Beyond the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell

Beyond the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell

Beyond the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell

Beyond the Shadowlands: C. S. Lewis on Heaven and Hell

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Overview

C.S. Lewis's fiction is rich with reflections on the afterlife. Martindale discusses the images of Heaven and Hell Lewis uses in his fiction, using them as a complement to a scholarly but accessible discussion on eternity.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781581345131
Publisher: Crossway
Publication date: 03/07/2005
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Wayne Martindale (PhD, University of California) is professor of English at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, where he regularly teaches classes on C. S. Lewis.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

THE MYTHS OF HEAVEN EXPOSED

Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits at God's right hand in the place of honor and power. Let heaven fill your thoughts. Do not think only about things down here on earth. For you died when Christ died, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your real life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.

COLOSSIANS

* * *

MYTH #1: HEAVEN WILL BE BORING

No eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him. — 1 CORINTHIANS

I have confessed that for ever so long, Heaven simply held no fascination for me. Why is Heaven (aside from Hell, perhaps) the last place we would want to go? In part, our aversion stems from a fear of what we don't know and a subsequent clinging to what we do. Heaven must, in the nature of things, remain as mysterious to us in this life as adulthood is to children. Then cultural caricatures of a cloudy hereafter — a colorless, weightless, and (we presume) pleasureless existence, harp-tuned to perfect monotony — effectively turn us away. I'm afraid it creeps up on me still. My problem was a conception of Heaven as church, and church as an endless chain of bad songs and boring sermons with not even a chance of volunteering for nursery duty. How liberating to find that Lewis understood the sentiment: "The picture of Heaven as perpetual worship, a place, in the hideous words of the hymn 'Where congregations ne'er break up / And Sabbaths have no end,' which has tormented many a luckless child (finding one Sabbath per week a ration only too liberal!) comes alright when one sees the real meaning: the perpetual worship is the perpetual vision [of God], the perfect exercise of all one's faculties on the perfect Object. Of that, one cd. [could] never have too much: of its simulacrum, 'worship' as we know it down here, one easily can."

Paradoxically, my misconceptions about Heaven also came from reading the Bible, but a blinkered reading that carries over the logic of "thou shalt not" to the very architecture of Heaven. For this mind-set, Heaven is only a place of denials where we don't do this and can't do that. Or we read too literally the symbolic language and the "no mores" of Heaven. In an important address called "Transposition," Lewis acknowledges the difficulty of breaking through such misconceptions: "Any adult and philosophically respectable notion we can form of Heaven is forced to deny of that state most of the things our nature desires. ... Hence our notion of Heaven involves perpetual negations: no food, no drink, no sex, no movement, no mirth, no events, no time, no art." Against this thinking, Lewis continues, is the positive vision of God and enjoying him forever. But the positive is at a great disadvantage, since little in our earthly experience suggests it. Further, the five senses have stocked our imaginations with vivid associations from this earthly life, suggesting that home is with the old, comfortable shoes; so we plod on in contented worldliness when we might soar.

My way out of this muddle lay straight through Lewis's The Great Divorce and (later) Perelandra. These two books hooked me on Heaven. More on these stories later, but never doubt the power of fiction to tell the truth, often better than cold theological prose. Jesus knew this: He constantly taught with stories. It is impossible, I came to see, that Heaven could be boring. Heaven is that place where all that is and all that happens issues from God's creative genius. In that sense, it is like earth, except that in our present earth even nature groans, waiting for its deliverance from the curse of sin. Do you like earth? You're going to love Heaven! Do you enjoy earthly pleasures: the taste of cherries, the smell of morning after a rain, the feel of cool water rushing over you as you dive into a pool on a warm summer's day? Then recall Lewis's reminder that God through Christ invented all the pleasures. He is the same one who is preparing a place for us and will come again to receive us to himself. The psalmist says, "In your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." In his excellent article on Heaven, Harry Blamires gets it right: Whatever form your most moving earthly experiences of beauty have taken, they were foretastes of heaven. Wherever you have found loving kindness in human hands and human eyes and human words, you were confronting Christ's personality operative in God's creatures. Since the source of all that beauty and all that tenderness is God, the full opening up of his presence before his creatures can be nothing less than the aggregation and concentration and intensification of every loveliness and every goodness we have ever tasted, or even dreamed of. All the love we have ever known in our relationships with others — all that collected and distilled into the personal warmth of him from whom it all derived, and he standing before us: that is the kind of picture that the Christian imagination reaches towards when there is talk of the ultimate reward of the redeemed.

