Screwtape's 4th Letter

In letter 4, Screwtape is advising Wormwood on the topic of prayer, and how he can pull the patient farther away from the “Enemy,” which we all have figured out by now, is God. In the previous reading, we discovered that the patient is currently caring for his mother, who is in poor health. He has been praying for her, but his prayers somewhat reflect his personal feelings of his mother, be it frustration or whatever else. At any rate, the patient’s prayers are just the target for Wormwood and Screwtape to aim for in their efforts of causing his downfall.

They speak of dampening the patient’s intentions of praying all together. Also, to remind him of the “parrot-like” prayers most children memorize, often times against their will. Finally, Screwtape mentions the patient, or mankind in general, trying to manifest the feelings or actions they are praying for on their own. The example given is the idea of asking God for charity, and it doing so, they create charitable feelings for themselves. So, instead of sincerely asking God for charity, they feel sorry for themselves. This personal feeling makes them believe they are actually deserving of charity.

At the end of the chapter, Screwtape begins to describe the act of praying to an “image” of God. This doesn’t mean an idol, but rather an idea. For example, many followers of the Catholic faith have crucifixes hanging in their homes. Screwtape’s assertions would be similar to the person with the crucifix actually believing that the object embodied God.

This of course, isn’t true. God is all around, He’s omnipresent, yet His form is unknown to us. As humans, we cannot possibly know what God looks like or just how powerful His presence is. I think this is true; we simply can’t grasp God’s awesome presence. There was a passage in the Bible that we looked at the first night of class that echoed this idea. Moses wanted to know what God looked like. God responded by allowing Moses to see where He had been: His backside, if you will. He put Moses between two rocks, and as God passed, He put his hand up to block Moses’s view. The direct image of God would have killed Moses otherwise.

These ideas of prayer and praying actually to God, letting go of ourselves and our “images” of God and just praying, talking to Him, is what I think C.S. Lewis is telling us. It’s what we should be aiming for each time we pray.