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“It is always the novice who exaggerates. The man who has risen in society is over-refined, the young scholar is pedantic.”

Screwtape writes the above lines in his twenty-fourth letter while he is discussing the Woman and her naivety concerning non-Christian ways of life. Screwtape wonders if Wormwood has considered how he can pervert the Woman’s unselfconscious Christianity into sin within the Patient. The Patient is a noviceas a Christian. Wormwood, likewise, is a novice devil who is just getting started as a tempter. The Patient might exaggerate by believing his Christianity makes him superior to other non-Christians and, thus, commit the sin of spiritual pride. Wormwood exaggerates constantly, especially concerning the impact of the atrocities of World War II on the Patient’s life. There is a sliding scale within The Screwtape Letters, a spectrum in which, on one side, sits innocence and, on the other, experience. The Woman is innocent. She has known nothing but Christianity. The Patient, however, is slightly more experienced. He has known skepticism. Screwtape, of course, is the most experienced. Having tempted many patients into Hell over the course of many human lifetimes, he believes himself more familiar with the ups and downs of human life than any human could be.

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