Similarly, when Ransom returns from the unfallen world of Perelandra, having experienced whole new genres of pleasure, and attempts to explain these to his friend, he despairs of the task because words are too vague, imagery not concrete enough. The pleasures are too real for earthly language. As the well-known eighteenth-century hymn writer John Newton puts it:

Fading is the world's pleasure,
Next to the "solid joys" of Heaven, earth's are airy, misty will-o'-the-wisps. On the other hand, Hell has no pleasures and offers the world only counterfeits of Heaven's genuine article. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis has senior devil Screwtape lament while cautioning junior tempter Wormwood:

Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure in its healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in a sense, on the Enemy's ground. I know we have won many a soul through pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula.

David Fagerberg reminds us of the Devil's lie, repeated by Screwtape, that "sin affords a more robust variety of pleasure than virtue." Even the movies often get right the hatred and murder that flow in the wake of sexual unfaithfulness, whether pursued for physical or egocentric pleasure. In Narnia Edmund learned this lesson the hard way with the White Witch's candy, the enchanted Turkish Delight: "anyone who had once tasted it would want more and more of it, and would even, if they were allowed, go on eating it till they had killed themselves." Fagerberg finds in this idea God's reason for expelling Adam and Eve from the garden: "He wanted to save their lives." Edmund further learns that "nothing spoils the taste of good ordinary food half so much as the memory of bad magic food." Sinful pleasure infects legitimate ones. Explaining how our desires become Hellbent, Fagerberg continues, "Our appetites have been misdirected, leading us to believe that there is a contradiction between God's glory and our own happiness, that we cannot submit our lives to God and still have what we really want." If we think that, we have believed a lie.

A true and legitimate pleasure is one that sweetens our lives whenever we remember it. An authentic pleasure is one we love to recall and rejoice to share. A part of both Heaven and Hell is this multiplication factor. As memories stack upon memories in Heaven, these will add luster and expansiveness to every new experience — indeed, an experience for one with a perfect memory will never get old but remain "a joy forever," to borrow from Keats. Lewis imagines such a Heaven-sent pleasure multiplied in the unfallen planet of Malacandra in Out of the Silent Planet. For his first extended time on Malacandra, the space-traveling earthling, Ransom, is mentored by a rational but quite different creature, a hross named Hyoi. Ransom learns from his new friend what must be one of the key ingredients of the increasingly layered richness of our unfolding heavenly experience: the mounding up of memories that are only and always ennobling. Hyoi explains:

A pleasure is full grown only when it is remembered. You are speaking, Hman [human], as if the pleasure were one thing and the memory another. It is all one thing. ... What you call remembering is the last part of the pleasure. ... When you and I met, the meeting was over very shortly, it was nothing. Now it is growing something as we remember it. But still we know very little about it. What it will be when I remember it as I lie down to die, what it makes in me all my days till then — that is the real meeting. The other is only the beginning of it. You say you have poets in your world. Do they not teach you this?

If this is true of earthly memory, how much more of heavenly memory, which will take not only the good of earth, but the infinite accumulations of Heaven into the celestial memory bank? For this and other reasons, the hrossa are content and embrace each day without regret for the past or anxiety for the future — which itself is an element we long for in heavenly perfection. Hyoi tells Ransom, "every day in a life fills the whole life with expectation and memory and ... these are that day." Ransom learns a bit of what it means to live life in light of eternity. By contrast, in Hell the memory of evil chosen in this life, joined with whatever issues out of the unredeemed hereafter, will be a mounting horror. What a difference this truth would make in our earthly choices if we could keep it before us. We can see the huge implications for even our earthly lives. This explains the look of contentment and innocence in some people's faces, however old. They have no regrets dogging their consciences; their sleep is unalloyed. To be so at peace perfectly and always is very Heaven.

