I am a little over half-way through the book, but in a very under-detailed and condensed summary, (as far as I have read) this book is from the perspective of a "professional devil" who is writing letters to his nephew, a "junior tempter", describing how to spiritually attack his "patient". He shows him different techniques, plots, and devices to assault him/her in different ways. Before I describe some of the ways he (Screwtape) has taught Wormwood (the nephew), I will state some of the truths that C.S. Lewis does before starting the book.
1. What is the opposite of God? It is in fact, not satan. Satan is not an equal of God, nor is he able to counteract God as an opposite. Satan is the opposite of Michael (an angel), because the he himself was an angel once, (*Isaiah 14:12-15). 2. Angels do not look like sweet little sunshiney creatures with halos and little wings, because they are warriors! God literally has an angel army! Every time an angel is seen in the bible, they have to begin their statements with "Fear not"... because they are frightening and intimidating! And 3, the last of the main statements...He reminds the reader that the book is written by a human! This is a work of fiction, with theological truth. Screwtape is not a real devil (though how ironic if one had that name) and he has no nephew named Wormwood, this is just an insightful (and witty) book to help us correctly picture these creatures. He reminds the reader as well, that this book is not written perfectly, and to caution any unbalanced ideas one may get about devils being in more control over your life than God. They are not. God is the ultimate authority and power, nothing that isn't supposed to will get past Him. This is just written showing one side of the warfare.
With that said, and a clearer picture of angels and devils depicted, I'll get into some profound statements made by C.S. from the perspective of Screwtape.(Note: any mention of the "Enemy" especially capitalized, is referencing God, and Screwtape may not necessarily be telling the truth, he is a cunning devil after all...) Here's a few of my favorites:
- "Above all, do not attempt to use science (I mean the real sciences) as a defense against Christianity. They will positively encourage him to think about the realities he can't touch and see. There have been sad cases among the modern scientists. If he must dabble in science, keep him on economics and sociology; don't let him get away from that invaluable 'real-life'. But the best of all is to have him read no science, but to give him a grand general idea that he knows it all and that everything he happens to have picked up in casual talk and reading is "the results of modern investigation". Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!" (page 10)
- "Work hard then, on the disappointment or anti-climax which is certainly coming to the patient during his first few weeks as a churchman. The Enemy allows this disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy, who has been enchanted in the nursery by The Stories from Odyssey, buckles down to really learning Greek. When lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing. The Enemy takes this risk because He has a curious fantasy of making all these disgusting little human vermin into what He calls His "free" lovers and servants-"sons" is the word He uses, with His inveterate love of degrading the whole spiritual world by unnatural liaisons with the two-legged animals. Desiring their freedom, He therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to "do it on their own" And their lies our opportunity. But also remember, their lies our danger. If once they get through this initial dryness successfully, they become much less dependent on emotion and therefore much harder to tempt." ( page 14)
- "Our policy, for the moment, is to conceal ourselves. Of course this has not always been so. We are really faced with a cruel dilemma. When the humans disbelieve in our existence, we lose all the pleasing results of direct terrorism, and we make no magicians. On the other hand, when they believe in us, we cannot make them materialists and skeptics. At least, not yet. I have great hopes that we will learn in due time how to emotionalize and mythologize their science to such an extent that what is, in effect, a belief in us (though not under that name) will creep in while the human mind remains closed to belief in the Enemy." (page 32)
- "Another possibility is that of a direct attack on his faith. When you have caused him to assume that the trough is permanent, can you not persuade him that "his religious phase" is just going to die away like all his previous phases? Of course, there is no conceivable way of getting by reason from the proposition "This is false." But, as I said before, it is jargon, not reason, you must rely on. The mere word phase will very likely do the trick. I assume that the creature has been through several of them before-they all have- and that he always feels superior and patronizing to the ones he has emerged from, not because he has really criticized them, but simply because they are in the past." (page 43)
- "I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specifically true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove! I'm being humble", and almost immediately pride- pride at his own humility- will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt- and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don't try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed" (page 63)
Part Two
As I finished "Screwtape Letters" I continued to be shocked at the way of thinking that it ensues. You really have to bend your mindset, and use a whole new perspective, but it is so interesting and thought provoking. The conclusion of the book was Wormwood losing his "patient" and not succeeding. The spiritual warfare that had been working in him was finally ended, and he got off on the side to be on :)
Throughout the whole end of the book, you can see the struggle and the beginning of the losing battle for Wormwood and Screwtape. The last letter is actually Uncle Screwtape furiously pleading/yelling with him to just listen and obey what he had been saying. Himself being a "professional tempter" he cannot grasp how Wormwood's mind does not think as his own, and that is told throughout the entire book, he's trying to teach with a very frustrated mindset, and that's not working so well for him.
As a conclusion, I will share my 3 favorite quotes from the second half of the book (to give myself boundary, because there are so many good ones).
- "You must therefore guard in his mind the curious assumption "My time is my own". Let him have the feeling as he starts the day that he is the lawful possessor of the twenty four hours. Let him feel as a grievous tax that portion of his property which he has to make over to his employers, and as a generous donation that further portion which he allows to religious duties. But what he must never be permitted to doubt is the total from which these deductions have been made was, in some mysterious sense, his own personal birthright." (page 96)
- "We produce this sense of ownership, not only by pride, but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun-the finely graded differences that run from 'my boots' through 'my dog' 'my servant' 'my wife' 'my father' 'my master' and 'my country', to 'my God'. They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of 'my boots', the 'my' of ownership. Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean 'my Teddy bear' NOT the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stand in a special relation (for that is what the Enemy will teach them to mean if we are not careful) but "the bear I can pull to pieces if I like". At the other end of the scale, we have taught men to say "my God" in a sense not really very different from "my boots" meaning "the God whom I have a claim for my distinguished services and whom I exploited from the pulpit-the God I have done a corner in"." (page 98)
- "But since your patient has contracted the terrible habit of obedience, he will probably continue such 'crude' prayers whatever you do. But you can worry him with the haunting suspicion that the practice is absurd and can have no objective result. Don't forget to use the "heads I win, tails you lose" argument. If the thing he prays about doesn't happen, then that is one more proof that petitionary prayers don't work; if it does happen, he will, of course be able to see some of the physical causes which lead up to it, and 'therefore it would have happened anyway' and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good proof as a denied one, that prayers are ineffective." (page 126)
*Isaiah 14: 12-15 ""How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven; above the stars of God I will set my throne on high; I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far reaches of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.' But you are brought down to Sheol, to the far reaches of the pit." (ESV)
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