CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Class Two
Review of Last Week:
Who was C.S. Lewis? Why is fiction useful? What are three of his “main ideas”?
WWII and the Battle of Britain:
WWII began on September 1, 1939 when Germany invaded Poland. Great Britain and others then declared war on Germany.
British rationing began in January, 1940. Germany invades Denmark, Norway, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands in that same year. Battle of Britain begins on July, 10, 1940 (bombing and blockade); bombing continued at least until May 1941, but main “battle” ended around 15 September, 1940, when the British dealt major defeats to two large scale attacks.
British losses: from July to December 1940, 23,000 dead and 32,000 wounded; almost 3,000 died in a single raid on December 19, 1940.
The USSR joined the Allies on June, 22, 1941 when Germany invaded it. It had used a pact with Germany as cover to take Baltics and part of Poland/Ukraine. Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Victory in Europe Day: May 8, 1945.
Screwtape Letters.
Chapter One:
It is rhetoric, not logic or science that is best at tempting people away from God. People don’t think in terms of “true” or “false”; this makes them susceptible to propoganda/influence of other factors.
Abstract reasoning about universal ideas and the reality of unseen things gets people ready to encounter Truth/God.
Real science leans to wonder; but not if people don’t really engage in it, but just assume that they know (and one of the things they “know” is that science disproves religion!).
Chapter Two:
Why are our habits more important than our labels (e.g. “Christian”?).
What do you think about Screwtape’s juxtaposition of the real Church with what the patient sees? How do we get past the gap between the grand expectations of Orthodoxy and what we see in our parishes? How do we converts and reverts (and newlyweds!) past the “anticlimax”? What doesn’t God just give humans things instead of making them “do it on their own”?
Chapter Three:
On spirituality: “Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones. Aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious. You must bring him to a condition in which he can practice self-examination for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself, which are perfectly clear to anyone who has over lived in the same house with him or worked the same office.”.
On prayer: “Make sure that they are always very “spiritual”, that he is always concerned with the state of her soul and never with her rheumatism.”
On pride: “Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging all his mother’s utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and the context and the suspected intention.”
Chapter Four:
On prayer: why are unregimented prayers dangerous? Note the observation that whatever our bodies do affects our souls; what is the implication for prayer?
On feelings vs. will: “Teach them to estimate the value of each prayer by their success in producing the desired feeling; and never let them suspect how much success or failure of that kind depends on whether they are well or ill, fresh or tired, at the moment.”
Screwtape wants to divert prayers from the ineffable God (a posture that reinforces humility), to a false image of him (an approach that reinforces pride). Are our icons a help or hindrance in this respect?
Questions for further investigation:
In chapter one, Screwtape refers to the Incarnation as “that abominable advantage of the Enemy’s.” How does the Incarnation help us with our prayer and spirituality? (see, for example,. Jn 1: 1-18; Hebrews 1: 1-4; 2: 10-18).
In chapter two, Screwtape says that the patient lacks humility and thinks that he has a “very favourable credit balance” with God. What do you think? (see, for example, Gn 6:5; Lk 18: 9-14; Rm 3: 21-28; Ep 2: 1-10; 1 Jn 1: 5-10)
In chapter three, how can the patient and his mom improve their relationship? (see, for example, Mt 7: 3-5; Rm 12: 10-18, and 1 Cor 13:4-7.
In chapter 4, Screwtape notes our lack of discernment/spiritual vision. Why can’t we see God? Why can’t we see spiritual reality (angels, demons, sin, blessing, miracle, etc.)? (see, for example, Ex 33: 18-20; 1 Cor 13: 8-12;
Next Week: Chapters 5-7
