A Confessional Reading of The Great Divorce

“I beg readers to remember that this is a fantasy. It has of course—or I intended 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.”

That is the “end of the beginning” of a book that can be read quickly and enjoyably, yet is written by a man who has written nothing that can be treated merely like literary fast food. The preface is heavy with thoughts that, by themselves, are well worth reading and retaining. Here’s another:

“Blake wrote the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. If I have written of their Divorce, this is not because I think myself a fit antagonist for so great a genius, nor even because I feel at all sure that I know what he meant. But in some sense or other the attempt to make that marriage is perennial. The attempt is based on the belief that reality never presents us with an absolutely unavoidable ‘either-or’; that, granted skill and patience and (above all) time enough, some way of embracing both alternatives can always be found; that mere development or adjustment or refinement will somehow turn evil into good without our being called on for a final and total rejection of anything we should like to retain. This belief I take to be a disastrous error.”

Here’s another:

“We are not living in a world where all roads are radii of a circle and where all, if followed long enough, will therefore draw gradually nearer and finally meet at the centre: rather in a world where every road, after a few miles, forks into two, and each of those into two again, and at each fork you must make a decision.”

One more:

“I do not think that all who choose wrong roads perish; but their rescue consists in being put back on the right road. A sum can be put right: but only by going back till you find the error and working it afresh from that point, never by simply going on. Evil can be undone, but it cannot ‘develop’ into good.”

It is also written by an Anglican, and as we are all theologians, with only some of us being well-trained and possibly even fewer of us being “good” - and if you are not a theologian of the cross, you are not a good theologian, our theological presuppositions impact how we “do theology.”

The Great Divorce takes up 14 chapters in 71 pages. Dr. Lewis wrote it as the European campaign of WW II drew to its close. We are introduced to our guide (the author), and we travel with him, starting our journey in an unnamed place - I’ll call it “Shadowland” - which is a version of the afterlife that looks less like traditional visions of Hell than Gary, IN in the middle of winter - which, to some, might be not too far apart.

In Chapters 1 & 2, we meet some of the other residents as they prepare to go on a “holiday” to another, equally unnamed place, but one which, based upon the description of the transportation taking them (which kind of reminds me of the “Magic School Bus” from PBS) is the opposite of where they live. "It was a wonderful vehicle, blazing with golden light, heraldically coloured. The Driver himself seemed full of light and he used only one hand to drive with. The other he waved before his face as if to fan away the greasy steam of the rain” (p. 3). Individuals introduce themselves, each sharing why they believe they can go on this trip and bring back something that will improve their current community. It sounds rather noble, even, and yet, in each case, there is something about the various proposals that has a slight fragrance of sulfur.

Another piece of information surfaces when one of the residents shares a plan to go to the “other place” in order to obtain items for sale. These things would be superior to the things currently available because they are “real.” In their home place, everything is instantly available by thinking it into existence. The problem is, those things are not tangible. The homes in which the residents live are not able to keep out the constant rainfall. This will make more sense when we get to the next part of the story, in Chapter 3.

In this chapter, we arrive at “the Good Place.” Unlike the NBC version, which, in interesting ways, has more in common with the place the residents just left, this place is composed of solid, tangible items. Getting off the bus proves to be painful for the travelers, because they are not solid. Even walking on the grass proves to be a tough, grim exercise in endurance. The people who inhabit this place are also “solid.” They approach the visiting “tourists” and speak to them as friends and family. In each meeting, the visitors are invited and encouraged to stay, being told by the residents that it will get better for them if they allow it. In each case, the visitors will need to give up something that they think is essential to their “happiness” or “purpose,” but in reality is a hindrance to their ability to enjoy life in “the good place.” This second part of the story lasts until Chapter 8. It covers the first half of the story. This section ends with our narrator beginning to wonder whether it is even possible for anyone to actually choose to stay, much less successfully make the transition to “solidness” or being “real.”

