CS Lewis' The Great Divorce: The Relationship Between Heaven and Hell

In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis explores the relationship between heaven and hell, connecting life before death to what comes after. Lewis employs a sort of fantasy-style approach to theology in the book, avoiding more conventional, straight-forward approaches seen in the vast majority of theological works. In this post, I will explain and detail The Great Divorce’s treatment of Heaven, Hell, and their impact on determining the totality of experience. From this groundwork, I will evaluate the views presented, concluding that while unorthodox in methodology, The Great Divorce offers readers a fresh and useful perspective on Heaven and Hell, while appealing to many Christians’ deep hope of an inclusive Heaven.

1. The Nature of Lewis’ Project

 Before jumping into the theological content of The Great Divorce, it is important to first examine Lewis’ stated approach to his methodology and aims as found in the preface. At the end of the preface, Lewis clearly gives readers context for their reading experience (pp. x):

I beg readers to remember that this is a fantasy. It has of course – or I intend it to have – a moral. But the transmortal conditions are solely an imaginative supposal: they are not even a guess or a speculation at what may actually await us. The last thing I wish is to arouse factual curiosity about the details of the after-world.

Lewis is not aiming at a literal description of heaven and the afterlife, but rather giving readers a fantastical setting to enrich the moral and theological threads he weaves through the book. Readers then should not waste their time engaging with the minute and descriptive details of Heaven and Hell as places (whether physical or ethereal), but rather engage with the sort of described character that governs each location respectively. With this clarification in mind, readers are prepared to enter the rich fantasy setting Lewis has created.

2. The Relationship between Life on Earth, Heaven, and Hell

2.1 Hell

Before we can say much about the relationship between life on earth, heaven, and hell, I think it is important for us to get a good picture of the character of these locations (for lack of a better word to describe them) as Lewis displays them. Looking at Hell, as the narrator sees it in his brief time there, one sees a very bleak, depressing setting. In some ways though, this picture given is quite different than many Christians’ usual conceptions of hell. Rather than a dramatic, extreme setting of fire and terror, readers are given a setting that more closely mirrors abandoned, downtown regions of cities that are commonly seen today. While the narrator’s experience of Hell is rather short, readers are given a fuller description through his interactions with other individuals on the departing bus he boards.

Individuals departing Hell seem to all share in a dissatisfaction, prompting their departures. One man seeks intellectual fulfillment, another seeks recognition and appreciation, while yet another seeks to bring something real – “that you could really bite or drink or sit on” (pp. 13). The list goes on, but what can be seen here is the sort of deficient character that defines what Hell is for Lewis. In particular, the man noting the absence of “real” things in Hell, although seeing the problem from a business perspective, sums up what all of the characters bear witness to: Hell doesn’t immediately strike one as a terrible place, but when glimpses of the real (Heaven) are had, Hell’s deficiencies immediately makes themselves known. Hell is deficient, lacking the qualities that make individuals truly human. Hell accommodates a complacent contentedness (in the absolute weakest sense of the word), stripping individuals of the goodness God has created them with.

Moving forward with these ideas, we should also examine another thing the man (who wants to bring something “real” back to Hell) says: “The trouble is they (the people of Hell) have no Needs” (pp. 13). People in hell can get what they want by simply imaging it; however, the sort of things they get model the deficiency of Hell due to the lack of quality they exhibit. Here it seems Lewis is touching on a very interesting aspect of the relationship between Hell and humanity. Humanity, as created good by God, is dependent on him. This dependence is a positive aspect of humanity as it helps us to be in proper relationship with God. However in Hell, which Lewis has already described as having a sort of dehumanizing effect on individuals, individuals are separated from God, and thus can’t have a proper dependent relationship with him. This is an almost paradoxical problem for readers to think about however, as most individuals take dependence to be a sort of reduction of independence. If Hell’s character makes things deficient, then how should one think about something most individuals already consider a deficiency? Lewis seems to answer this question by turning dependence back towards independence. However, this resulting independence is certainly not really a true independence in that individuals aren’t free. Rather, individuals are helplessly dependent on themselves, having chosen to rely on themselves but unable to provide for themselves. So, while individuals have no needs in the sense that they can get what they think they want by imagining it, they are unable to get what they really desire and need due to the nature of their twisted independent dependence.

This idea of a chosen independent dependence shows itself later on in the book when MacDonald comments on the narrator’s description of Hell as a state of mind (pp. 70):

Hell is a state of mind - ye never said a truer word. And every state of mind, left to itself, every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind-is, in the end, Hell.

