The Patient’s Capacity for Humility

The Screwtape Letters

This flow traces the danger of turning humility into self-conscious performance and the possibility of moving attention beyond the self.

increasing

Bearing strength in each event

decreasing

The Convert’s Self-Assessment

Early Religious Confidence Credit The patient may believe that conversion has earned him a favorable standing and that churchgoing is a concession to lesser people. His spoken humility has not yet become a settled disposition. Vulnerability Screwtape sees how easily self-regard can survive religious language. The patient’s new identity offers pride material as well as a path toward genuine change.

A Quiet Return A Quiet Return from "The Screwtape Letters". Humility Without Display Lessened Assurance The patient makes fewer grand promises and hopes instead for help with the next temptation.

A Quiet Return from "The Screwtape Letters". Humility Without Display Lessened Assurance The patient makes fewer grand promises and hopes instead for help with the next temptation.

Humility Without Display Lessened Assurance The patient makes fewer grand promises and hopes instead for help with the next temptation. This modest expectation alarms Screwtape because it indicates a more grounded understanding of need. Reality The patient is becoming less interested in imagining himself permanently virtuous. Such dependence may be more durable than emotional confidence.

Pride in Being Humble Pride in Being Humble from "The Screwtape Letters". Virtue Turned Inward New Vanity Screwtape advises Wormwood to make the patient congratulate himself for being humble.

Pride in Being Humble from "The Screwtape Letters". Virtue Turned Inward New Vanity Screwtape advises Wormwood to make the patient congratulate himself for being humble.

Virtue Turned Inward New Vanity Screwtape advises Wormwood to make the patient congratulate himself for being humble. The self-conscious compliment can transform a virtue into another source of pride. Repetition If the patient then takes pride in resisting that pride, the cycle continues. The strategy depends on keeping him occupied with his own spiritual image.

The False Measure The False Measure from "The Screwtape Letters". Humility as Distortion Misdefinition The patient could be persuaded that humility requires denying real talents or pretending to think himself worthless.

The False Measure from "The Screwtape Letters". Humility as Distortion Misdefinition The patient could be persuaded that humility requires denying real talents or pretending to think himself worthless.

Humility as Distortion Misdefinition The patient could be persuaded that humility requires denying real talents or pretending to think himself worthless. That is not the same as truthfully receiving ability without self-worship. Release Screwtape fears the alternative: the patient may improve his gifts and stop obsessing over his rank. Attention can move away from self-evaluation toward useful work.

A Wider Charity A Wider Charity from "The Screwtape Letters". Self Among Other Selves Reorientation The Enemy’s ideal, as Screwtape grudgingly describes it, lets a person value his own gifts without preferring himself…

A Wider Charity from "The Screwtape Letters". Self Among Other Selves Reorientation The Enemy’s ideal, as Screwtape grudgingly describes it, lets a person value his own gifts without preferring himself…

Self Among Other Selves Reorientation The Enemy’s ideal, as Screwtape grudgingly describes it, lets a person value his own gifts without preferring himself over others. Humility becomes gratitude rather than self-contempt. Implication The patient’s developing virtue is measured by where his attention goes. Forgetting to rank himself may leave more room for God and his neighbors.

Soon after conversion

After the patient repents

As Screwtape responds to the patient’s renewed humility

During the patient’s reflection on his abilities

As the patient’s Christian life matures