This is in response to Josh's question, posted at the end of
your "questions and answers" page. I just reread THE LAST BATTLE for my
theology class, and while I cannot speak to Peter, Edmund, and Lucy's disregard for their sister's soul, I am going to argue that, if anything, Lewis shows the
tolerance Christianity shows for non-Christians. Susan rejected Narnia,
which is indeed a sin, but her greatest sin was in her obsession with material
goods: "She's interested in nothing nowadays except nylons and lipstick and
invitations." Her true sin is in her greed and not that she does not believe
in Narnia or accept Aslan. Emeth did not accept Aslan either, but he is
taken into "the true Narnia" all the same, and Aslan explains to him that "if
any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he
has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And
if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is
Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted." Emeth knew of Aslan
but did not accept him as Lord, and yet his heart is pure, so he is not
excluded. Susan also rejected Aslan, but the sin that kept her out of heaven was that her heart was not pure. I would therefore argue that Lewis did not
at all display a religion that treats all non-Christians as "subhuman." Their
admittance or rejection from heaven is based on the purity of their heart, not
their religious convictions... and if good deeds are done in the name of another deity, it makes no difference to God.
As for Peter, Edmund, and Lucy's lack of regret for their sister, I could
argue it either as excitement over their surroundings or simple character
flaws. They have obviously grown far apart from their elder sister in the years that have passed, in any case. But any explanation will not be satisfactory, and I fully agree with you on that count.
Kate
Dear Josh,
I am hurt by what you wrote. My friends have always said I'm brutally honest when something bothers me so here goes MY answer. First off, I feel like you not only attacked The Last Battle but Christianty as well. I'm also the daughter of a Lutheran pastor so you really angered me with your views. I believe that once you get to heaven there is NO pain of ANY KIND(and you can read this in the Bible!)! So though they miss Susan, don't blame them for being joyful about getting to live with Aslan. And they didn't "just shuck her off" as you call it. Remember? They even talked about her after their deaths. THEY DID NOT ACT LIKE SHE NEVER EXISTED! Futhermore, Christians DO NOT think of non-Christians as "subhuman". How could you even say that? Have you ever been to a Christian church? If not I seriously advise that you go at EASTER AND CHRISTMAS. Holy week too if possible. Jesus Christ died on the cross FOR EVERYONE! That includes everyone mentioned in the Bible plus everyone who has lived or will live to the last day. I've had some very hard times in my 18 years of life and guess what helped me through, gave me the will to live? FIRST OFF GOD! Secondly music and The Chronicles of Narnia(each and every book). SO HOW DARE YOU CRITIZE GOD AND C.S. LEWIS?! I've survived because of them. But, you know what, Josh? I forgive you and so does God.He loves you! He died for YOU! And if you need encouragment or a listening ear, email me at ChorusRulz@aol.com
In God's Love,
Andrea
My reply to Josh's e-mail:
In my own opinion, Susan didn't die because she needed to repent for her materialism. Her family knows she should become a better person before going to heaven. It's not that they treated her badly, but that they knew she had to repent for herself and that's not something they could do for her. They are happy that they are in heaven, and know Susan can repent and join them when she dies. Susan is a strong individual and her family knows she will be alright without them. She isn't the kind of person who would commit suicide or go crazy if she lost her whole family. The reason I think they don't mention Susan much is simply that when something wonderful is happening, most people don't stop and think, "I wonder how my sister's doing right now." I know I don't. It doesn't mean I treat my sister poorly, it's just that I rarely think about other peoples' reactions to things that happen. I hope this answers your question.
It may seem cruel for the seven friends not to even mention Susan again in The Last Battle, but you must remember that New Narnia is meant to represent Heaven, and in Heaven there will be no more sorrow not even a thought of sorrow. We will become all-knowing and will see how it is good and right.
as for not letting unbelievers into New Narnia or Heaven, it is the only way to keep it pure. it is easier to explain in a picture: each person is like a sock, each person does something wrong (even a little wrong is still wrong) and so each sock is dirty. Christians have Christ's forgiveness, which is like washing those socks clean. Only the Christians will be brought to Heaven, only the clean socks are put in the drawer nobody would put a dirty sock in the drawer just as no non-Christian can go to Heaven
Mr. Webb,
I have just today discovered your site "Further up and Further in" for the first time. I must congratulate you on a job very well done. You have obviously put much time, energy, and heart into this project and I appreciate it immensely.
In response to the letter from Josh questioning the wisdom of Lewis' including the bit about Susan Pevensie in "The Last Battle", I wish to help you, if possible, in solving this matter. I do not mean to claim theological authority, but I do know that I have asked the same questions myself and have come to a resolution in my own heart.
To begin, I quote a portion from Josh's letter that, by my perception, states the heart of what he is trying to say.
"If the Judgment Day is really going to happen, it will be the cause of appalling suffering. People considered worthy of being saved will on occasion be attached to people who are rejected, and the prospect of eternal parting from the people they love will render them miserable, despite all of the consolations available in Heaven."