Christopher Mitchell reminds us of the function of pleasure: What we experience with our senses "serve in their own God-ordained way to point us to an image of the greater beauty and reality of heaven." John Piper concurs that "there are merciful foretastes everywhere in this fallen world, and God is glad for us to enjoy them." A common mistake is trying to grasp these pleasures with all we're worth, living as if earthly pleasures were our only reality. Lewis sets us right.

The settled happiness and security which we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world: but joy, pleasure, and merriment He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy. It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and [pose] an obstacle to our return to God: a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.

Perfection — Boredom ad Infinitum

Everyone knows that Heaven and all in it will be perfect: The Bible says so — and even the biblically illiterate associate perfection with Heaven. The book of Hebrews, the book of "better things," is chock full of the word perfect and its many forms. For example: "You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem ... and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect." We will take up the bothersome idea of being "spirits" in Myth #3, but for now, we will explore the idea of perfection. I have asked several of my classes over the years if they would choose to go to Heaven "two minutes from now" if they could, and sometimes I ask, "if I could do it, who would want me to make them perfect right now?" No small number demur. How would you answer these questions for yourself? You might try this experiment with a group of your own. Usually, most want to stay here and stay as they are. Even those who would choose perfection and Heaven often have a qualm or two about it. Why should that be so?

We are okay with perfection as a goal, but not as a steady state. That's the problem: a steady state. Perfection implies stagnation for us, a kind of fossilized goodness that goes nowhere. Where could perfection "go," anyway? It's already there. This emphasis on the journey, as opposed to the destination, comes to moderns largely from the influence of evolutionary thought: what Lewis calls "the myth of progress." All of us know that both we and the world are a mess at present; so we console ourselves that the world will be a better place in some distant future. We content ourselves to be on the way, while in earlier eras, most by far focused on the destination. Our culture conditions us to be uncomfortable with "arriving." It's no compliment to say of someone, "She thinks she has arrived."

And come to think of it, once they arrive, what do the morally pure do for kicks? If you are not getting better or working to improve, do you just sit? Adding to the problem for the biblically literate, we know that Scripture promises heavenly "rest." Perhaps we remember being forced to take those grammar school naps when what we really wanted was to play. The negative idea about rest is reinforced by the old "Rest in Peace" on tombstones, which invokes images of just lying there — insentient, dumb, and crumbling into dust.

It may help to begin by thinking of what we rest from. We rest from labors that are unfruitful, from infertile ground, unyielding clients, intractable relationships. But we won't be eternally sitting in the corner, which would be more like punishment; we'll work. But we'll work without the battle for survival and without the resistance and frustration caused by sin and its curse. It will be gardening without weeds. Work will mean the thing we love to be doing, as when an artist or hobbyist speaks of "my work." This poem by Joe Bayly helps with the relationship of rest and work.

What's a home like,
I think our work will feel more like Sabbath recreation or, if you prefer, play. The only problem with play is the suggestion of triviality, but reigning with Jesus and helping to run the new Heaven and earth will be anything but kids' play. In fact, the reward for doing good work here on earth will be more work in Heaven: "And [the Lord] said to him, 'Well done, good servant! Because you have been faithful in a very little, you shall have authority over ten cities.'" Such work will be a reward. Anyone who has been without a job knows the relief that comes from getting one, along with a sense of significance and purpose.

What form reigning in the new Heaven and earth will take is open to imagination. Perhaps the Lord will say, "You washed those dishes as unto me; now go make a star," and you'll know how. Maybe next he will call for a group project: "When you've all finished your stars, make a new constellation." In "Harleys in Heaven," John Stackhouse reviews several recent books on Heaven and observes encouragingly that "several themes stand out among the riches of these volumes. Perhaps the most crucial of these is that heaven in fact has not been portrayed as a boring place, but the location of the highest aspirations of the human heart."

In John's Gospel, Jesus prays, "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory." We will follow along after Jesus like apprentices. Remember that he made all that is, seen and unseen. It won't be boring in Heaven because we will always be learning. God is infinite, we are finite. We'll never get to the end of him. A pastor I know is fond of saying that the most common expression in Heaven will be, "Oh, I didn't know that!" That's the idea.

