Week 3: Letters 6–10 — The Patient's Family and Inner Life

1.In Letter 6, Screwtape explains the strategic value of the 'domestic setting' — the home — as a place where irritations are constant, defenses are down, and the Patient is most likely to act contrary to his best self. Do you agree that home is a more spiritually revealing arena than, say, church or work? Why or why not?

2.Screwtape counsels Wormwood to exploit the Patient's relationship with his mother by encouraging a particular kind of 'soft' cruelty — not loud arguments, but tone of voice, facial expressions, and a habit of noticing every annoying quirk. Lewis calls this exploitation of 'the uncharitable interpretation.' Where do you see this at work in your own closest relationships?

3.In Letter 8, Screwtape introduces the concept of spiritual 'troughs and peaks' — the natural ebbing and flowing of the Christian's felt sense of God's presence. He is excited about troughs because he believes they reveal whether faith is genuine or merely emotional. How does Lewis (through Screwtape's frustrated complaints) describe what God is actually doing during a spiritual dry season?