dangerous idea: C. S. Lewis's Vision of Heaven: Positively Desirable?

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

C. S. Lewis's Vision of Heaven: Positively Desirable?

One weakness that Christians have in the modern times, I believe, is providing a vision of heaven that really motivates people. I have often heard it said that the vision of heaven is boring. It must be admitted that Christians have often associated heaven with what seem to many of us to be boring images: harps, clouds, and effeminate figures with wings. At least Islam offers the Celestial Playboy Mansion.

As Kenny Chesney puts it:

Everybody wanna go to heaven
It beats the other place there ain’t no doubt
Everybody wanna go to heaven
But nobody wanna go now

Heaven for many of us is negatively desirable; it is an alternative to eternal punishment and extinction, which seem to be the options. I think the one thinker that has done the best job of giving us a picture of heaven that is positively desirable. This is an essay by Charlie Starr, published in the New York C. S. Lewis Society bulletin, which discusses Lewis's views of heaven.

Labels: C. S. Lewis, heaven

14 Comments:

At November 10, 2010 5:53 PM , Anonymous said...

Did Lewis believe that heaven was our final destination, or did he believe that the "new heavens and new Earth", often expressed as the "marriage of heaven and Earth," is our final destination, with "heaven" being perhaps a stopping point on the way? If the latter, then I'm inclined to think that Lewis' beautiful novel Perelandra provides us with a more accurate eschatological vision. I'm also surprised that the novel was absent from the essay.
At November 10, 2010 10:11 PM , Anonymous said...

I feel that part of the problem of describing heaven in such a way that people here and now will desire it is that part of the regeneration/transformation/whatever that God will work in us between now and the time we enter God's kingdom is a transformation of our desires. So I feel that it's not surprising if even good christian folk on this side of death find the thought of spending eternity with God not terribly exciting. We have yet to be fully regenerated. Our current lack of an intense desire for eternal intimacy with God is part of our fallenness.
At November 11, 2010 4:15 AM , Steven Carr said...

'We are ghosts and shadows and our world but a cheap copy of the heavenly one to come, like a landscape painting compared to the real place'

We are not ghosts and shadows.

Everything in that description of Heaven by Lewis is simply made up by him.

That is what theology is. Making things up.

Lewis just made it all up.
At November 11, 2010 4:50 AM , Anonymous said...

"That is what theology is. Making things up."

If true (which it's not - that quote reflects Lewis' Platonism), then theology would be in the same boat as physics, which observes the effects of hypothesized entities rather than the entities (ex. moving electrons, strings) themselves.

And surely physics isn't an illegitimate course of study.
At November 11, 2010 7:21 AM , Steven Carr said...

I see.

So Lewis has observed the effects of Heaven, and physicists have just made up gravity?

You just have to read the article and you know Lewis was just sitting down at his desk and making things up in the way that astrologers do.
At November 11, 2010 9:35 AM , Leah said...

Unsurprisingly, given my atheism, I find most hypothesized Heavens and associated sorting criteria to be boring and deeply unfair. Lewis's The Great Divorce remains the only description I found fair and merciful and a little compelling.

--Leah @ Unequally Yoked
At November 11, 2010 8:46 PM , Gregory said...

Mr. Carr said:

"You just have to read the article and you know Lewis was just sitting down at his desk and making things up in the way that astrologers do.

Well, Mr. Carr, I guess that makes you an "astrologer" too. In fact, as a physicalist/naturalist, you're position is astrology since atheists maintain that natural processes within the atomic elements of the stars can create, manipulate and predestine the whole material universe. In fact, such teleological terms are replete in all of the scientific literature covering these topics.

I think atheists are oblivious of the fact that they, like the so-called "astrologers", actually worship and venerate nature qua divinity. Although the language they use suggests otherwise, yet they persist on using anthropomorphic language to describe things like "natural selection" as though nature had some purpose in mind (i.e. teleological notions like "the selfish gene"). Just observe how they ascribe human principles of "reason" and "invention" to the processes of nature as though nature were actually predisposed to such principles...that nature does, in fact, think and plan events. I can accept that as a theist, but not as an atheist.