We fear that Heaven's perfection might put us in a straitjacket, that we won't be able to "be ourselves." In fact, Heaven is the only place where we can safely let our hair down. Very often, Lewis observes, when we suggest that we want to "be ourselves," we mean letting go of the demands of civility and kindness: "What often distinguishes domestic from public conversation is rudeness. What distinguishes domestic behaviour is often its selfishness, slovenliness, incivility — even brutality. And it will often happen that those who praise home life most loudly are the worst offenders. ... The freedoms in which they indulge themselves at home have ended by making them unfit for civilized society." In our earthly lives, we must be vigilant even at home. So where can we be "comfortable and unguarded"? The answer is, "nowhere this side of Heaven."

(Continues…)


Excerpted from "Beyond the Shadowlands"
by .
Copyright © 2005 Wayne Martindale.
Excerpted by permission of Good News Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments,
Foreword by Walter Hooper,
Introduction,
HEAVEN,
PART I. DEMYTHOLOGIZING HEAVEN: THE NONFICTION,
1. The Myths of Heaven Exposed,
Myth #1: Heaven Will Be Boring,
Myth #2: What! No Sex?,
Myth #3: But I Hate Ghosts!,
Myth #4: I Won't Be Me,
Myth #5: Just a Harp and Crown Trip,
Myth #6: Heaven Is Escapist Thinking,
Myth #7: Heavenly Minded But No Earthly Good,
PART II. REMYTHOLOGIZING HEAVEN: THE FICTION,
2. Making the Myths of Heaven and Hell,
3. Reclaiming the Heavens for Heaven: Out of the Silent Planet,
4. Paradise Regained: Perelandra,
5. The Fulfillment of Human Potential: The Great Divorce,
6. Land of Wonder and Delight: The Chronicles of Narnia,
7. When Seeing Is Not Believing: Till We Have Faces,
HELL,
PART I. DEMYTHOLOGIZING HELL: THE NONFICTION,
8. The Myths of Hell Exposed,
Myth #1: A Good God Wouldn't Send Anyone to Hell,
Myth #2: A Physical Hell Would Be Cruel,
Myth #3: Hell Is Just a State of Mind,
Myth #4: All the Interesting People Will Be in Hell,
Myth #5: A Tolerant God Would Let Me Choose,
Myth #6: No One Could Be Happy in Heaven Knowing Some Are in Hell,
PART II. REMYTHOLOGIZING HELL: THE FICTION,
9. The Philosophy of Hell: The Screwtape Letters,
10. Evil in Paradise: Perelandra,
11. The Sociology of Hell: That Hideous Strength,
12. Hell Is a Choice, Too: The Great Divorce,
13. Descent into Hell: The Chronicles of Narnia,
PURGATORY,
14. Is Purgatory Plan B?,
EPILOGUE,
15. Last Things: An Epilogue on Who Goes to Heaven,
Notes,
Works Cited,

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Beyond the Shadowlands does much more than illuminate C. S. Lewis. It illuminates the great mystery of the nature of eternal life. This book makes the Christian reader yearn for what lies ahead."
Gene Edward Veith Jr., author, Loving God with All Your Mind and Post-Christian

"Dr. Wayne Martindale has done us all a great favor in gathering up and putting into one volume what C. S. Lewis has written about Heaven and the afterlife. The Lord has a way of shining the light of Heaven down on the works of Lewis, and in the process delivering us moderns from secular-minded myths. Many who read Beyond the Shadowlands may find not only Heaven and a longing for the eternal birthed in them, but missing parts of themselves set in as well: a remythologized and ennobled self more fully participating in an eternal kingdom."
Leanne Payne, author; Founder, Ministries of Pastoral Care

"This is no mere book. It is a window to the next world. You will see things here that few have seen. Wayne Martindale has produced a work of great love and illumination like nothing else you'll read this year."
Thomas L. Martin, author, Poiesis and Possible Worlds; editor, Reading the Classics with C. S. Lewis

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