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Review: C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

More By Andrew Prideaux

ARCANE AND GERMANE BOOK REVIEWS #7

“ “After reading a new book, never allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.” “All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.” (C.S. Lewis)

C.S. Lewis and The Christian Imagination

In his lecture given to mark the centenary of the birth of C.S. Lewis, J.I. Packer remarked,

I owe C.S. Lewis a lot … my introduction to him was something of a false start: in 1939 I read Out of the Silent Planet because as a boy I liked space-travel stories … By 1943 The Screwtape Letters … along with three little books that later became Mere Christianity, had led me to something approaching orthodoxy, and soon after I was born again in 1944 The Pilgrim’s Regress cleared my head regarding the intellectual milieu of which I was a part. [1]

The Screwtape Letters

Outside of the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity, are perhaps his most well-known and widely read works. Since their publication in the 1940s, these books have ‘cleared the heads of many,’ with their creative presentation of fundamental Christians truth and razor sharp critiques of modern (secular humanist) ideology. Like no other before or since, Lewis was able to ignite the world of the imagination out of a love for Christ, and a profound knowledge of human nature.

Lewis was a veteran of the trenches and already a leading light at Oxford when he was converted to Christianity from atheism in 1929. [2] Later becoming Professor of Mediaeval and Renaissance literature at Cambridge, he emerged as one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. Lewis understood in his own life the debilitating effects of sinful human-pride, which has turned from God and is bent in on itself. In all his writing, Lewis carefully—yet with brutal honesty—described the universal fallen human propensity both to be deceived and to deceive.

Better the Devil You Know

Nowhere is Lewis’ wisdom regarding our ongoing struggle with sin, the world and the devil more clearly on display, than in The Screwtape Letters . Taking the form of 31 letters— purportedly written by a senior devil (Screwtape) to his apprentice (Wormwood)— The Screwtape Letters offers a tempter’s guide in deceiving and manipulating human ‘patients’. Their aim, of course, is to steal a believer from ‘the Enemy,’ (i.e. God) and secure him as food for ‘their Father below.’

Lewis’ account of an ongoing exchange between two devils is written in a mocking tone. As Luther once encouraged believers to do, Screwtape is in part aimed at ridiculing the devil in his foolish delusions. [3] However, Lewis is deadly serious about the lies of the devil and their ability to obscure the truth revealed in Christ and the Scriptures. Screwtape reminds Wormwood that their work has a fundamentally negative aim: to ‘fuddle,’ and not to teach (Letter 1). He encourages his protegé to do his best to turn human minds away from God to focus on ourselves—during both challenging and mundane times. For example :

You can weaken his prayers by diverting his attention from the Enemy himself (God) to his own states of mind about the Enemy … in all activities favorable to the Enemy bend his mind back on itself. Let an insult or a woman’s body so fix his attention outward that he does not reflect ‘I am now entering into the state called Anger—or the state called Lust.’ Contrariwise let the reflection ‘My feelings are now growing more devout, or more charitable’ so fix his attention inward that he no longer looks beyond himself to see our Enemy or his own neighbors. (Letter 6)

Summarizing the essence of Lewis’ world-view Packer wrote,

This world is enemy-occupied territory, where Screwtapian ingenuity is constantly being employed to block and dissolve historic Christianity a formative force in people’s lives, to turn everybody’s cultural environment into a corrupting influence, to fill human minds with anti-Christian ideas and attitudes, and to lead people away from reason in the old moral sense (that is, thoughtful, responsible, prudent living). Satan battles God by systematically corrupting and destroying humans; our own story of universal personal temptation and the downward slide to hell is thus one facet of a larger conflict. [4]

For Lewis, fallen human nature displays a kind of ‘in-bred anti-God inclination’—by its nature, it suppresses the truth about God and eagerly embraces falsehood (cf. Romans 1:18-23; 3:10-18). But Lewis was no fearful dualist! The devil is not only deceiving but deceived; blind to the truth that through Christ and his death and resurrection, sin and death and hell are once and for all defeated. This does not stop the devil from lashing out against God’s people like a rabid dog chained to a post (e.g. Revelation 12:12 cf. Job 1:6-7; 2:3; 1Peter 5:8-9). As we await Christ’s certain return, we find ourselves in a spiritual battle; a battle that Lewis saw himself directly engaged in through all his writing and teaching. Packer writes,

[Lewis would say] ‘We are in a personal and a cosmic Holy War: stay at your post; stand steady, and don’t be discouraged, for truth, fact, and Christ the living Lord himself are on your side (cf. Ephesians 6:10-20). [5]

The Inexplicable Love of God for Fallen, Foolish and Frail Human Beings

The truth that is most irksome to the senior devil Screwtape, is what he sees as the inexplicable love of God for his human creatures. That ‘the Enemy’ (God) should bother to take such care in forming human creatures is bad enough, but that he should actually lower himself to become one of them in order to save them is beyond all devilish decency!