Theists, on the other hand, seize upon these anthropomorphic illustrations and the logic of natural processes, in order to develop a coherent and rational "natural theology". If you think about it, Dawkins' "Blind Watchmaker" is a good reason to believe in God because he has not actually shown the non-existence of the "watchmaker"...he's only denied that the "watchmaker" can see.

But Dawkins is the blind argument maker, because everyone knows that "watches" do not, and can not, make themselves. Therefore, the title of his "magnum opus" is both foolish and vain. And yet many still see something in that work as if it had absolutely demonstrated something that contradicts theism.

But...what in the world is a "selfish gene", anyway? Is this whole canard a return to "monadic animism"? I think so.
At November 11, 2010 9:07 PM , Gregory said...

But in truth, we can not simply correlate "logical principles" to creative events. Meaning, to create something means going beyond things like simple "inference", "repetition" and "causality"...although, we can apply such things to works of art. Yet, art is something more than the sum of it parts.

For instance, music has a certain kind of "logic" to it. Yet, hearing, receiving and enjoying music transcends....must transcend...the simplicities of "reason". For certain songs, we tap our feet, bob our heads, and/or are compelled to listen in awe. There is no "logic", strictly speaking, in such behaviors and feelings that have developed from listening to music. And the same can be said of the "visual arts".

There is a definite transcendence...call it "Platonism", if you will...in the experiences of human creativity and art. Let me state this without equivocation: science can not---and never will---explain, or explain away, human creativity because to do so involves a person in the "creative" act itself. You might say that this is "Goedel's theorem", or "paradox", applied to human imagination.
At November 11, 2010 9:36 PM , Gregory said...

Imagine, if you will, the watch on your wrist was made by a blind man....or by blind factory workers. Does the fact that the blind maker/s of your wrist watch translate to "the watch made itself"? Of course not!!

My point is that it is not necessary to know how a "blind" person made something in order to see that something was made. That is my point. Although, I don't think I expressed this as clearly in the prior posts.

Be that as it may, it behooves Dawkins to rename his book with a title that's actually clever...something like "Evolution Did It, I Believe It And That Settles It". There's no point in confusing everyone; and especially Mr. Dawkins.
At November 11, 2010 9:43 PM , Gregory said...

Does the fact that the blind maker/s of your wrist watch translate to "the watch made itself"? Of course not!!

Let me phrase this better since I think faster than I type:

Does the fact that some alleged blind maker/s of a watch then translate to an inference that "watches make themselves"? Of course not!!
At November 12, 2010 4:23 AM , Steven Carr said...

I have no idea what Gregory is talking about.

The fact remains that Lewis was as equally skilled at making up a description of Narnia as he was in making up descriptions of us as ghosts and Heaven as real.
At November 12, 2010 2:13 PM , kbrowne said...

Steven Carr,

Of course Lewis was making it all up. The theology in 'The Great Divorce' was intended seriously and meant to be true. But the descriptions of Hell and Heaven were fiction. Lewis said as much. But there is nothing wrong with that, is there?
At November 15, 2010 7:11 PM , Edward T. Babinski said...

THE PROBLEM OF WORSHIP by Scott F. Aikin in Think magazine Sum. 2010:

"Theism is a cluster of views. The first of which is that God exists. Others are that God has all the relevant omniattributes, that He created the world, and that He communicates with and performs miracles on behalf of humans. There is one additional view that is often overlooked. It is that humans are obligated to worship God. Importantly, this issue of worship is of central importance to traditional theism. And it extends into pagan thought that predates Christianity. . . READ MORE HERE

http://people.vanderbilt.edu/~scott.f.aikin/The%20Problem%20of%20Worship.pdf
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