Another thing about this process is that, at no time do we get a notion that one must actively “do” something in order to make the transition. Instead, the choice always consists of giving up something that they were accustomed to doing when they were on earth. It appears that each of the residents had this same experience, and they sought their friends/family members that, while there might be a moment of pain in giving up what they treasured, what they gain would make what they give up seem to be as nothing, just as, living in “the Good Place” makes their home and its experiences seem to be “as nothing” as well.

Beginning in Chapter 9, our protagonist experiences what he had only witnessed until now. He meets a solid person, but not a relative or an old friend. Instead, he meets George MacDonald, a man whom C.S. Lewis has long admired, the 19th and early 20th Century Scottish poet, author and Congregationalist preacher who understood the power of story to enable people to hear the Word of Christ.

The remaining five chapters focus on MacDonald’s work with our protagonist, and we discover that there is another reason why he seems to interact with this environment differently than did his fellow “Shadowland” residents. While he is not “solid,” just like the rest of those who got on the bus, unlike them, apparently, he is not actually dead.

“‘Ye saw the choices a bit more clearly than ye could see them on Earth: the lens was clearer. But it was still seen through the lens. Do not ask of a vision in a dream more than a vision in a dream can give.’ ‘A dream? Then—then—am I not really here, Sir?’ ‘No, Son,’ said he kindly, taking my hand in his. ‘It is not so good as that. The bitter drink of death is still before you. Ye are only dreaming. And if ye come to tell of what ye have seen, make it plain that it was but a dream’” (p. 62).

So what can we make of this story, as story written by one who, as a Calvinist, believed that our preeminent engagement with God was in terms of His sovereignty. By contrast, as a Lutheran, our preeminent engagement is with God in terms of His loving-kindness, compassion, and mercy.

How is God’s mercy, the lens through which Luther understood the Gospel and what led him and those who confess as we do, that God wants all people to be saved (1 Tim 2:4), expressed in this work?

I think that it is expressed in the fact that those who come on the bus are met by people whom they knew in life, people who wanted to be the ones who invited each visitor to stay. In each story, the solid person fought for the soul of the visitor, pled fervently, and interceded mightily for the visitor to repent of the things that led to their placement in “Shadowland.”

I think that it is expressed by the recognition that your love for your neighbor is not a device that you use to prove to God that you love Him above all things. It is the result of being “in Love Himself.” Listen to this conversation between a “ghost” and the woman who he married on earth:

“I am in love. In love, do you understand? Yes, now I love truly.”

“You mean,” said the Tragedian, “you mean—you did not love me truly in the old days?”

“Only in a poor sort of way,” she answered. “I have asked you to forgive me. There was a little real love in it. But what we called love down there was mostly the craving to be loved. In the main I loved you for my own sake: because I needed you.”

“And now!” said the Tragedian with a hackneyed gesture of despair. “Now, you need me no more?”

“But of course not!” said the Lady; and her smile made me wonder how both the phantoms could refrain from crying out with joy.

“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.”

In the Gospel that we preach, we are more than tokens, trophies of God’s sovereignty over Satan. God loves us, not what we represent in the Cosmic scheme, but us!

1 Timothy 2:5–6 ESV

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

The Great Divorce is the story of how we operate apart from Him, not really living, moving, or even being. Apart from Him, we are but shadows, caricatures of the imago Dei. In Him, we are alive and empowered to love without fear of failure because we are forgiven freely and fully.

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

I admit that the ending, although disappointing from the standpoint that I want to see a happy ending for the star of the story. I want him to move towards the mountain, growing more solid as he goes, but instead, it ends with no ending, just the confused rousing of a man who had an odd dream and “awoke in a cold room, hunched on the floor beside a black and empty grate, the clock striking three, and the siren howling overhead” (p.63).

Still, given Lewis’ expressed warning that I quoted at the beginning, we do need to be reminded that any imaging of heaven from our perspective must be incomplete, because for the Reality of Heaven, we are dependent upon God Himself, and He has not told us everything, but He has told us that He is faithful, and in the end, that is enough when I know that He loves us and "is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen (Eph 3:20-21).