Preview
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the argument of Screwtape's twenty-seventh letter to Wormwood in sequence — the attack on petitionary prayer through 'false spirituality,' the unfalsifiable 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument, the analysis of the man's confusion about time and the Enemy's 'unbounded Now,' and the boast about the Historical Point of View that severs each age from all others. Then state the single corruption you take to organize the letter, and weigh how Hell's subtlest work targets the very instruments of reason.
Discussion Questions
- Screwtape's 'heads I win, tails you lose' argument treats a denied prayer and a granted prayer as equally good proof that prayer is ineffective. Is the worth of an argument better judged by how persuasive it feels or by whether any conceivable evidence could count against it — and what in the letter to Wormwood helps you decide, and why?
- In his very first letter Screwtape worked to keep the man from ever asking whether an idea was true, steering him toward the 'practical'; here the Historical Point of View makes 'the one question he never asks' about an old statement 'whether it is true.' Reading the two letters together, is Hell's defining strategy the spreading of falsehood or the quiet removal of truth from the questions people actually ask — and why does the distinction matter for how one ought to think and read? 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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