Tempetation- In The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, there are two demons, Wormtail and Screwtape, who are trying to corrupt a human, who they call Patient, from straying towards the words of God and the acts Christianity. Screwtape, the elder demon, tells Wormtail that he realizes how enslaved humans are to be of the ordinary. To fit in. Temptation is what every human has. The temptation to go against God and Christianity. “Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.” (page 207) Screwtape tells how a demon could
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Hence, he cannot understand why God created mankind. He cannot understand how God could love the world so much that he gave his only son so that he could die on the cross for humans’ sins. He doesn’t understand why God wants to reward humans in Heaven for their virtues and beliefs. By exploring Screwtape’s misunderstanding of the basic human idea and his incomprehension of love, Lewis composes his own theory of what human’s love should be. Screwtape believes that one has to love themselves before they can love their neighbors. “When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors.” (page 225) Screwtape tries to define love by contrasting it with the demon’s belief in “realism.” The only purpose of life is to conquer other forms of life. Screwtape believes that love is the opposite of “realism,” that love is the belief that two beings can share the same needs and work to satisfy the needs. “Probably the scenes he is now witnessing will not provide material for an intellectual attack on his faith — your previous failures have put that out of your power. but there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried. it turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is “what the world is really like” and that all his religion has been a fantasy. You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word “real”. they tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, “All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building”; here “real” means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had. on the other hand, they will also say “It’s all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it’s really like”: here
Hence, he cannot understand why God created mankind. He cannot understand how God could love the world so much that he gave his only son so that he could die on the cross for humans’ sins. He doesn’t understand why God wants to reward humans in Heaven for their virtues and beliefs. By exploring Screwtape’s misunderstanding of the basic human idea and his incomprehension of love, Lewis composes his own theory of what human’s love should be. Screwtape believes that one has to love themselves before they can love their neighbors. “When they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors.” (page 225) Screwtape tries to define love by contrasting it with the demon’s belief in “realism.” The only purpose of life is to conquer other forms of life. Screwtape believes that love is the opposite of “realism,” that love is the belief that two beings can share the same needs and work to satisfy the needs. “Probably the scenes he is now witnessing will not provide material for an intellectual attack on his faith — your previous failures have put that out of your power. but there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried. it turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is “what the world is really like” and that all his religion has been a fantasy. You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word “real”. they tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, “All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building”; here “real” means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had. on the other hand, they will also say “It’s all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it’s really like”: here