Chapters V-VIII Questions

1. What is Screwtape’s idea on the best way for humans to die? Why?

Screwtape said, "How much better for us if all humans died in costly nursing homes amid doctors who lie, nurses who lie, friends who lie, as we have trained them, promising life to the dying,..." Scewtape believes that this is the best way because when a patient is sick they are more easily deceived into false truth; he realizes patients will trust higher authorities and closer friends rather than strangers. His strategy is to conform more people to follow his evil ways to form a bigger cult, converting more people in the long run.

2. What is the “law of Undulation” (Lewis, 37)? Give an example of this in your life.

The law of Undulation is a mainly a continual change over time; undulation is "the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks". Since our physical bodies always change and age well always run into different troughs and peaks.

For example, a trough in my life since I've reached my Senior year, is that this will be the last year before I'm off to college.

3. How does “...malice thus becomes wholly real and the benevolence largely imaginary” (Lewis, 28)? How does this apply to your life?

The quote sums up our society and how it works; it states that our society is based off of evil, and kindness and goodness are hard to find in a wicked world. In my life, I am always confronted with it. Movies, t.v programs, and people around me influence some of my thoughts in a corrupted way. The wicked minds of other people cause or pressure bad thoughts onto others; in the world today, it is hard to find genuinely nice people as well.

4. How do you picture the devil? What does this chapter challenge you about regarding the spiritual warfare over your soul?

Throughout the different movies, pictures, and imagination I've seen, I have envisioned the devil designed as a dark, scary, evil-looking demon with red eyes and horns that disgorge out his head.

In Chapter Eight, Screwtape vividly talks about the peaks and troughs, which all individuals encounter. In this chapter, one line really stood out to me; “Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, he relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks;”. I do believe this is true. Everyone experiences hardships; I think that this is the time where God is needed the most. His Word will unlock faithful promises and give comfort to those that are hurt. In my spiritual life, my soul will always belong to the Lord. His Word always leads in my right path, and somehow it always uplifts me.

5. “Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. (Lewis 40). What are your thoughts on this?

After reading the quote, I sense the feeling of jealousy from Screwtape. He can’t fathom the thought of faith; he only relies on the “real” world. His duty is to turn people away from God, and show them the realistic/ materialistic life, which is limited in happiness and peace. He doesn’t clearly understand why people still follow the will of God when they can’t physically see anything. Screwtape at the beginning of the quote, states the word “danger”. He’s to afraid to face anything imperceptible, he’s more of a cowardly man to the fact that he only relies on earthly things causing him to miss the whole picture of the true faith in religion that Christians only see.