The Screwtape Letters

Another book by C.S. Lewis, this one is another Christian apologetic work. The book consists of a series of letters from a senior devil called Screwtape, addressed to his nephew Wormwood, a junior tempter. In these letters, the uncle mentors his nephew on the best ways to tempt humans and win them over to their side. It’s basically a “Guide to Being Miserable,” but with strong Christian undertones. To actually get advice from the book, you have to take all the tips Screwtape gives and invert them.

I liked Mere Christianity more, though I feel The Screwtape Letters is a good addendum to it. Some topics are more appealing than others.

The version I read included the sequel Screwtape Proposes a Toast. The whole book, including the sequel, is rather short.

The final letter, warns of the dangers of “democracy in a diabolical sense”: the idea that “all things are equal” can rob people of their individuality. And only individuals can be saved. It’s an interesting idea. I don’t know if I agree, since the book was written over 50 years ago and the dystopia Lewis feared didn’t quite happen. Though, you could argue that people today are less authentic, less individual, and more herd-minded. I don’t know. I’m always highly suspicious of broad societal claims, because they tend to be so general that they become unfalsifiable — which runs against the idea of what makes a theory scientific, as formulated by Karl Popper.

If a theory cannot be tested and potentially shown to be false, it does not belong to the domain of science.

That said, I do agree with the importance of individuality.

I also agree with the critique of realism. Our society, having been raised to value scientific thinking, often only accepts objectivity and materialism. Whenever something happens that doesn’t fit neatly into those frameworks, it gets explained away. That majestic feeling you have when standing on top of a mountain? Merely subjective, not real. The feeling of religious awe or closeness to God? Just chemicals, no facts, only feelings.

Ask yourself this: if you are a materialistic atheist, what kind of evidence could ever convince you that there’s more than just the mundane, material world? If God appeared in front of you right now, did all kinds of miracles, and then vanished, wouldn’t you dismiss it as a hallucination? Maybe you were dehydrated or had eaten something bad. And if God stayed with you, walking and talking with you for the rest of your life, fully material, fully present, wouldn’t you eventually think you had gone mad or developed schizophrenia? I certainly would. And remember Karl Popper’s theory of falsifiability? If there’s nothing that could convince you that there is more than the mundane, that materialism might be false, how can materialism be called a scientific theory?

In our culture, “subjective” has almost become an insult, a way to belittle everything that isn’t objective. And yet, those subjective experiences may be the most important of all.