Mr. TincherScrewtape LettersPage 1 of 9

Day 1 Letter I-III (45 questions)

Letter I

  1. What are the two equal and opposite errors into which or race can about the devils?
  2. How does Screwtape refer to the person being tempted in the first line?
  3. “It sounds as if you supposed that ______was the way to keep him out of the Enemy’s clutches.
  4. Who is the enemy referred to in the previous question?
  5. There was a time when argument would have been effective but it isn’t now, why?
  6. How does the patient view doctrines?
  7. What is the pest ally in keeping the patient from the Church?
  8. What is the trouble with argument?
  9. How does Screwtape refer to Satan and his domain (is towards the end of the letter)?
  10. What does argument awake in the patient?
  11. What is the abominable advantage of the Enemy?
  12. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some ___.
  13. From the previous quote, what does Lewis say about human weakness?
  14. Can the devils hear what the Enemy tells the patient?
  15. His atheist patient was about to put off going to lunch, how did Wormwood convince him to stop reading?
  16. Why did Wormwood want him to go outside?
  17. Where is the atheist now?
  18. Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the _____ while the familiar is before their eyes.
  19. Why does Screwtape tell Wormwood to stay away from sciences?
  20. On what should he keep him focused?
  21. What is the relationship between Wormwood and Screwtape?
  22. Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to _____!
  23. How does Lewis characterize Christians in this letter?
  24. How does Lewis refute the age-old accusation that religion and faith are incompatible?
  25. How does Lewis refute the ago-old accusation that science and religion are incompatible?

Letter II

  1. What has happened to Wormwood’s patient?
  2. First Screwtape says hundred have been reclaimed after being the Enemy’s camp and are now with us. Why does Screwtape tell Wormwood not to worry?
  3. Why does Screwtape say the Church is its greatest ally?
  4. Who is “Our Father below”?
  5. Screwtape encourages Wormwood to work hard on his patients ____ and ____.
  6. Screwtape says the Enemy allows His followers to have disappointment on the threshold of every human endeavor? It is the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.
  7. According to Screwtape, why does “He (God) therefore refuses to carry them, by their mere affections and habits, to any of the goals which He sets before them: He leaves them to "do it on their own".”
  8. What makes it harder for evil spirits to tempt humans?
  9. What is the one question the patient should never ask himself?
  10. Screwtape tells Wormwood to keep his patient in a certain state of mind, what is it?

Letter III

  1. How does the Enemy work on people?
  2. What does Screwtape tell Wormwood to do in the house?
  3. Who is Glubose?
  4. Screwtape says, “You must bring him to a condition in which he can practise _____ for an hour without discovering any of those facts about himself ,which are perfectly clear to anyone who has over lived in the same house with him or worked the same office.”
  5. It is, no doubt, impossible to prevent his praying for his mother, but we have means of rendering the prayers innocuous (producing no injury, non offensive, doesn’t arouse strong feelings or hostility.).” How do they do this?
  6. “In the first place, his attention will be kept on what he regards as her sins, by which, with a little guidance from you, he can be induced to mean _____”
  7. “I have had patients of my own so well in hand that they could be turned at a moment's notice from impassioned prayer for a wife's or son's "soul" to ______”
  8. What should he do in the third method?
  9. In the fourth method, Screwtape tells Wormwood to work with Glubose in creating a sort of double standard. What does he mean by this?
  10. Which of Christ’s teachings is brought under attack in this letter? See Matt 7: 1-5, Matt. 4:10, Matt. 6:24, John 15:13,

Day 2 Letters IV-VII (40 questions)

Letter IV

  1. As you read this letter take note of how one should not pray. If taken in reverse, it tells exactly how one should pray. According to Lewis-taking the opposite of what Screwtape says, how should one pray?
  2. What is Screwtape’s tone in the first paragraph?
  3. When the patient is an adult recently re-converted to the Enemy's party, like your man, this is best done by encouraging him to remember, or to think he remembers, the ____-like nature of his prayers in childhood.
  4. What is the type of prayer they want people to perform?
  5. At the very least, they can be persuaded that the ____ position makes no difference to their prayers; for they constantly forget, what you must always remember, that they are animals and that whatever their bodies do affects their souls.
  6. According to Screwtape, how is their best work done?
  7. Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing so. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him towards____.
  8. Screwtape said, “But even if He defeats your first attempt at misdirection, we have a subtler weapon.” What is the subtler weapon?

