There is something which they prefer to Heaven. There is something of which they cannot let go. Time and again the souls which come up from Hell choose to return. However, in The Great Divorce we see that Hell is a self-choice. Many people, Christian and non-Christian struggle with the idea that God would condemn someone to Hell. He says, “I believe, to be sure, that any man who reaches Heaven will find that what he abandoned (even in plucking out his right eye) has not been lost: that the kernel of what he was really seeking even in his most depraved wishes will be there, beyond expectation, waiting for him in ‘the High Countries’. However, Lewis promises us that in abandoning these sins we will have lost nothing. Why then, do we insist on keeping our pet sins? Lewis says that they all have to go. As the Book of Revelation says, nothing unclean can enter Heaven. As one of the characters in the book says, “If we insist on keeping Hell…we shall not see Heaven: if we accept Heaven we shall not be able to retain even the smallest and most intimate souvenirs of Hell”. The central point of The Great Divorce is that there can be no marriage between Heaven and Hell. It is a fictional book where Lewis ponders what would happen if souls could travel from Hell to Heaven…would they want to stay? The Great Divorce is probably my favourite of all of Lewis’ books.
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