Screwtape Letter #28 – Discussion Guide

Letter #28

Screwtape wants the patient to live?

My dear Wormwood,

When I told you not to fill your letters with rubbish about the war, I meant, of course, that I did not want to have your rather infantile rhapsodies about the death of men and the destruction of cities. ... Do you not know that bombs kill men? Or do you not realise that the patient’s death, at this moment, is precisely what we want to avoid? ... This is so obvious that I am ashamed to write it.

28.1) Why does Screwtape want the patient to live?

The answer to the previous question may be obvious to Screwtape – but is it possible that Screwtape is also shortsighted on this? Consider that maybe God’s in control and the patient is meant to be a light. Where does that fit in with free will – both of the patient and of Screwtape & Wormwood?

I sometimes wonder if you young fiends are not kept out on temptation-duty too long at a time—if you are not in some danger of becoming infected by the sentiments and values of the humans among whom you work. ... If he survives the war, there is always hope. ... You will notice that the young are generally less unwilling to die than the middle-aged and the old.

28.2) Is Screwtape treating Wormwood like a “patient”?

It’s been said that if you tell a lie often enough, you start to believe it. Think about what Screwtape has said in previous letters about not letting “the patient” see the truth. What does the line below really mean?

Do not let us be infected by our own propaganda.

The truth is that the Enemy, having oddly destined these mere animals to life in His own eternal world, has guarded them pretty effectively from the danger of feeling at home anywhere else. ... A great human philosopher nearly let our secret out when he said that where Virtue is concerned ‘Experience is the mother of illusion’; but thanks to a change in Fashion, and also, of course, to the Historical Point of View, we have largely rendered his book innocuous.

28.3) The great human philosopher that Screwtape speaks of is Immanuel Kant, who lived from 1724 to 1804, but is still a central figure in modern philosophy. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says this about him –