5 - Screwtape Letters Flashcards
What is the main subject (your title) of this letter? (8)
The Down Times Must Be Taken Advantage Of.
Undulation: The Back and Forth of a Patient’s Life
What is the Law of Undulation?
The Law of Undulation is that human experience is always in a constant up and down cycle. Most important for Wormwood is that the human who he thinks he has overcome is simply in a low point but will come back up again.
What biblical support can you find for the idea, “He relies on the troughs even more than on the peaks”?
The book of Job. The Psalter.
Ecclesiastes; everything that we have under the sun is low without God.
What is the biblical source for this quotation: “. . . but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons”?
Galatians 4:4-5 about our adoption. “4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” Book of Romans.
Rom 12:1-2
What biblical support can you find for the idea, “Merely to over-ride a human . . . would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo”?
Romans 9.
What is the main subject (your title) of this letter?
(9)
The Blind Think They See
Pervert Pleasure to Please Patients
Why does Lewis call “being in love” “the milk and water phenomenon”?
Water is light and lacking substance whereas milk has thick substance to it. Water just rolls off the back.
Where is the biblical source of the idea, “I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours”?
Song of Solomon points to pleasure being God’s creation. There are numerous passages about indulgent pleasure leading sinful man away from God.
What is evil?
Exploitation of God’s gifts, “Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of aknu pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable.”
Spoiled goodness.
Why is “the first step . . . to keep knowledge out of his mind”?
Because if a person has false knowledge about the first step, or is ignorant of the first step, then it’s easier for him to be led astray.
Where is the biblical source of the idea, “. . . and then to set him to work on the desperate design of recovering his old feelings by sheer will-power”?
Grace and works, or an inappropriate understanding of our Christian work. Works righteousness
Moderation is a good thing. Why does Screwtape say, “Talk to him about ‘moderation in all things”?
Because in some things moderation is not a good thing, e.g. moderation in our morals or moderation in our trust in God, according to His word.
Including moderation of all things, including moderate religion. Don’t hold convictions strong enough to believe it. Rev. 3:16 Wish you were hot or cold and not lukewarm.
What biblical support can you think of for the idea, “Keep his mind off the plain antithesis between True and False?”
Ephesians 4:25, “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
What is the main subject (your title) of this letter?
14
The Demerit of Dishonourable, Devilish Vainglory
What is the biblical support for the idea (p. 301), “. . . only a hope for the daily and hourly pittance to meet the daily and hourly Temptation!”
The Lord’s Prayer