One can see the rejection of God in favor of embracing a reduced version of oneself as characterizing Hell. This self-absorbed state of mind contributes to and, in a sense, is Hell. With Lewis’ description of Hell developed (although certainly not exhaustively), it is time to turn and look at the character of Heaven.

2.2 Heaven

The light and coolness that drenched me were like those of summer morning, early morning a minute or to before the sunrise, only that there was a certain difference. I had the sense of being in a larger space, perhaps even a larger sort of space, than I had ever known before: as if the sky were further off and the extent of the green plain wider than they could be on this little ball of earth. I had got “out” in some sense which made the Solar System itself seem an indoor affair. It gave me a feeling of freedom, but also of exposure, possibly of danger, which continued to accompany me through all that followed. It is the inducing you to remember it as I proceeded, which makes me despair of conveying the real quality of what I saw and heard. (pp. 19)

The above is the narrator’s initial description of witnessing Heaven. Already, one can see a sharp and profound distinction from the prior description of Hell. Whereas Hell seemed dark, suffocating, and deficient, Heaven in contrast seems bright, open, and real in a sense that we can’t even fully comprehend in our present state. While this welcome contrast likely won’t seem too out of place for most readers, Heaven doesn’t seem to fully fit into the conception that many individuals have of it. This idea is witnessed in many of the encounters between the not-fully real ghosts (individuals coming from Hell/Purgatory[these are distinguished in section 2.3]) and the fully real spirits (citizens of Heaven).

In these ghost-spirit interactions readers witness individuals hung up on various aspects of themselves, preventing them from entering into heaven. For one man it is his sense of moral superiority over a murder (pp. 28), for another it is his obsession with abstract intellect as an end in itself (pp.40), and for yet another man it is his unwillingness to trust in God coupled with his expectations of God handing him everything on a silver platter (figuratively speaking) (pp. 54-55). The point being driven at in these ghost-spirit interactions is that individuals need to let go of their self-made identities and images if they are to enter into heaven. As one spirit says, "Friend, could you, only for a moment, fix your mind on something not yourself?" (pp. 62).

This self-obsessed state of mind, as previously touched on as leading to Hell, needs to be eliminated through the choice of an individual. This choice between self and God is what Lewis sees as ultimately determining the residency of individuals in either Heaven or Hell. MacDonald addresses this issue in response to the narrator’s concern that not everyone gets a fair chance at Heaven (pp. 75):

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.' All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.

Individuals need to allow their own selves to die so that they can become fully real in and through God. It is through having an identity completely in God that individuals can move forward into their final and full purpose. This fulfillment in choosing God over oneself is witnessed in a female spirit’s interaction with her former friend/partner, Frank (pp. 126):

What needs could I have," she said, "now that I have all? I am full now, not empty. I am in Love Himself, not lonely. Strong, not weak. You shall be the same. Come and see. We shall have no need for one another now: we can begin to love truly."

Lewis has outlined the reverse trajectory of the sort of twisted independent dependence found in Hell. Rather than the deficiency of choosing to depend on oneself, citizens of Heaven have complete fulfillment by freely choosing to fully submit to and depend on God, realizing their true potential in him. Heaven is thus characterized by a sort of hyper-realness (a true realness not possible on earth) which is only made possible by fully embracing and choosing God.

2.3 Heaven and Hell as Determining the Totality of Experience

Before evaluating Lewis’ conception of Heaven and Hell, there is a bit more to their relationship that should be touched upon. Lewis spends a considerable amount of time later on into the book elaborating on an individual’s path to his/her ultimate destination, be it Heaven or Hell. MacDonald speaks for Lewis while answering some of the narrator’s questions about a possible departure from Hell into Heaven (pp. 68):

“But I don't understand. Is judgment not final? Is there really a way out of Hell into Heaven?"
"It depends on the way you're using the words. If they leave that grey town behind it will not have been Hell. To any that leaves it, it is Purgatory. And perhaps ye had better not call this country Heaven. Not Deep Heaven, ye understand." (Here he smiled at me). "Ye can call it the Valley of the Shadow of Life. And yet to those who stay here it will have been Heaven from the first. And ye can call those sad streets in the town yonder the Valley of the Shadow of Death: but to those who remain there they will have been Hell even from the beginning.”