Josh struggles with the idea of loss, and rightly so, for it is not in our nature to turn a deaf ear to those who are suffering. However, it is the privilege of every person to choose for himself or herself whether to follow or reject Christ. This is what Lewis is trying to convey by telling his readers what Susan has chosen. This is not obscenity; Lewis is simply allegorizing what he knows to be a very real part of life.
Although Peter and the rest would have wished for Susan to continue to believe in Narnia, they have the wisdom to understand that her choice is her own and, as they are now in Aslan's country, they no longer have any influence over her decision. It would be fruitless to sorrow after her at this stage since there is now only one who can influence her-- Aslan. So they cease to mourn. This is not heartless unconcern, it is an act of giving the concern to the one who can do something about it. Truthfully, it is one of the most heartfull (not heartless) things a person could do.
On earth there are Christians who long for their friends and loved ones to choose Christ even to the point that they suffer from watching them make the wrong choice. However, it is not my belief that Christians will suffer after reaching Heaven. They have chosen Christ and are now fellowshipping with Him as a result of that choice. That which has troubled them in this life is given into His hands.
I sincerely hope that this is of some help to you.
Sarah
Hello!
I was so pleased to see such a lovely site dedicated to Narnia. Lewis first earned my respect and affection for his flawless wit and reason. Later, I read the Chronicles of Narnia and they are now among my favorite books. Indeed, Lewis is probably my favorite author of all time.
I was especially interested in your question and answer page. I think you offer some great insight into the works of Narnia. As you said, you are not an expert on all the works of Lewis. I'm no expert either, though I have read much of his philosophy and fiction. So here in his own words, as told in "The Great Divorce," is his quite logical explanation to Josh's question about our Narnian Friends' indifference to Susan. Please, if you could forward it to Josh:
‘And yet . . . and yet . . . ,’ said I to my Teacher, when all the shapes and the singing had passed some distance away into the forest, ‘even now I am not quite sure. Is it really tolerable that she should be untouched by his misery, even his self-made misery?’
‘Would you rather he still had the power of tormenting her? He did it many a day and many a year in their earthly life.’
‘Well, no. I suppose I don’t want that.’
‘What then?’
‘I hardly know, Sir. What some people say on Earth is that the final loss of one soul gives the lie to all the joy of those who are saved.’
‘Ye see it does not.’
‘I feel in a way that it ought to.’
‘That sounds very merciful: but see what lurks behind it.’
‘What?’
‘The demand of the loveless and the self-imprisoned that they should be allowed to blackmail the universe: that till they consent to be happy (on their own terms) no one else shall taste joy: that theirs should be the final power; that Hell should be able to veto Heaven.’
‘I don’t know what I want, Sir.’
‘Son, son, it must be one way or the other. Either the day must come when joy prevails and all the makers of misery are no longer able to infect it: or else for ever and ever the makers of misery can destroy in others the happiness they reject for themselves. I know it has a grand sound to say ye’ll accept no salvation which leaves even one creature in the dark outside. But watch that sophistry or ye’ll make a Dog in a Manger the tyrant of the universe.’
‘But dare one say – it is horrible to say – that Pity must ever die?’
‘Ye must distinguish. The action Pity will live for ever: but the passion of Pity will not. The Passion of Pity, the Pity we merely suffer, the ache that draws men to concede what should not be conceded and to flatter when they should speak truth, the pity that has cheated many a woman out of her virginity and many a statesman out of his honesty – that will die. It was used as a weapon by bad men against good ones: their weapon will be broken.’
‘And what is the other kind – the action?’
‘It’s a weapon on the other side. It leaps quicker than light from the highest place to the lowest to bring healing and joy, whatever the cost to itself. It changes darkness into light and evil into good. But it will not, at the cunning tears of Hell, impose on good the tyranny of evil. Every disease that submits to a cure shall be cured: but we will not call blue yellow to please those who insist on still having jaundice, nor make a midden of the world’s garden for the sake of some who cannot abide the smell of roses.’
‘You say it will go down to the lowest, Sir. But she didn’t go down with him to Hell. She didn’t even see him off by the bus.’
‘Where would ye have had her go?”
‘Why, where we all came from by that bus. The big gulf, beyond the edge of the cliff. Over there. You can’t see it from here, but you must know the place I mean.’
My Teacher gave a curious smile. ‘Look,’ he said, and with the word he went down on his hands and knees. I did the same (how it hurt my knees!) and presently saw that he had plucked a blade of grass. Using its thin end as a pointer, he made me see, after I had looked very closely, a crack in the soil so small that I could not have identified it without this aid.
‘I cannot be certain,’ he said, ‘that this is the crack ye came up through. But through a crack no bigger than that ye certainly came.’
‘But – but,’ I gasped with a feeling of bewilderment not unlike terror. ‘I saw an infinite abyss. And cliffs towering up and up. And then this country on top of the cliffs.’
‘Aye. But the voyage was not mere locomotion. That bus, and all you inside it, were increasing in size.’
‘Do you mean then that Hell – all that infinite empty town – is down in some little crack like this?’
‘Yes. All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller than one atom of this world, the Real World. Look at yon butterfly. If it swallowed all Hell, Hell would not be big enough to do it any harm or to have any taste.’