Letter V

  1. As you read, consider how Lewis develops a major theme in the story: the state of the individual human soul is what matters, not the external circumstances.”
  2. “For the first time in your career you have tasted that wine which is the reward of all our labours—______—and it has gone to your head.”
  3. According to Screwtape, how can Wormwood secure his soul?
  4. What is their “real business”?
  5. “Let us therefore think rather how to ____, than how to enjoy, this European war.”
  6. How does war work against them and in the “enemies” (God) favor?
  7. What is their best weapon?
  8. How does war work against their best weapon?
  9. The Enemy's human partisans have all been plainly told by Him that suffering is an essential part of what He calls_____; so that a faith which is destroyed by a war or a pestilence cannot really have been worth the trouble of destroying
  10. Interpret the following quote: “But even then, if he applies to Enemy headquarters, I have found that the post is nearly always defended,”

Letter VI

  1. How are the following verses attacked in this letter? Matt. 6:11, Matt. 16:24-26, Mark 4:19, Luke 21:34
  2. What might happen to his patient?
  3. There is nothing like suspense and anxiety for barricading a human's mind against the____.
  4. According to Screwtape, what is their business to do?
  5. How does the Enemy want people to bear tribulation?
  6. What did Screwtape mean when he said, One can therefore formulate the general rule; in all activities of mind which favour our cause, encourage the patient to be un-selfconscious and to concentrate on the object…”?
  7. What did Screwtape mean when he said, “but in all activities favourable to the Enemy bend his mind back on itself”
  8. Why does Screwtape tell Wormwood not to count on the Englishmen’s hatred of the Germans?
  9. What does Screwtape suggest Wormwood do with his patience’s malice and benevolence?
  10. Why?
  11. What will make a person more amusing when he gets to hell?

Letter VII

  1. How does this letter support the following theme: “This chapter again asserts the theme that faith is undermined in the modern age by complacency, materialism, and a pseudo-sophistication which woos people away from God by simply denying any spiritual reality exists, good or bad.”
  2. According to High Command, what is the policy of devils revealing themselves?
  3. What is the cruel dilemma facing them?
  4. When will the end of the war be in sight?
  5. All_____, except extreme devotion to the Enemy, are to be encouraged.
  6. Other ages, of which the present is one, are unbalanced and prone to faction, and it is our business to ____ them.
  7. Why does Screwtape say they want the church to be small?
  8. Screwtape is unsure if Wormwood should persuade his patient to be a pacifist or a patriot, which does Screwtape says Wormwood should try?
  9. Screwtape says whichever he adopts the task will be the same, what is the task?
  10. How does a devil “win his man”?
  11. Provided that meetings, pamphlets, policies, movements, causes, and crusades, matter more to him than _____ and _____ and_____, he is ours—and the more "religious" (on those terms) the more securely ours

Day 3 Letters VIII-X (43 questions)

VIII

  1. I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old _____ at the head of it, and now I am sure.
  2. Why did Satan withdraw his support from God?
  3. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to____.
  4. What is undulation?
  5. The dryness and dullness Wormwood’s patient is going through is not a result of his workmanship rather what?
  6. Now it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the ____ even more than on the peaks; some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper ____than anyone else. (same word for both blanks)
  7. How is God’s approach to securing people’s loyalty different from Satan’s?
  8. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling____.
  9. What is God’s goal?
  10. What is Satan’s ultimate goal and what is God’s ultimate goal?
  11. Which two schemes is God forbidden to use?
  12. How does God do a little “overriding” at the beginning of the conversion process?
  13. Which type of prayers please God the most?
  14. What puts their cause in more danger?
  15. Matthew 27:46 says, “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? How does this scripture relate to this letter?
  16. What lesson or theme do you think Lewis advocated in this letter?

Letter IX

  1. As you read, consider how Lewis refutes the following notion, “"If it feels so right, how can it be wrong?"
  2. I have always found that the Trough periods of the human undulation provide excellent opportunity for all ____ temptations, particularly those of____.
  3. Why is this temptation (the one from the previous question) not as effective during the peak periods?
  4. What makes sexuality an effective tool when one is in a trough?
  5. When is it easier to make a man a drunkard?
  6. Who invented pleasure?
  7. They can’t produce pleasure, what can they do with it?
  8. What really gladdens their father’s heart?
  9. What is the first step in exploiting a patients trough?
  10. What are the two types of people?
  11. Which type of person is getting rare among the humans?
  12. A _____ religion is as good for us as no religion at all—and more amusing.
  13. How does Screwtape suggest Wormwood attack his faith?
  14. (You keep him well fed on hazy ideas of Progress and Development and the Historical Point of View, I trust, and give him lots of modern Biographies to read? The people in them are always emerging from____, aren't they?)