Here one sees glimpses of what some individuals may assert to be Universalist traits in Lewis’ description. The description given here of a possible move from Hell to Heaven fits into Lewis’ fantastical writing well as it doesn’t seem to quite make sense to readers who bring with them their traditional understanding of space and temporality. What ultimately defines each location for each individual seems to be the permanence of each individual’s residency. Those who end up in Heaven will have been in Heaven from the moment they entered what is described as not quite Heaven (“The Valley of the Shadow of Life”). Individuals who started off on the dark city streets of what is seemingly Hell will have only been in Purgatory if they wind up residing in Heaven, while those who permanently remain there (the dark city streets) will be and have been in Hell all along. For Lewis, it seems as if the final destination dictates what the entire experience has been. Lewis uses MacDonald again to clarify and work out this idea further: (pp. 69)

Not only this valley but all this earthly past will have been Heaven to those who are saved. Not only the twilight in that town, but all their life on earth too, will then be seen by the damned to have been Hell. That is what mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering, 'No future bliss can make up for it,' not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say 'Let me but have this and I'll take the consequences': little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death. The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly.

Lewis is affirming this idea of individuals’ final destinations determining the totality of their experiences, not just of the afterlife, but of earthly life as well. Heaven and Hell can be seen then as the only two complete, possible experiences for individuals. Each works back throughout a person’s life based on the eventual choice that person makes in regards to choosing his/her self or choosing God. This process of reverse-operation is beyond our given and apparent conception of space and temporality.

3. Evaluating Lewis’ Views

With views of Heaven and Hell explained as they are described in The Great Divorce, I will now (admittedly, subjectively) evaluate said views. To begin with, and perhaps most importantly, I believe it necessary to comment on Lewis’ approach to the book. While I typically appreciate a straightforward expository approach to theological issues, I believe that Lewis’ fantastical approach in his treatment of Heaven and Hell was an excellent choice. The value of this approach is twofold.

Firstly, Lewis’ admission of a fantasy style keeps readers from becoming too hung up on trivial and minute details. Lewis isn’t interested in giving a realist (at least in the physical sense) account of what Heaven and Hell are quantitatively like. Rather, he is aiming for a description of the character of each, guiding readers to theological truth rather than any sort of scientific (if you can call it that) truth. This ties into the second and perhaps even more significant virtue of this approach in that as a fantasy description, Lewis’ description actually lies closer to the reality of heaven. To qualify this, I am by no means calling Heaven a fantasy in the sense of something made up or imaginary. Rather, I am drawing out the surrealism of fantasy in describing the surpassing nature of heaven. Heaven transcends human beings’ complete understanding. We may be able to have glimpses of Heaven, but its very essence is beyond us. By describing Heaven in the style of fantasy, Lewis is able to simultaneously draw out its other-worldly character and prevent readers from developing their own individual views of Heaven grounded in who they are as individuals. We can see this prevention as a valuable action in The Great Divorce itself. Part of many individuals’ struggles regarding entering Heaven involve their own self-assured conceptions of Heaven. By emphasizing Heaven as surpassing humanity’s full understanding, Lewis is suggesting that readers hold an openness to what God has in store.

Overall, I generally agree with the descriptions Lewis has given both Heaven and Hell. I think both are necessarily dependent on the relationship of individuals’ own dependence with God. I don’t believe that God simply has humans run through life as a sort of obstacle course, but rather gives humans life and freedom so that they can develop character which will ultimately decide whether to fully accept God or to fully be absorbed in one’s own self. Any sort of Universalist elements which pop up in The Great Divorce don’t really bother me. I think most, if not all Christians, hope in their innermost beings that the all-loving God they know will allow anyone (at any time) to choose him and enter into Heaven. However, this deep hope is something which is hard to wrestle with as the Bible (in its canonical form) doesn’t seem to clearly assert such an idea anywhere in its pages. Christians must then explore how to deal with this tension between the (literally) stated and the seemingly implied. Practically, from my skeptical/conservative epistemic platform, I think in our everyday interactions we as Christians need to err away from Universalist tendencies in respect for and submission to the concepts we see regarding salvation as found in the Bible. However, knowing God to be beyond our own full understanding, I see no problem in hoping that he may yet find another way in which to shatter our expectations and ultimately fulfill our deepest hopes.

Christianity and American Culture

American popular culture may be one of the most beautiful yet perverted things in existence. Beautiful in the sense of the emotional narratives and creativity it can express. Take the television program LOST for instance. The show masterfully displayed fully human, emotional experiences and stories in a new and imaginative setting. The audience was transported to a unique world where they could dare to dream. Yet this unique world still had deep emotional resonance as viewers could relate to the show’s characters’ feelings and stories. Unfortunately though, this free expression isn’t always put into practice by much of popular culture. Instead, we see human creativity stifled and marred by some of the terrible ideologies and ethics that our society and culture hold.

