theological fantasy 1.
Discuss symbols of evil or the devil in our culture. How do these effect how we think about evil and/or the devil? How do these popular notions differ from what Lewis has depicted in his devil, Screwtape?
2.
The plot of Screwtape is not to tell a story, but to show the psychology of temptation from the point of hell. The young man under temptation could be Anyone, and the plot is the ultimate salvation or
damnation of every individual. By using this formula, how does Lewis make us understand the human condition? (Especially in terms of free will.) If Screwtape were writing a letter about you, what personality flaw might
he zero in on, and what psychology might he use to keep you "out of the Enemy's clutches?"
3. Which Screwtape letter most poignantly spoke to you, or bothered you, and why?
4.
In Screwtape's view, are there any particular crucial sins which ought to be developed in a person, and why? What sorts of attitudes is Screwtape most interested ingetting Wormwood to foster in the man he is tempting?
5.
Discuss some of the back-handed compliments that Screwtape pays to God, and his statements about trying to find out what "the Enemy" is really up to! What qualities of "the Enemy" does Screwtape confess stump him?
6. What reports back from Wormwood worry Screwtape and why? What reports don't worry Screwtape, and why? Did any of Screwtape's responses surprise you?
7.
"A being which can still love is not yet a devil." Lewis, writing from this precept, and not the precept that devils are engaged in a pursuit of something called Evil, says that bad angels are motivated by two things: First is their fear of punishment, and second is a kind of hunger. On Earth we have seen a desire or passion to dominate, to make another's intellectual and emotional life an extension of one's own. This desire is often called "Love." For devils the hunger is more ravenous. Satan desires to devour human souls, as opposed to God's Love which is to turn servants into sons intact with their full individuality (see Preface, pp. 8-9). Discuss how this corrupt passion is played out in Screwtape's letters to Wormwood.
8. Using an incident from one of these letters, explain how evil, or something that is bad, can be used to produce good. Could there be such a thing as "necessary" evil?
9.
Name one thing in your life that you unreasonably fear, and then try to exaggerate the situation to the point of absurdity! In other words, have you ever been able to confront one of your demons and turn it into a joke?
10. What effect overall, if any, did reading this book have on you? How might this book have been different if Screwtape would have only been looking at, in individuals about to become Christians, what we
normally think of as being the really big sins (for example: adultry, fornication, homosexuality, the practice of witchcraft, etc.)?
