C.S. Lewis Writes the Screwtape Letters Lewis:

¶ … C.S. Lewis writes the Screwtape Letters

Lewis: The Screwtape Letters

In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis discusses Christianity once again, this time from the point of the demon Screwtape, who puzzles over God and cannot understand what he needs to in order to gain more knowledge. He tried to destroy faith, but he is so limited in his knowledge and understanding of God that he is not very good at what he is trying to do. He wonders about God several times throughout the book because he cannot understand that God does not win people by wooing them away from the devil and bending them to his will by his punishment, but rather he wins them to him by showing them love and allowing them to be themselves. That does not mean that there are no rules, but only that they are not turned into copies of Him in the same way that the devil would attempt such treachery.

Since this book is told from the point-of-view of Hell it is a very different look at Christianity than other books that Lewis has written on the subject. The correspondence that Screwtape has with his prodigy, Wormwood, is very enlightening and shows how easily someone who was not paying attention to their faith could stray into the promises made by the other side. Screwtape has such difficulty believing that God loves people and wants them for sons that he undermines some of what he is trying to do by his own ignorance. The differences between what he wants for men and what God wants for men comes fairly early in the book when he makes the comment that God wants servants to become sons, but he (Screwtape) wants cattle to become food (Lewis, 30). There is such a strong difference in the two beliefs, and Screwtape fails to see that, while he thinks man is free and he wants to enslave him, God knows that man is already enslaved, and He wants to free him. This understanding is the fundamental difference between good and evil that Screwtape does not seem to be able to completely grasp. Without an understanding of how much humans are really worth, he cannot find the means of enslaving them and convincing them to come over to his side.

Actually, it is Wormwood who is unable to convert the soul of one man, but Screwtape's letters to Wormwood are what is used to try to win this man over, so it is actually Screwtape's ignorance and not Wormwood's that keep the man on the path to Christianity. The man eventually becomes friends with people that are rich and intellectual, and they are cynical about much that goes on in the world (Lewis, 37). Screwtape is happy to see this because he knows that people of this nature are often not devout toward God and that they prefer sensory experiences which Wormwood and Screwtape will be able to offer them. Because of this, Screwtape thinks that the man will leave Christianity and come over to the devil, but this is not the case.