Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
A 'rift' is a little crack or split, and Screwtape is delighted to have spotted one. He has found someone recommending a belief not because it is true but because it is useful. That tiny change — believing something 'for some other reason' than that it is true — is the whole trick he is teaching Wormwood. Once a person believes things because they are popular, or comforting, or helpful, instead of because they are true, his mind has a crack in it that the devils can widen. Copying these two sentences helps a reader hold onto a simple, sturdy rule: the only good reason to believe something is that it is true.
You see the little rift? ‘Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.’
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell the story of Screwtape's twenty-third letter to Wormwood in your own words. Since the devils cannot remove the man's faith, what do they decide to do to it instead? And what is the 'little rift' Screwtape is so happy to find at the end?
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape's favourite trick is to get a person to 'Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.' Why is it wrong to believe something for a reason other than that it is true, and what might go wrong if we believe things only because they are popular or useful? Which detail in the letter to Wormwood helps you decide?
- Screwtape grumbles that great teachers are sent 'not to inform men but to remind them' of rules of right and wrong that people already learned 'from their nurses and mothers.' Why is it good news that the most important rules about right and wrong are old and already known, and not brand-new inventions? Name the detail in the letter to Wormwood that shows where people first learned these rules.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Dim and unclear, like something seen in shadow.
Item 2
A person who helps others learn.
Item 3
To spoil something good and make it bad.
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Critical Thinking
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