Screwtape Proposes a Toast

This encore by C.S. Lewis with a speech to the graduates of a new class of tempters covers many different topics and elaborates on the points that Screwtape wrote to his nephew about during his tempting.

One of the topics that I found interesting was about the number of "great sinners" growing fewer. I guess he sees this as being done by many powerful rulers of the world who did bad things in their countries being brought out of rule. But in place of these “great sinners” there are a number of shall we say “lesser sinners” who may impact people’s lives even more. These people include lower rulers who corrupt the areas they rule and more so movie stars and other celebrities. People see movie stars and really try to model their lives off of them. They watch every move they do and are obsessed with knowing what they are up to. They can have such a large influence on people, more so than they usually think. If all the people that watch them and attempt at modeling their lives off them influence the people close to them in their lives sooner rather that later we could have a world of sinners.

All in all this world is not getting rid of sin and temptation anytime soon and people need to evaluate what they are doing and seeing if it is really a good way to be acting.

Letter 28

I find it interesting Screwtape talking about not wanting the patient to die before their work is done on him. I never thought of it that way. I always pictured the devil wanting people dead, but really he wants them to act in immoral ways and get others to do the same, to make the world an unhappy place. Therefore one must be alive for the devil to be able to have an influence on you. The devil is apparently visible in many different forms these days, many people do not even know that they are portraying themselves or other things that can be seen in that light.

The people that you associate yourself with will definitely have an impact on what type of life you live. Falling in love with someone of strong faith and moral values is going to help you to do the same. This has already been talked about, but Screwtape is kind of recapping the failures of their mission on the patient. It is also true that thinking about your distractions away from God will bring you closer.

I like the quote that Screwtape uses “taken out of himself.” It is talking about not thinking about oneself, but instead worrying about the well being of others. It is his effort of helping others because of a moral obligation that he may feel all on his own, but in essence brings him closer to God because it keeps him from other distractions and helps those people to feel better about themselves.

Letter 26

I am not sure for what reason, but I still typically cannot understand what point Screwtape is trying to get across. It seems like he uses a lot of words to get across what are actually much more simple ideas. He uses a lot of examples which are usually too complex for me. I like things to be spelled out more plainly for me.
In this letter to Wormwood, Screwtape tells him about how people use love to put aside problems which will come back to get them later. His main point is that of unselfishness and how male and female see the issue differently. This is where he loses me. I don’t really see his differences as being relevant. He also talks about the couple doing charity for each other and self sacrifice. He says that it comes easy at first, before the love wears off. With him talking like this it makes it sound like marriages can never work. I understand he is coming from the side of the devil, but to even believe that is irrational. If there were no marriages how could we pro-create. With no family structure it would lead to a disorderly world. It already happens enough and if everyone was off making babies with whoever they pleased we would not have a good society to live in. I know this may be pretty far off topic from where Screwtape was going with it, but that is the beauty of a book. You can let it take you where ever you want. Especially when there is no one to tell you exactly what you are supposed to think about it.

Letter 24

Letter 24 deals with an issue that I think may happen a lot even in contexts different but similar to how it is addressed here. Love can make people act and think in all sorts of ways. People will some times try to be someone they are not to please the one they are after. There are definitely varying degrees of this problem. Here we see the patient thinking that he belongs to a much higher class of society than he in reality he does. He is doing this because he has fallen so far into love that he has become ignorant to his surroundings. When one becomes so involved into their new group they often think that any other way of doing something is inferior to their new surrounding. They think that anyone else is not as good as them.

This belief, Screwtape, compares to thinkging that one’s religion is better than any other. They believe this in a way that is not loving and goes beyond doing good things for others. People are often rude to others. All the while thinking they are being this “cannot do anything wrong” holy person. They need to watch their communication skills and realize that not everyone is going to make the same efforts towards their relationship with God. This can be a very harmful thing to God. I hope these type of people can come to the realization that some people need to find their own way to God.

Chapter 21

After taking a little break last week I am back to talk about another rousing letter from Screwtape to his dear nephew Worwood. In this letter I hear Screwtape in an entirely different tone than I have throughout the rest of the book. I guess it is just that the content in which he is talking to Wormwood is quite different. It is not so much about outside influences, but more about the person. People are too often consumed with their own lives. Not to say that it is bad to think about oneself. One must be happy with them self in order to do good for anyone else. When these thoughts occur more and more often then they become destructive. They are bringing others down around them through their selfish acts.

While people are possessive about their time it is almost worse about their material things. They are often put on a level equal with God. This is just wrong. People talk about their possessions and just throw God’s name in the mix. They say it like he is just something they can come to when ever they want. People do not think about the how they do not have ownership over anything. People do not think about all their possessions actually being God’s, along with each person that lives on this earth. At least that is his dream that each person can be one of his. The relationship with God needs to be cultivated and then you may be able to speak of him more like a possession. This possession needs to be held in much higher regard than any earthly possession.

Letter 13

Letter 13 struck me as particularly interesting out of the letters that were assigned for this week. I never thought about how holding on to one's own opinions makes them closer to God. Obviously there are many people who hold strong opinions and do not have a relationship God; however doing so allows a person to keep an individualist characteristic about themselves keeping them from getting sucked in to the crowd. This crowd is typically full of people without morals and who do not care about how their actions portray themselves or affect others.
It is comforting to hear that God really likes us. God allows us to be ourselves and wants each person to be unique and enjoy their life. When Screwtape talks about this he makes it sound as if getting people to abandon the things that define them is a difficult task. The scary thing is that it really is not that difficult. People like to say that they are not influenced by others, but that is far from the truth. Just about everything a person does comes from the observation of others. This makes it hard for a person to tell where they end and peer pressure starts.

Letter 9

There are some very interesting ideas in the ninth letter, which are finally becoming visible to me with a better understanding of the concept of the book. They are talking about the patient experiencing a period they refer to as a trough which I could not figure out. I knew what a trough was from which horses drink, but I had not understood the first time I read through how they were applying this to a human life. The exploitation that Screwtape talks about this is scary. It makes sense that when a person is down and out, not feeling themselves, or experiencing a rough time in life, that they would be susceptible to corruption. Two things that he talks about using against humans are sex and drinking. Two things that should be good experiences, beautiful and just plain fun respectively. People can take them too far though. Sex should be reserved for love, not abused and used to try to make you feel better. Alcohol is in a way similar, that is should be used for celebrating and joyous occasions with others, but can be extremely destructive if used in situations of anguish and despair. Additionally two quotes that I particularly liked and I think speak a lot for the path our existence is taking are; “You have only got to keep him out of the way of experienced Christians (an easy task now-adays) … and “and don’t forget the blessed word ‘Adolescent.’”