Remember always, the Enemy really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. (Letter 13)

One must face the fact that all the talk about his love for men, and his service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of himself—creatures whose life, on a miniature scale, will be qualitatively like his own, not because he has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to his. (Letter 8)

We want cattle who can finally become food; he wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, he wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; he is full and flows over. Our war aim is a world in which ‘Our Father Below’ has drawn all other beings into himself: the Enemy wants a world full of beings united to him but still distinct. (Letter 8)

Lewis vividly illustrates the biblical truth that while the devil’s intention is to flatter human pride; subtly employing half-truths and twisting and distorting our understanding of God’s biblical revelation (cf. Genesis 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11), God actually loves us and treats us as his dearly beloved children. The faith of each one of God’s people is precious in his sight. As he tests, disciplines and proves the faith of his people, our loving Heavenly Father is at work for our best good (e.g. 1Peter 1:3-9; 4:12-19; Romans 8:12-21, 28-39; Hebrews 12:1-13etc). Screwtape to Wormwood:

The Enemy (God) relies on the troughs even more than the peaks, some of his special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else … It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that the human is growing into the sort of creature he wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please him best … 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 around upon a universe from which every trace of him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. (Letter 8)

In Time for Eternity—Living for God through War and Pandemic

C.S. Lewis wrote Screwtape during the ‘abnormal’ times of World War II. Rather provocatively he writes in the Preface, ‘The history of the European War, except in so far as it happens to impinge upon the spiritual conditions of one human being, was obviously of no interest to Screwtape.’

Screwtape later instructs Wormwood:

Of course a war is entertaining. The immediate fear and suffering of the humans is a legitimate and pleasing refreshment for our myriads of toiling workers … We may hope for a great deal of cruelty and unchastity. But, if we are not careful, we shall see thousands turning in this tribulation to the Enemy … while tens of thousands who do not go so far as that will nevertheless have their attention diverted from themselves … How disastrous for us is the continual remembrance of death which war enforces. One of our best weapons, contented worldliness, is rendered useless. In wartime not even a human can believe that he is going to live forever. (Letter, 5)

Like his friend Tolkien, Lewis was a WWI veteran, and not naïve to the devastation that war brings at both a personal and a national level. [6] Many of his closest friends did not survive the ‘Great War’ and a large part of that generation were missing from the University where they both returned to teach. But Lewis was convinced from the Scriptures that there was a greater, ongoing war going on in the ‘heavenly places’ and in the hearts of men and women; not least in the apparent mundanity of ‘just getting on with one’s life.’ In this sense, as he noted elsewhere, while in one sense war made life ‘abnormal,’ in a very real way there is no such thing as normal life. [7]

Lewis was a WWI veteran, and not naïve to the devastation that war brings. But he was convinced from the Scriptures that there was a greater, ongoing war going on in the ‘heavenly places’ and in the hearts of men and women

This is one point at which Lewis’ writing at that time provides a contemporary challenge to us now in the ‘abnormal’ times of the COVID 19 pandemic where our lives seem so uncertain and so out of our control. As Scripture reminds us, no matter how strong and in control we feel at any given moment; both as individuals and as a society, we are fools to think that we can ever master time or the future. Our times are in God’s hands, and we must learn to number our days (c.f. Psalm 90). Of course Screwtape advises Wormwood to obscure this fact:

The Enemy would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (that is, with him) or with the Present—either meditating upon their eternal union with, or separation from, himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure. (Letter 15)

Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present … to live in the Past or [especially] the Future; that which is unknown to them, so that in making them think of it we make them think of unrealities … In a word, the Future is the thing least like eternity … Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. (Letter 15)

Christians live in the light of one clear horizon: the return of the risen Christ to judge the living and the dead; to vindicate his people and usher in the new creation (e.g. 1Thessalonians 1:9-10). Our certain destiny in Christ gives us the shape of our lives lived now in daily dependence upon God. We are not promised secret knowledge to help us form air-tight trouble-free 5 or 10 year plans. Our times are in God’s hands and we live by faith, not by sight. Lewis’ devil recognises the true peace that God gives to his people and works hard to undermine it:

… 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 so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other—dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, not kind, not happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future, every real gift which is offered them in the Present.

