The Screwtape Letters

Screwtape comes up with an approach to use the patient’s girlfriend to the devils’ advantage. She considers those who do not share her Christian belief as “ridiculous.” In her, this belief is not so much pride as it is unfamiliarity. However, Screwtape suggests that they may be able to get the young man to copy her attitude toward outsiders: “Can you get him to imitate this defect in his mistress and to exaggerate it until what was venial in her becomes in him the strongest and most beautiful of the vices—Spiritual Pride?” (130).

Screwtape complains that the young woman’s family has not made a fad out of their Christianity by attaching it to some cause. He suggests that humans tend to get bored and complacent and seek novelty. This works into the devils’ plans: “[C]ontinued novelty costs money, so that desire for it spells avarice or unhappiness or both” (137). Moreover, intellectual and moral trends can be used to distract humans from the real intellectual and moral dangers they are facing; change itself can even come to seem like an end goal, regardless of whether it is desirable or not.

Screwtape directs Wormwood to foster problems between the young man and his beloved that will become more serious over time. Screwtape’s approach focuses on the way men and women perceive charity: Men are more likely to view it as staying out of other people’s way whereas women are more likely to view it in terms of action on behalf of others. This lays the groundwork for misunderstanding in a marriage. In addition, people who are infatuated with one another will naturally behave more unselfishly, potentially leading to disappointment when the infatuation (and charity) fades. Screwtape takes delight in couples where each partner makes a show of doing what the other wants, as this inevitably leads to arguments and resentment.

Screwtape criticizes Wormwood for believing that the mere fact that the patient is distracted by his romance is helpful—particularly as the young man recognizes this and is praying about it. Screwtape recommends that Wormwood instead corrupt the young man’s prayers by having him pray for concrete results. This will plant in his head the idea that prayers don’t work:

If the thing he prays for doesn’t happen, then there is one more proof that petitionary prayers don’t work; if it does happen, he will, of course, be able to see some of the physical causes which led up to it, and ‘therefore it would have happened anyway,’ and thus a granted prayer becomes just as good a proof as a denied one that prayers are ineffective (148).

Screwtape suggests that these misconceptions stem largely from the human relationship to time—i.e., experiencing events in succession rather than as an eternal present.

Screwtape is frustrated that Wormwood continues to report on the war, though he is very concerned that the young man may die in the air raid bombings in his town. The young man is in a good position to die and go to Heaven, whereas if he lives a long life, there will be many chances to fall away from his faith. Screwtape cautions that it generally takes many years for humans to become attached to their earthly existence in a sinful way, as their feelings naturally incline them toward their real home—with God.