The Screwtape Letters is a Christian apologetic novel by C. S. Lewis and dedicated to J. R. R. Tolkien.
The Screwtape Letters Summary
In the 1st letter, Screwtape tells Wormwood that the goal of a devil should be to prevent a human being from thinking. With this opening statement, C.S. Lewis argues that critical thinking about Christianity will actually lead a person to understand the faith and embrace it. The Screwtape Letters!
In one each of the 31 letters, Lewis tries to logically prove one part of Christianity to be true. Rather than fear critical thinking and focus on blind faith, Lewis wants to use reason & logic to support Christian doctrine.
C.S. Lewis presents free will as humanity’s greatest weakness, but also its greatest strength. While freedom does allow humans to sin, and thus go to Hell, it also allows them to overcome their sins, train themselves to choose morally good actions, and go to Heaven.
Throughout the 31 letters, Lewis gives a classic image of how humans constantly vacillate between good and evil. God and Satan cannot “force” humans to do anything but rather “encourage” humans to behave certain ways.
Thanks to a treacherous Wormwood, Screwtape’s suggestion that God loves humans and wants them to love one another briefly places him in danger of being convicted of heresy by the “Secret Police” (19th Letter).
By the end of the novel, the Christian idea that God only allows evil because He can bring about a greater good is made clear (eg. the devil’s tactics usually backfire on them).
Screwtape reminds Wormwood that he feels “the same love” for Wormwood that Wormwood feels for Screwtape. In the end, he reminds Wormwood that the penalty for failing to corrupt a human is being eaten alive — and Screwtape himself will be the devil to eat Wormwood. The Screwtape Letters!
“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 there lies our opportunity. But also, remember, there 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” (2nd Letter).
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About the Author
Clive Staples Lewis was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University and Cambridge University.