In the light of judgment day, the godless ambition to become ‘future proof’ through wealth, work, reputational security; or the dream of the perfect relationship or the ultimate adventure is a fool’s errand—and a devilish lie.

Hearken Not to a Liar but to Truth Itself

Jesus tells us that he is the truth and he promises that the truth will set us free; ultimately from sin, death and condemnation (John 6:63; 8:34-38; 14:6-7). The Good Shepherd knows his sheep and his sheep know him: they hear his voice and follow him (John 10:3-6, 14-15):

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10)

Lewis was a faithful servant of Christ, and his writings have helped generation after generation to critically engage with the world around them; to take every thought captive for Christ, and revel in God’s goodness to us in his Son.

Despite their best efforts, in the end ‘Screwtape’ and ‘Wormwood’ fail to drag their human patient away from the God who loves, preserves and protects him. At the moment of the death of the Christian in this book, Screwtape must reluctantly concede defeat:

Did you mark how naturally—as if he’d been born for it—the earth-born vermin entered the new life? How all his doubts became, in the twinkling of an eye, ridiculous? I know what the creature was saying to itself: Yes. Of course! It always was like this … You die and die and then you are beyond death. How could I ever have doubted it?’’ … he saw not only Them; he saw him. This animal, this thing begotten in a bed, could look on Him. What is blinding, suffocating fire to you, is now cool light to him, is clarity itself, and wears the form of a Man. (Letter 31)

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1John 3:2-3.

[1] J.I. Packer, ‘Living Truth for a Dying World: the message of C.S. Lewis, from ed. A. McGrath, The J.I. Packer Collection (Leicester: IVP, 1999), pp. 269-284.

[2] C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy , (London: Fontana, 1969 (1955), 182-183. ‘In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England … Who can duly adore that love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape?…The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and his compulsion is our liberation.’

[3] Lewis quotes Luther on the frontice page: ‘The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.’

[4] Packer, op.cit., p.274

[5] Packer, op.cit., pp. 282, 283.

[6] Lewis dedicated his book to J.R.R. Tolkien.

[7] C.S. Lewis, ‘Learning in Wartime,’ (1939) from, Transposition & other Addresses (London: Geoffrey Bles, 1949), p. 46. ‘The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice [and in the shadow of judgment day] … We are mistaken when we compare war with ‘normal life.’ Life has never been normal.’

Andrew Prideaux is a senior staff worker at the University of Melbourne with the Christian Union and the Simeon Network (AFES). Andrew is married to Vannessa and they have four children (three in secondary school and one at University). When not teaching, reading the Bible with students or writing, he enjoys listening to records and taking part in various musical projects. Andrew’s commentary on Job is forthcoming as part of the Reading the Bible Today Series (Aquila Press).

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The Book I Keep Rereading—Even though It Gets Less Funny Each Time

More by randy newman.

Taking the advice of C. S. Lewis, we want to help our readers “keep the clean sea breeze of the centuries blowing through our minds,” which, as he argued, “can be done only by reading old books.” Continuing our Rediscovering Forgotten Classics series we want to survey some forgotten Christian classics that remain relevant and serve the church today.

C. S. Lewis would be disturbed to see  The Screwtape Letters in a series about the benefits of reading old books. He’d say his book isn’t old enough. When he spoke of old books, he meant old  books—works by Plato, Athanasius, or Aquinas. But I find that the gap between his 1940s writing and my rereading today is long enough to qualify it as “tested against the great body of Christian thought down the ages” ( God in the Dock ).

When I first picked up The Screwtape Letters , I thought it would be funny. How could a fictional series of letters from a senior demon to a young trainee not be hilarious? (If you ever want to feel the full force of its humor, track down the audio version read by John Cleese.)

For example, who could resist laughing out loud when encountering this insight about pride:

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 specially 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.

Or when explaining that thinking about repentance is fine, as long as the Christian doesn’t actually do  it. As Screwtape counsels,

Let him, if he has any bent that way, write a book about it; that is often an excellent way of sterilizing the seeds which the Enemy plants in a human soul.

But I soon found the book far more probing than entertaining. Lewis shines the light of Christian reflection on sin and temptation in revealing and disturbing ways. He does cause me to chuckle—but that only makes me drop my guard long enough to feel conviction and repent. I view myself more honestly and turn from sin more decisively after eavesdropping on this diabolical dialogue.