While it may be easy to talk about the various ideological systems that have seeped their way into American popular culture, it’s harder to actively identify said systems, analyzing the impact they have on our cultural expression. This course has greatly helped me to better diagnose and become increasingly aware of the problems that exist in popular culture today. In particular, after taking this course I have become more aware of the struggle for equality in American culture. Although equality is a core American value, close inspection of American culture uncovers an underlying power imbalance that should generate concern in American Christians.

One area where this power imbalance manifests itself is in the area of gender representation. In an astounding number of cultural texts patriarchal language and images perpetuate inequality through language and images that denigrate females, silencing women by denying them a voice, and by portraying women as lacking. In a country where men and women are supposedly equal, we see a systematic representation in popular culture that suggests just the opposite. Judging by media representations of gender normalizations, it would seem that gender inequality is not a problem of the past; rather, it is a major problem still plaguing our society today.

Race is another area where the power imbalance facing popular culture is abundantly clear. A claim that Americans often make is that everyone has a voice in this country. However, popular culture fails to express this as minorities are often portrayed in harmful stereotypes. Instead of coming across as unique, engaging characters, minorities often seem to be silenced by being placed in a comedic role or in a role that exists to serve as a means for white characters to use to achieve an end. In American popular culture one can see hegemonic whiteness in action as white value systems and ideals are attempted to be passed off as the values that all individuals in America should strive towards.

Perhaps the most disturbing way that inequality attempts to hide itself within American culture is through the perpetuation of the “American dream.” Despite all of the areas that contribute to the power imbalance in culture, many people fail to see and understand them due to the myth that “anyone can shake free of the limiting past in a struggling ascent toward the realization of promise in a gracious future” (Benre and Hefner). With this idea firmly implanted into many Americans’ consciousnesses, it becomes extremely hard for them to recognize and respond to the power imbalance that American culture faces.

With these ideas and observations in mind how do Christians respond to the challenges that American culture presents them with? One of the best ways to overcome any problem is through awareness and questioning. Individuals are often simply content with drinking in the messages culture sends without being fully aware of what messages mean and the implications that they carry. Many individuals will sit down in their nice, comfy, lazy-boy recliners after a hard day’s work and simply “veg out” while watching television or a movie. People don’t comprehend that various texts such as commercials and television shows that they are being bombarded with are drawing them into the systematic ideology that American culture holds. Individuals don’t take the time to examine and discuss with others the texts that they are being subjected to. They don’t question or critically examine the information presented to them. Instead, they allow themselves to fall into a state of slothfulness, letting American culture shape the interactions they have with it. If Christians want to break free of the ethic provided by American culture and truly serve the kingdom of heaven, they need to actively examine pop-culture as a whole and purposefully discuss it and their findings with other Christians, striving for God-honoring conversations, insightful knowledge, and potential paths of effective action. In this manner, humans can begin to subdue the popular culture’s influence and promote a Christian ethic.

After this questioning and examination, there is still more work for Christians left to do. If they stop short and only identify and spread awareness about the problems that exist within culture today, then no progress will have been made. If somebody goes to the doctor and is diagnosed with diabetes and doesn’t seek any sort of treatment, then nothing will change and they won’t get better. In fact, it is very likely that things will only get much worse. This is why Christians need to have a proactive response to the problems that they identify in popular culture.

Two of the best ways to do this are through creation and cultivation. If Christians are to create culture then they must find creative ways to do so that can be consumed by a broad audience. The option of creation isn’t available to most Christians. Few will find themselves in positions such as directors or writers that can do so. If Christians can’t create positive texts that fight against the problems that plague our culture then they need to cultivate culture. This means preserving or spreading existing texts that capture or portray certain positive elements that fight against the harmful generalizations perpetuated by culture. By creating and cultivating, Christians can muster an appropriate response that begins to combat the existing problems in American culture.

Freedom and Government (from a Christian Perspective)

Yesterday I had the opportunity to attend one of Calvin’s “Unlearn Week” events entitled What Does It Mean to be American: Considering Glen Beck. Various attendees contended that Beck is an outsider, patriotic, an individual who “means what he says and says what he means”, and/or charismatic. This leads into a discussion on the question: “Is Glenn Beck radical?” This line of questioning turned out to be rather unproductive and left a great deal of disagreement of two questions: “Should the founding fathers be revered/respected?” and “What was America founded on (what’s the crux of the constitution) and have we lost this quality?”

