Hell is a Humorless Place
For humour involves a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside. Whatever else we attribute to beings who sinned through pride, we must not attribute this. Satan, said Chesterton, fell through force of gravity. We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment.
--- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, in his "Preface to the 1961 Edition
Labels: Hell, Humor, My Reading List
posted by Dave Mallinak | 10:14 AM
3 Comments:
Hey Dave,
Have just been browsing your blog and found plenty o' good stuff. Couldn't pass this one by without comment though. I'm sure as a reader of Lewis you will have noticed the duality of his writings: some incredible spiritual insight into some matters contrasted with amazing spiritual blindness in others - all presented authoritatively and in a witty, well written manner.
I wonder about his above comment. He starts out quoting a Catholic modernist, then finishes it off stating "we must picture Hell as..." and then goes on to list a bunch of things not once mentioned in Scripture in relation to Hell.
As a former New Evangelical and someone who loved Lewis, that sort of talk is not helpful. Having a Lewis quote on your side in New Evangelicism is like quoting Scripture, and Lewis' redefinitions of Hell were very popular among myself and likeminded friends looking for a more "fleshfriendly" version of eternal punishment.
I would suggest we must picture Hell exactly as Christ described it. If he's talking about the personal "hell" that those attributes will bring you into, perhaps he should substitute misery. As it is, he didn't, and I'm sure it's that kind of thinking that lead him into further errors as can be read in Mere Christianity.
Josh,
I don't mind you questioning Lewis. His insights are often good and helpful. I think that he was pretty perceptive about people, and I am enjoying my trip through Screwtape. I read it a few years ago, and at the time determined to go back through it again and this time to catalogue it, mark it up, and pick out the useful nuggets. Hence this series of posts.
But his theology is troubling to many, and I would include myself as one who is not in any way in what might be called "full agreement" with him. So, I agree with you that Lewis seemed to draw a large amount of his theology from logic rather than from Scripture.
However, I think that he has a point on Hell that is worthy of our consideration. The Bible describes Hell as a place of torment, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. In his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angy God," Jonathan Edwards spoke of the worm as being a demonic creature that feeds on the souls of men in hell. Is that extra-biblical? Perhaps. But it is also very possible. And to say that the people in hell are very much like the unregenerate men who populate the earth even now is, in my opinion, equally plausible.
I often hear preachers assert that the people in Hell will spend all of eternity begging God to forgive them, wishing they would have repented, and cursing those who did not warn them to flee the wrath to come. Do we find that in Scripture? I suppose that some would say that it comes from the story of the rich man and Lazarus. But I would point out that the story does not tell us this. The rich man never once asks for forgiveness. He never once expresses any sort of regret. He never once speaks against those who did not tell him. The only thing that we can assert from this passage is that he didn't want anyone else to join him in Hell.
So, I don't know that we can assert that the people of Hell wish that they could get out. In fact, I believe that it is very possible that some of those in Hell hate God worse, curse God every day, and in general only wish for their own comfort, but want no part of God's love.
And I believe this in part because I have no reason to think that the people in Hell somehow become more virtuous once they get there, as if the eternal torture that they suffer somehow purges them of their rebellion against God.
Is that extra-biblical? Perhaps. But so are those assertions that say that the people in Hell get a right attitude towards God once they get there.
Hey Dave,
Thanks for the reply. I guess there is a lot of speculation when it comes to the nature of sinners in Hell. I'd never really thought of that. I'd always been taught that the worm was the part of your soul that never dies, but even that doesn't really have Scriptural backing, it's just an assumption. Food for thought.
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