C.S. Lewis gives his actual response in “The Great Divorce”, and it is much as you say. In fact, he asserts that people in hell do not ever want to leave it, so God is just giving them what they want.
As you say, this may ultimately not make a lot of sense, but at least he is not saying that God is being tyrannical.
I’m not sure that “The Great Divorce” is intended to tell us Lewis’s actual opinions about hell and how one gets and/or stays there. Isn’t he at pains, in his interchange with George MacDonald at the end, to insist that it’s mere speculation and not intended to be any kind of statement of doctrine?
(It’s years since I read it, so I may well be wrong; in particular, I’m not more than 80% confident that what he says there can’t be interpreted as “I expect things actually are somewhat like this, but it’s important for the reader to understand that I could well be wrong about that”.)
Yes, I think that’s right, although I think he would be much more certain that God is not a tyrant, and would be proposing this as one possible explanation.
C.S. Lewis gives his actual response in “The Great Divorce”, and it is much as you say. In fact, he asserts that people in hell do not ever want to leave it, so God is just giving them what they want.
As you say, this may ultimately not make a lot of sense, but at least he is not saying that God is being tyrannical.
I’m not sure that “The Great Divorce” is intended to tell us Lewis’s actual opinions about hell and how one gets and/or stays there. Isn’t he at pains, in his interchange with George MacDonald at the end, to insist that it’s mere speculation and not intended to be any kind of statement of doctrine?
(It’s years since I read it, so I may well be wrong; in particular, I’m not more than 80% confident that what he says there can’t be interpreted as “I expect things actually are somewhat like this, but it’s important for the reader to understand that I could well be wrong about that”.)
Yes, I think that’s right, although I think he would be much more certain that God is not a tyrant, and would be proposing this as one possible explanation.