The Screwtape Letters

C. s. lewis.

A milestone in the history of popular theology,  The Screwtape Letters  is an iconic classic on spiritual warfare and the dynamics of temptation.

This profound and striking narrative takes the form of a series of letters from Screwtape, a devil high in the Infernal Civil Service, to his nephew Wormwood, a junior colleague engaged in his first mission on earth, trying to secure the damnation of a young man who has just become a Christian. Although the young man initially looks to be a willing victim, he changes his ways and is “lost” to the young devil.

Many times I’ve marveled at how Lewis knew my darkest secrets. Apparently I’m not alone. In the preface to the paperback edition he wrote:

Some have paid me an undeserved compliment by supposing that my Letters were the ripe fruit of many years’ study in moral and ascetic theology. They forgot that there is an equally reliable, though less creditable, way of learning how temptation works. “My heart”—I need no other’s—“showeth me the wickedness of the ungodly.”

In preparation for writing this article, I thought I would skim the book one more time. I couldn’t do it. I simply can’t read The Screwtape Letters quickly. After just two letters, I needed to put it down, reflect deeply, repent thoroughly, and pray intently. Lewis might have had similar struggles in writing it. When asked by many to write a second volume of more letters, he declined: “Though I had never written anything more easily, I never wrote with less enjoyment.”

After just two letters, I needed to put it down, reflect deeply, repent thoroughly, and pray intently.

More than other books I’ve read about living the Christian life, The Screwtape Letters gets beyond mere “how to” and considers the essence of things—the essence of being human, the essence of sin and temptation, and the essence of time and eternity.

Human Nature

Concerning human nature, Lewis helps me grasp what it means to live in a physical body but also have a spiritual nature. Part of that duality is experienced as undulations. Our feelings ebb and flow, and our sense of closeness to our Creator fluctuates. Both the highs and lows can be used by God for making us more like him. But those highs and lows also provide great opportunities for the Devil. Remembering this has helped me profoundly during both the highs (when tempted toward arrogance) and the lows (when spiraling toward despair).

Again and again, I’ve been strengthened by Screwtape’s lament:

Do not be deceived, Wormood. 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.

Sin and Temptation

In regard to sin and temptation, it’s easy to treat all of it the same. But Lewis helps me recognize the distinct challenges related to specific sins. To be sure, all sin is the same when it comes to its ultimate consequence (damnation) and its only solution (the cross). Homogenizing sins, however, isn’t as helpful (or as biblical) as analyzing them individually to better resist them.

Anger, lust, gluttony, and other evils present themselves in different ways, requiring diverse strategies for resistance. Anger is triggered when I insist that time is mine (as if I produced minutes and seconds). Lust gets kicked into gear for other reasons—loneliness, hurt, or being misunderstood. Gluttony, I must remember, isn’t just overeating. It can rear its ugly head as a finicky, demanding insistence that food taste just the way I like it and be served at just the moment I—ruler of my culinary kingdom—demand.

Time and Eternity

Finally, reading The Screwtape Letters forges an eternal perspective that changes the way I view time.

More than 10 years ago, I faced the challenge of heart surgery. I needed to wait in the hospital for almost a week before various blood levels settled, to ensure a safe bypass procedure. During that waiting period, I reread The Screwtape Letters . Chapter 15 helped ward off tidal waves of fear and anxiety as I was reminded:

The humans live in time, but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. . . . He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present—either meditating on their eternal union with, or separation from, Himself, or else obeying the present voice of conscience, bearing the present cross, receiving the present grace, giving thanks for the present pleasure.

Do I recommend The Screwtape Letters ? Without reservation. Consider a slower pace than usual and plan on reading it more than once. But count on the laughter diminishing, and repentance growing, with each rereading.

Randy Newman is senior fellow for apologetics and evangelism with The C. S. Lewis Institute and occasionally blogs about evangelism and other topics at Connection Points . He is the author of multiple books, including Questioning Faith: Indirect Journeys of Belief Through Terrains of Doubt and Mere Evangelism: 10 Insights from C. S. Lewis to Help You Share Your Faith .

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THE SCREWTAPE LETTERS

by C.S. Lewis ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1942

These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942

ISBN: 0060652934

Page Count: 53

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943

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BOOK REVIEW

by C.S. Lewis

by Robert Harris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 22, 2016

An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...

Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.

Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”

Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016

ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | LITERARY FICTION | RELIGIOUS FICTION | SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE

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THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ

by Heather Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018

The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...

An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.

Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowi erer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas . She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.

Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018

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