The Last Battle

The Last Battle is one of my favourites of the Chronicles of Narnia... even though they're all pretty much my favourite books ever... I just really really love this one :)

Evil takes one true line about Aslan's character - "not a tame lion" - and twists it so as to give the completely wrong idea.

Tirian slaying the Calormen who were driving the Talking Horse reminds me of Moses killing the Egyptian in the book of Exodus.

The one dwarf who returns reminds me of the one leper who returns to give thanks to Christ.

"By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger." Satan does this all the time.

"Tirian and his friends could only see the back of Rishda Tarkaan, so they never knew what his face looked like as he shrugged his shoulders and said, "Bear witness all that I am guiltless of this young fool's blood."" Just like Pilate.

Some of the animals join the Narnian side, and some the Calormenes, but most just slip away and don't choose either side. I wonder if this is how it will be for people at the last day.

Surprised by Joy {II}

"This was a religion that cost nothing. We could talk religiously about the Absolute: but there was no danger of Its doing anything about us. It was "there"; safely and immovable "there." It would never come "here," never (to be blunt) make a nuisance of Itself. This quasi-religion was all a one-way street; all eros (as Dr. Nygren would say) steaming up, but no agape darting down. There was nothing to fear; better still, nothing to obey."

I like how Lewis describes God as "hunting," or actively pursuing him. I definitely agree that God's love is powerful and active, and that He does pursue us. His love is relentless.

"Total surrender, the absolute leap in the dark, were demanded. The reality with which no treaty can be made was upon me. The demand was not even "All or nothing." I think that stage had been passed, on the bus top when I unbuckled my armour and the snowman started to melt. Now, the demand was simply "All.""

Love Wins // The Great Divorce

It occurred to me yesterday to compare Lewis' beliefs espoused in The Great Divorce to the more recent work by Rob Bell - Love Wins. Unfortunately I've never read Love Wins, and though I would very much like to I don't foresee myself having the time {or money...} anytime soon. Still, I've heard quite a bit about it and read various articles online and I think the comparison still holds.


According to a USA Today article, Bell makes the following claims: 

• Heaven and hell are choices we make and live with right now. "God gives us what we want," including the freedom to live apart from God (hell) or turn God's way (heaven).
• Death doesn't cut off the ability to repent. In his Bible, Bell sees no "infinite, eternal torment for things (people) did in their few finite years of life."
• Jesus makes salvation possible even for people who never know his name. "We have to allow for mystery," for people who "drink from the rock" of faith "without knowing who or what it was.

One of my favourite parts of The Last Battle is when Aslan says, 

"Therefore, 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…Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.” 

I think this goes along with what Bell says - that Jesus makes salvation possible even for people who never know his name. "We have to allow for mystery," for people who "drink from the rock" of faith "without knowing who or what it was."

The Great Divorce

In 1946, Lewis wrote The Great Divorce in response to Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790). 
Curious, I looked up The Marriage to see what it was about. I was interested to learn that The Marriage was itself written in response to an earlier book, Heaven and Hell by Emanuel Swedenborg (1758). 
In each work, the author writes as though he has visited the afterlife and is writing to inform the rest of humanity about what he has seen. I briefly skimmed each to prepare to re-read The Great Divorce. To give a very, very brief summary:
Swedenborg believes that there are "heathens" in Heaven, and that God does not thrust anyone down to Hell but that people cast themselves down. {This seems to go along with Lewis' work.}
Blake calls Swedenborg's writings a "recaptiulation of all superficial opinions" and claims to have conversed with both angels and devils in a depolarized, unified afterlife.
Lewis refutes Blake's assertion that good and evil can eventually be reconciled. {This jives with Latter-day Saint belief, which states that "No unclean thing can dwell with God."}
This quotation by the George MacDonald {a poet greatly admired by C.S. Lewis} is on the title page of The Great Divorce:

'No, there is no escape.

There is no heaven with a little of hell in it--

no plan to retain this or that of the devil in our hearts or our 

pockets. Out Satan must go, every hair and feather.' 

It is on this belief that Lewis bases his work. 

...

I love Lewis' style of writing. The way he describes the Tousle-Headed Poet is just so perfectly ironic: 

"To make matters worse he had been exactly the sort of boy in whose case the examination system works out with the maximum unfairness and absurdity" etc.

He always writes from "our" perspective - we imperfect humans - with the sort of reason we would use to defend ourselves. But in seeing it down on paper, we realize how ridiculous is actually is.