Letter X

  1. In this letter, how does Lewis develop the following theme: “corruption of language, and, therefore, ideas”?
  2. According to Lewis, what types of people and things should a person avoid?
  3. Why was Screwtape delighted about the patient’s choice of friends?
  4. What does Screwtape think the patient will soon realize?
  5. What does the following quote mean, “As long as the postponement lasts he will be in a false position.
  6. All mortals tend to turn into the thing they are _____ to be.
  7. Screwtape says he sees few warnings about what three things?
  8. What is one of their solid triumph of the last hundred years?
  9. What does it mean for humans to live in parallel lives?
  10. If this fails what is the more subtler method?
  11. How is this method employed?
  12. If all else fails, what should he do?
  13. How will they create domestic tension?

Day 4 Letters XI-XIV (35 questions)

Letter XI

  1. What does Screwtape say about the patient’s friends?
  2. According to Screwtape, is laughter always in their favor?
  3. Laughter is divided into which three categories?
  4. Which kind of laughter does them no good and should always be discouraged?
  5. What “is of itself disgusting and a direct insult to the realism, dignity, and austerity of Hell”?
  6. Which type laughter promotes “charity, courage, contentment, and many other evils.”?
  7. Which form of laughter is a more promising field?
  8. What is a Joke Proper?
  9. Which kind of Jokes or Humor is the most useful?
  10. If one is accused of being cruel or evil during a joking manner how can one defend oneself against this type of attack?
  11. Which is the best laughter of all?
  12. Among flippant people the Joke is always ____ to have been made.
  13. What happens if the habit of Flippancy continues?

XII

  1. What must the patient be made to do? (1st paragraph)
  2. Why is Screwtape glad to hear the patient is still in church?
  3. Why does the dim uneasiness (the feeling that he hasn’t been doing very well lately) need careful handling?
  4. What does uneasiness do to a patient?
  5. How does this uneasiness work to their favor?
  6. Why would Wormwood find his patient, “opening his arms to you and almost begging you to distract his purpose and benumb his heart”
  7. What will happen to the patient as his uneasiness grows?
  8. “All the healthy and outgoing activities which we want him to avoid can be inhibited and nothing given in return, so that at last he may say, as one of my own patients said on his arrival down here, "I now see that I spent most of my life in doing _____ what I ought nor what I liked".”
  9. And _____ is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off.
  10. It does not matter how small the sins are provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the ____ and out into the Nothing.
  11. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the ___ one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,

XIII

  1. What has happened between Wormwood and his patient?
  2. What was Wormwood’s first blunder?
  3. What was the second blunder?
  4. What does God mean when “He talks of their losing their selves”?
  5. Screwtape says it is dangerous for a person to have one thing about which they are passionate. What does he tell Wormwood to do with his patient and those who have one thing they don’t what others think about?
  6. The great thing is to prevent his doing ____. As long as he does not convert it into action, it does not matter how much he thinks about this new repentance.
  7. “No amount of piety in his imagination and affections will harm us if we can keep it out of his____.”
  8. “As one of the humans has said, active habits are strengthened by repetition but passive ones are_____.”

XIV

  1. The patient is now humble, how does Screwtape propose to resolve this problem?
  2. Screwtape suggests Wormwood tell his patient that humility is certain kind of ____.
  3. “He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long-term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of_____- ______—a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves,”

Day 5 Letters XV-XIX (48 questions)

XV

  1. Tortured fear and _____ confidence are both desirable states of mind. Our choice between them raises important questions.
  2. Screwtape says God destines humans to eternity and that God wants humans to attend to two things, eternity and the Present. What is the Present?
  3. “He would therefore have them continually concerned either with eternity (which means being concerned with Him) or with the Present” What are some things with which one should be concerned during the present?
  4. What is the business of Screwtape and others like him?
  5. The past has limited value for Screwtape, what does he say they need to make humans live for?
  6. Why does he want humans to focus on the future?
  7. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, ___, and ambition look ahead.
  8. What kind of a race does Screwtape and others like him desire?
  9. Why is it a good thing their patient thinks the future will be agreeable?

Letter XVI