I have been an avid CS Lewis reader for many years. My Mom introduced me to The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe during Junior High and I at once learned to love the insight and magic of Lewis’ writings. His strong vision of good and evil, the ability to take fantasy and anchor it into reality have kept me reading. In his book the Problem with Pain, he touches on the subject of Hell. He refers to it as doctrine, as so it is, and at the same time it is a reality which Jesus speaks of many times.
I leave it to you to read….
On hell
There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words; it has always been held by Christendom; and it has the support of reason. If a game is played, it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in self-surrender, no one can make that surrender but himself (though many can help him to make it) and he may refuse. I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully “All will be saved.” But my reason retorts, “Without their will, or with it?” If I say “Without their will” I at once perceive a contra- diction; how can the supreme voluntary act of self-surrender be involuntary? If I say “With their will,” my reason replies “How if they will not give in?”. . .
The doors of Hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of Hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man “wishes” to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.