Addressing the first may be more difficult than some would imagine. It would seem the majority of Americans have been raised in a tradition of putting America’s founding fathers up on a pedestal - I myself feel as if I have been raised in this tradition. I contend that while the founding fathers were extremely important in forming this country, they are in fact only human and shouldn’t be idolized. We should show respect for their (sometimes) heroic action and courage to stand up for what they believed in, but we shouldn’t go so far as to think they were infallible and always knew what was best. For instance, a number of them were involved with the persecution and violation of Native Americans and their rights. It may also be argued that they pushed a white male, upper/middle class hegemony that is emulated by many conservatives to this day. The list goes on of questionable, shameful acts that some of them participated in. Yet, despite these acts I can’t condone, I do believe that we can still look to what they valued/founded our country on along with their sacrifices and bravery. There are bad apples in every orchard. To burn the entire orchard down because of them seems like a bit of a waste from my point of view.

I think it fairly safe to say that a key point in the battlefield of American politics has been the question of what value(s) the country was founded on and what exactly we should do with the constitution. It seems to me that America was founded upon the idea of freedom. The constitution is a document written in that spirit, laying out a way to practically give freedom during the time period of the late 1700’s. We can see freedom being pursued throughout American history by various groups that came to America in the hopes of escaping persecution - examples include groups such as the Puritans and Jews. I won’t really try to pursue/prove this point any further because I think it to be pretty obvious and self-explanatory. I will though touch on a complaint in response to this. If America was founded on freedom, then why did it allow slavery through its first seventy to eighty years of existence? In this valid complaint we see the common clash of what is ideal versus what is practical/possible. Often times, we as a society have to (rightfully or wrongly) make a compromise between these two qualities. I don’t know if there is an adequate answer I can give on whether or not we should compromise - and if we do what that balance should look like. I will say though that if slavery (which a great number of founding fathers opposed) had been banned, the United States likely would never have gotten off of the ground. If our country barely survived the Civil War after establishing itself, how would it have endured a similar struggle when it was such a weak fledgling country? It would seem that the founding fathers were faced with the choice of having a country with legalized slavery or not having a country all together.

Coming back to the point of freedom, we get into the constant argument of the role of government and what its definition should be. Essentially, the argument between having a large, powerful government versus having a small, weaker government boils down to how individuals think individuals can be most free and what government should be (simply a means to individual freedom or something else). I myself stick to a definition where the government allows us to be free and make healthy choices that don’t violate others. Even if we can agree this in principle, we can’t always agree on what it means in practice. For instance, does the new healthcare program infringe upon our freedom by taking away some of our choice regarding our own healthcare, or does it promote freedom – allowing individuals to make healthy choices and not be bogged down with the concerns of not having healthcare? Does it do a good job promoting our right to life (which is an essential component of freedom)?

Going in this direction I think it's important to examine how Christians view government. First of all, let me be very clear that I believe the Bible teaches both social justice and personal responsibility. This leads me to think that both need to be upheld and pursued in the world. How is this done? Well, again we come down to an argument of what the role of government should be; in this case, what are the roles of both government and the church? How do they overlap, and if they do, should they at all? I find it interesting that the Conservatives are the ones who are often accused of bringing their religious views into politics (often on issues such as abortion and gay marriage) while liberal Christians seem just as “guilty” of bringing the Bible’s message of social justice into politics. Let me state that I believe in the separation of Church and State as it was intended and that this idea is of vital importance - protecting all religions (theoretically) from governmental prejudice and persecution. However, asking someone to leave religion out of their values is equivalent to asking a white, middle-class, small-business owner from Texas to forget that he’s all of these things when he interacts with the world and makes political decisions. It’s pretty darn hard to do. So, while religion shouldn’t directly dictate government, it is unavoidable that some aspects of religion seep into politics. Anyway, back to the argument of the role of the church versus government (from a Christian perspective).

In an ideal world I think it should be rather obvious to most that the church should be in charge of social justice. I think we would see a church that is willing and able to help everyone with their financial needs; in essence, one would see the church practice its own form of socialism (as we see the apostles doing in the New Testament). However, we can also quite clearly see that we don’t live in an ideal world. Throughout history the church has proven to be ineffective at its mission and often hostile, violent, and insensitive. With this in mind, many Christians see the government as a way to enable the social justice that the world and this country lack. This all boils down to whether we should try to use the government to enforce social justice; if so, is this approach right from a political standpoint? Here I will leave everyone to their own thoughts; I’ve rambled on quite long enough.

(Thanks for reading. I’m trying to write more for the blog but due to this, quality of posts may be reduced - so please bear with me. Also, what do you think of the new look?)