worship?
20. what might Screwtape mean by the distinction between gluttonies of “delicacy” & “success”?
    

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Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu