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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the argument of Screwtape's twenty-third letter to Wormwood in sequence — the turn from removing faith to corrupting it as 'an angel of light,' the manufactured 'historical Jesus' aimed at 'something which does not exist,' the concealment of the universal moral law, the descent of worship into mere approval, the real engine of conversion, and the climactic 'rift,' 'Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.' Then state the single corruption you take to organize the whole letter, and notice how often the devil's concessions arm the reader against him.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape's culminating move is 'Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.' Is the graver danger that a person will hold a particular falsehood, or that he will grow indifferent to whether anything he believes is true — and why might cultivating that indifference be a deeper and more durable corruption than instilling any single error? What in the letter to Wormwood helps you decide, and why?
- In his first letter Screwtape worked to keep the man from ever asking 'Is it true?', steering him toward the 'practical' and familiar; here, generations later, the aim is avowed — 'Believe this, not because it is true, but for some other reason.' Reading the two letters together, is the constant of Hell's long campaign better described as the promotion of falsehoods or as the retirement of the truth-question itself — and why would the difference change how a person ought to resist it? Use details from this letter and the earlier one to Wormwood, and explain why your reading is stronger.
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Critical Thinking
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