In his 64-page fiction, C. S. Lewis satirises the world of evil through the conversations and letters shared between two demons, employing irony, wit, and an imaginative inversion. Screwtape, a chief demon, is a more experienced senior worker of darkness, while Wormwood, his nephew, is still green in the business of being a villain—still rough around the edges. The former sends letters to the latter, counselling, guiding, and mentoring him on how to not only rise but thrive in the career of evil—thus the name Screwtape Letters. Through these two characters, Lewis provides a striking commentary on temptation, sin, and spiritual warfare.
C. S. Lewis provides a striking commentary on temptation, sin, and spiritual warfare.
Lewis structures the narrative as epistolary fiction, using brief, engaging letters that deepen in theological and moral complexity. Each of the 31 letters tactically targets everyday human vulnerabilities, cleverly highlighting spiritual truths through Screwtape’s distorted yet insightful perspective.
Temptation, Sin and Spiritual Warfare
Lewis’ commentary on temptation is seen when Screwtape advises Wormwood to keep his patient (the human being tempted) focused on surface-level distractions. “It is funny how mortals always picture us as putting things into their minds,” writes Screwtape. “In reality, our best work is done by keeping things out.” This reminds us that we are fallen by nature; even before the devil tempts us, we are already predisposed to evil. Conversely, the demons work against thoughtful reflections about God, so that we may not obey the great command of loving him with all our mind (Matthew 22:37). God speaks through nature and the Bible, and the devils will work overtime to distract us from our Creator’s words.
On sin, Lewis chillingly notes its incremental power. He writes, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” Thus, Lewis helps readers reflect on the total depravity and the deceitfulness of sin (Hebrews 3:13). The book illustrates how sin rarely appears in dramatic form but often gains ground through unnoticed compromise, echoing Romans 1:21–25, where sinners “exchanged the truth about God for a lie.”
Lewis chillingly notes sin’s incremental power.
More people will go to hell because of envy than because of murder. It is indeed true what John Owen warned: “Be killing sin, or sin will be killing you.” The seemingly small sins—the “little foxes that spoil the vineyards” (Song of Songs 2:15)—the lies, those lustful glances, the prideful self-aggrandisement, and the whispered gossip are evil not because there are no such things as greater sins, but because of whom they sin against (Habakkuk 1:13).
In spiritual warfare, Lewis exposes Satan’s tactic of diverting believers from obedience to seeking God’s acceptance through works. Screwtape writes, “Keep his mind off the most elementary duties by directing it to the most advanced and spiritual ones…aggravate that most useful human characteristic, the horror and neglect of the obvious.” This reflects God’s word to Saul that “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22); Paul’s warning that “if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (1 Corinthians 13:1); and James’s command to “be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22).
The Screwtape Letters
C. S. Lewis
This classic has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the unique vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.” At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C. S. Lewis gives us the correspondence of the worldly-wise devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Letters is one of the most engaging accounts of temptation—and triumphing over it—ever written.
The timing of good works is crucial to our understanding of the gospel. The Christian is not accepted because of what he does, but because of what Christ has done. Therefore, the believer’s obedience and works of love are not an attempt to earn God’s love, which is legalism. They are a grateful response to the love already secured by grace. Lewis warns us that the enemy exploits this foundational gospel truth.
Navigating Two Extremes
This is not a mystical book, nor one riddled with secrets of the dark world. As is typical of Lewis, lofty theological controversies and profound truths are brought down to a layman’s understanding. This brilliance in writing is also evident in his other fictional works: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Great Divorce, The Space Trilogy, and Till We Have Faces.
A central argument in The Screwtape Letters is humanity’s tendency to fall into two erroneous extremes concerning the devil: either a total disbelief in demonic influence or an obsessive and unhealthy fascination. Lewis explicitly warns readers against both, writing: “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”
We either totally disbelieve in demonic influence or obsess over it.
And isn’t this true in Africa, where, on the one hand, we find the self-proclaimed intellectual who dismisses the supernatural entirely, and on the other, the magician who denies physical realities and overlooks the fact that we sin in the body, not apart from it? The body is so central to God’s redemptive plan that he will resurrect our physical bodies on the last day.
Lewis continues to admonish the reader that “All extremes, except devotion to the Enemy [God], are to be encouraged.” This is profound, since an English proverb tells us that too much of anything is poison. This does not hold true, however, when it comes to God—you cannot love him too much! And the cruel deceiver is always trying to pull the Christian away from loving the Lord his God (Matthew 12:30). The contemporary Christianese of “love yourself first” or “I am spiritual, not religious” should be passed through the lens of the Bible and critically evaluated to discern whether it is godly wisdom—or whether it is whispers from Wormwood that are shaping our worldviews.
The Devil Is a Liar
From the onset, Lewis reminds readers that the devil is a liar and that the words of Screwtape should not be taken as the official account of how the Underworld operates. The devil may easily deceive excitable or ungrounded readers through the book. He is still the ruler of this world (John 12:31).
Thank God, for as the Holy Spirit writes through Paul, we are not unaware of Satan’s schemes (2 Corinthians 2:11), and if we submit to God and resist the devil, he will flee from us (James 4:7)—a truth that echoes Martin Luther’s reminder that the devil is still God’s devil, always under his sovereign hand.
Comedy and Tragedy
Throughout the book, the tone employed serves not merely as humorous entertainment but also as a sharp critique of the subtle yet relentless tactics of temptation, using reverse psychology to reveal truths that believers might overlook in more conventional theological discourse.
Lewis dedicates this lettered satire to J.R.R. Tolkien—yes, the same Tolkien who wrote the groundbreaking high fantasy works The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. The two share the same delight in artistic works that espouse deep theological truth using stylistic devices that are both entertaining and terrifying—a blend of comedy and tragedy. Come to think about it, that’s what the Bible teaches: the comedy of the Garden of Eden and the tragedy of the fall, the comedy of atonement woven into the tragedy of crucifixion at Golgotha, the comedy of glorification and the tragedy of eternal damnation.
Know in Part
Lewis’s satirical approach brilliantly highlights how easily believers are distracted by mundane realities, worldly concerns, and superficial spirituality, forgetting their true spiritual destiny. Screwtape cynically advises Wormwood, “Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things…Your business is to fix his attention on the stream.”
In another work, The Weight of Glory, Lewis reflects more directly on this spiritual short-sightedness, lamenting, “It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us—like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
We’re easily distracted by worldly concerns and superficial spirituality.
The book dramatises how Satan and his minions use this world, our biological and personality predispositions, and our ignorance of the scriptures to tempt us into sin, to keep us from repentance, and—if we claim to be believers—to lead us into apostasy. Lewis urges us to listen to God through his Word, for he is all-wise, and to be humble enough to agree with him that we are fallen, that we still know only in part, and that we are all green and young in our knowledge of the holy.
When we see him face to face, we shall be perfected. Until then, we remember that we are prone to wander and can easily be led astray by the flesh, the world, and the devil. But we rejoice that we are not left to our own devices in resisting the evil one; rather, Jesus is fully committed to keeping us from stumbling and to presenting us blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.