‘It seems big enough when you’re in it, Sir.’
‘And yet all loneliness, angers, hatreds, envies and itchings that it contains, if rolled into one single experience and put into the scale against the least moment of the joy that is felt by the least in Heaven, would have no weight that could be registered at all. Bad cannot succeed even in being bad as truly as good is good. If all Hell’s miseries together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific itself is only a molecule.’
‘I see,’ said I at last. ‘She couldn’t fit into Hell.’
He nodded. ‘There’s not room for her,’ he said. ‘Hell could not open its mouth wide enough.’
‘And she couldn’t make herself smaller – like Alice, you know.’
‘Nothing like small enough. For a damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself. Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see.’
‘Then no one can ever reach them?’
‘Only the Greatest of all can make Himself small enough to enter Hell. For the higher a thing is, the lower it can descend – a man can sympathise with a horse but a horse cannot sympathise with a rat. Only One has descended into Hell.’
‘And will He ever do so again?’
‘It was not once long ago that He did it. Time does not work that way when once ye have left the Earth. All moments that have been or shall be were, or are, present in the moment of His descending. There is no spirit in prison to Whom He did not preach.’
‘And some hear him?’
‘Aye.’
‘In your own books, Sir,’ said I, ‘you were a Universalist. You talked as if all men would be saved. And St. Paul too.’
‘Ye can know nothing of the end of all things or nothing expressible in those terms. It may be, as the Lord said to the Lady Julian, that all will be well, and all will be well, and all manner of things will be well. But it’s ill talking of such questions.’
‘Because they are too terrible, Sir?’
‘No. Because all answers deceive. If ye put the question from within Time and are asking about possibilities, the answer is certain. The choice of ways is before you. Neither is closed. Any man may choose eternal death. Those who choose it will have it. But if ye are trying to leap on into eternity, if ye are trying to see the final state of all things as it will be (for so ye must speak) when there are no more possibilities left but only the Real, then ye ask what cannot be answered to mortal ears. Time is the very lens through which ye see – small and clear, as men see through the wrong end of a telescope – something that would otherwise be too big for ye to see at all. That thing is Freedom: the gift whereby ye most resemble your Maker and are yourselves parts of eternal reality. But ye can see it only through the lens of Time, in a little clear picture, through the inverted telescope. It is a picture of moments following one another and yourself in each moment making some choice that might have been otherwise. Neither the temporal succession nor the phantom of what ye might have chosen and didn’t is itself Freedom. They are a lens. The picture is a symbol: but it’s truer than any philosophical theorem (or, perhaps, than any mystic’s vision) that claims to go behind it. For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom. Witness the doctrine of Predestination which shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in which to be real; but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper truth of the two. And wouldn’t Universalism do the same? Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all acts and events that fill Time, are the definition, and it must be lived. The Lord said we were gods. How long could ye bear to look (without Time’s lens) on the greatness of your own soul and the eternal reality of her choice?’
~ C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
Peace and God bless,
Christie
Heloo,
I first stumbled across the site when I was looking for a summary of Prince Caspian, as I was doing a novel study on it at school... the information in here interested me very much and especially the question and answer page. When I saw Josh's comment, I was in two minds as to whether to respond...
Dear Josh,
I am a christian and my friends tell me that I am extremely outspoken when it comes to this topic.. and I did get quite uncomfortable at your comment and a little bit angry too... my friends and I constantly talk about Judgement Day and eternity... and we talk about how we might feel if some of our nonchristian friends were rejected on that day... this is why we try everyday to expose to them some of the beautiful things about christianity. We show them God's love in every aspect of our lives and we openly discuss topics like this. I know i'm not really answering your question in a sense but I had to get this off my chest or else I would feel uncomfortable about not taking the opportunity.
The Christian concept is not of an afterlife... but rather life after death... just like in The Last Battle where Aslan destroys Old Narnia. Our lives here are merely the covers of yet to be written book. I was very disturbed that you mentioned Christianity treats non christians as subhuman... On the contrary, if you look at history... its Christians who have been persecuted and killed for their faith. I think its very unfair to make assumptions about a religion which you don't know very well... I am not trying to press my beliefs on you but I believe in standing up for them.
I quote from your message, "People considered worthy of being saved will on occasion be attached to people who are rejected, and the prospect of eternal parting from the people they love will render them miserable, despite all of the consolations available in Heaven." See.. as humans we have a burning desire.. we want something... but we don't get it... we try to fill the hole with everything.. and shower material items on ourselves for consolation. but its only when we turn to God and let him fill it that we become whole.
As a christian, I care deeply for all my friends and especially the non christian ones because I do not like the prospect of being separated from them for eternity. You underestimate the heart of a Christian... in the time that we have here.. we do everything we can to help them and try to let them see what we have seen, experience the love that we feel... and pray hard that God will enter their lives someday... why? because we don't want to be separated from them...
I really do hope that you can take some time to read through my response and know that Jesus died for you... and he loves you more than you can ever imagine... and he's waiting for you to come home to him... you can write to me whenever you want at misty_dreamz_@hotmail.com
- In God's Love,
Jarzi