CS Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Class Five
Background Information on Spiritual Warfare: Where do demons come from?
Revelation 12:9: And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
What about Genesis 6:1-4? When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
St. Justin Martyr. Second Apology, Chapter V. But if this idea take possession of some one, that if we acknowledge God as our helper, we should not, as we say, be oppressed and persecuted by the wicked; this, too, I will solve. God, when He had made the whole world, and subjected things earthly to man, and arranged the heavenly elements for the increase of fruits and rotation of the seasons, and appointed this divine law—for these things also He evidently made for man—committed the care of men and of all things under heaven to angels whom He appointed over them. But the angels transgressed this appointment, and were captivated by love of women, and begat children who are those that are called demons; and besides, they afterwards subdued the human race to themselves, partly by magical writings, and partly by fears and the punishments they occasioned, and partly by teaching them to offer sacrifices, and incense, and libations, of which things they stood in need after they were enslaved by lustful passions; and among men they sowed murders, wars, adulteries, intemperate deeds, and all wickedness. Whence also the poets and mythologists, not knowing that it was the angels and those demons who had been begotten by them that did these things to men, and women, and cities, and nations, which they related, ascribed them to god himself, and to those who were accounted to be his very offspring, and to the offspring of those who were called his brothers, Neptune and Pluto, and to the children again of these their offspring. For whatever name each of the angels had given to himself and his children, by that name they called them.
Screwtape Letters.
Chapter Thirteen:
What is “a repentance and renewal.. of ‘grace’”? Why would such a “second conversion” probably be “on a deeper level than the first”?
What do you think of the “well-known phenomenon”? How do “some humans” manage to be “permanently surrounded by it”?
Why are Pleasure and Pain dangerous to the demons? What is the difference between “real” pleasure and pain and the “romantic” versions of them?
How does God make us more of who we are when we lose ourselves in Him; but the demons make us less so when we do the same in them/vice?
Screwtape suggests that the experience of joy and repentance may not be enough to keep the patient safe from damnation; why not? What else is required?
Chapter Fourteen:
Humility seems to be a fragile virtue – why is that? What can we do to make it stronger? To destroy/replace it with something else? Is it possible to be so objective in our enjoyment of other people’s triumphs? Of our own?
How is humility different from having a low opinion of oneself?
Chapter Fifteen:
God wants us to focus on the eternity in now; how can we be tempted away from that? Why is the future a better source of temptation than the past?
How is planning for the future different from putting our hearts into the future?
If Wormwood is right, why is “Hope” considered one the chief Christian virtues?
Chapter Sixteen:
How might going to church make a person a critic rather than a pupil? How is this affected by visiting many different churches? By staying in one?
What is the spirit a person can have that will allow; “platitudes to become really audible to a human soul” and that will allow almost every sermon or book to be “dangerous”?
How can making the faith/liturgy easier for the congregation actually make things worse?
How is the faith of the priest important to the congregation?
What would an Orthodox “party parish” look like?
One of my favorite lines in the whole book is; “We have quite removed from men’s minds what that pestilent fellow Paul used to teach about food and other unessentials—namely, that the human without scruples should always give in to the human with scruples. You would think they could not fail to see the application. You would expect to find the “low” churchman genuflecting and crossing himself lest the weak conscience of his “high” brother should be moved to irreverence, and the “high” one refraining from these exercises lest he should betray his “low” brother into idolatry. And so it would have been but for our ceaseless labour. Without that the variety of usage within the Church of England might have become a positive hotbed of charity and humility. How does this point apply to past conflicts in our parish?
Next Class: Chapters 17-21
