The Screw Tape Letters

 

Letter II Questions

 

  1. What do you think is meant by “All the habits of the patient, both mental and bodily, are still in our favor.”?

 


  1. How do Screwtape, and Satin’s followers, view the “church”?

 

 

 


  1. How is it that the Patient is believed to view the “church”?

 

 

 

 


  1. Do you believe people (especially new Christians) look at others in the church the way described by ScrewTape?  Why or why not?

 

 

 


  1. Why is it important to: “Never let it come to the surface; never let him ask what he expected them to look like.”?

 

 

 


  1. Why does Screwtape believe the Patient will experience “disappointment or anticlimax” as a new Christian?  Do you believe this to be true, and if so, why?

 

 

 

 

  1. At the end of the second paragraph ScrewTape identifies two elements of the human psychological makeup that he and his demons can use readily.  What are they?

 

 


  1. What is meant when ScrewTape states: “"If I, being what I am, can consider that I am in some sense a Christian, why should the different vices of those people in the next pew prove that their religion is mere hypocrisy and convention?"”?

 

 

 


  1. What do you think is meant by the statement: “He has not been anything like long enough with the Enemy to have any real humility yet. What he says, even on his knees, about his own sinfulness is all parrot talk. At bottom, he still believes he has run up a very favorable credit-balance in the Enemy's ledger by allowing himself to be converted, and thinks that he is showing great humility and condescension in going to church with these "smug", commonplace neighbors at all.”?

 

 

 

 

 

 


  1. What did you learn from this letter?