Reddit mentions of The Great Divorce

No Man is an Island By Thomas Merton

Clowning in Rome By Henri Nouwen.

The Great Divorce By C.S. Lewis

Beginning to Pray By Archbishop Anthony Bloom

For the Life of the World By Fr Alexander Schmemann

Christ the Conqueror of Hell By Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev

Christ the Eternal Tao By Hieromonk Damascene

The Way of the Pilgrim

Marriage as a Path to Holiness-Lives of Married Saints By David and Mary Ford

On the Incarnation By St Athanasius

On Social Justice By St Basil the Great

The Ladder of Divine Ascent By St John Climacus

I'm currently trying to finish Fr Seraphim Rose- His Life and Works for the third time and despite my apparent inability to complete it, I really do enjoy it.

I actually just had this discussion last week. If you're at all interested I recommend that you go check it out.

Here's the first post:

>No, it's because this question has been asked so many times before. A standard Catholic answer would be the following:

>God is not the one who punishes. God predestines each of us to heaven and does whatever is in his power (thereby investing himself in us) to enable us to reach this state of divinity in which our humanity is fulfilled.

>One of the central Christian theses is the dogma that ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν, that God is love. Heaven is completed union with God, which is to say, the state in which one's being is overwhelmed by the pouring out of love and the receiving of love. This is what we are all predestined towards, but it must also be remembered that love must be a free choice: in order to love it must also be possible not to love, and those who choose not to love exclude themselves from the possibility of attaining union with God.

>Hell in our conception is thus not a creation of God but rather the necessary consequence of the free choice not to love. Those who live without love create their own hell within themselves.

>If you have any further interest in the subject I would recommend reading C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce.

The Catholic Church teaches that all religions have some level of Truth to them (capital T). God reveals himself to different peoples in different ways, the Catholics just think they're "more right" than the rest.

Denominations that say that could be right, they could be wrong. In the end, everyone has to decide their own way.

Personally, my view on heaven and hell are pretty close to what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce - Christian, Muslim, Atheist, whatever - all people choose where they will wind up, either with God or apart from Him. Since God is love, then being apart from him for all eternity would be hell. Each person must choose, and if you choose not to believe, well, why would you want to spend eternity with something you don't believe exists?

Honestly, C.S. Lewis does a really great job of answering your question, via fictional narrative, in The Great Divorce.

It's a super short, very entertaining read that is probably communicated much more elegantly than anything you will get here. Seriously, I'm a very lazy reader, and I finished the thing in two sittings, no problem.

Edit: fixed the link!

I have a couple of things to say. Nothing philosophical, really—you've looked at the philosophical disputes already, and ultimately I think what you need to make up your mind is time, contemplation, and journeying. Don't think this is something that you need to determine instantly; if there is a God (as, I think, the best evidence indicates there is), then he must be compassionate and certainly is not displeased by someone who deliberately takes the time to figure things out and pursue truth with an open heart.

You're 17. Do you have any plans to go to college? If so, do the institutions you're looking at offer any philosophy of religion courses? Self-study is great, but sometimes coming at an issue in an explicitly academic context helps people really determine and refine what they think.

I, for one, cannot imagine the God in whom I believe sending such a sincere seeker of the truth to hell. Christians believe that God is love, that love is God's very essence (and indeed, if they are correct, the philosophical arguments over at /r/ThroughAGlassDarkly should establish that one of God's characteristics is being all-loving). If you have the time, I'd recommend picking up the book The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, a marvelous exposition into contemporary Christian thought regarding heaven and hell. In short, heaven is the condition of living in love, and hell is the condition of living without love—those who live in love presently on earth are already in an 'anticipated heaven,' as it were, while those who have surrendered to their own selfishness have already descended into a hell of their own making, a prison of their own subjectivity. I can't say for sure, obviously, but from this and other posts you don't strike me as someone whose concern for the satiation of subjective urges outweighs the longing for objective truth.

God is just, loving, and merciful. If you love others and act according to your conscience, I don't think you have reason to fear. Yet by no means cease from exploring. Read widely. If you're at all interested in Christianity I would recommend picking up C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, any popular-level work by N. T. Wright, and perhaps Ratzinger's God and the World or any papal encyclical issued since 2005. If for now you're just trying to wrap your head around the question of whether God exists, I would suggest that you continue to study independently, and plunge headfirst into life, being open to ideas, to people, to new experiences. The reality of God is apprehended not just in philosophical argumentation but also experientially; if in your journeying it becomes evident to you that there is something more, something greater than the hum-drum of everyday life or the experience of material satisfaction and transient happiness, then perhaps you will understand that God is out there, and that he loves you.

At the risk of blogspamming :-) here's an article I wrote about it: The River of God

It may not be THE Orthodox view, but it's one that's been taught pretty consistently across the Orthodox world for a very long time.

Bottom line: The fire-and-brimstone, Your Day In Court imagery is mostly metaphor; that's why no two Judgment Day accounts seem to quite match up. Take metaphors and imagery too literally and you end up with silly scenarios, as the atheists love to point out. That doesn't mean we can ignore the metaphors, though: The language Christ uses about gehenna and John's references to the Lake of Fire point to something sobering and real that we need to avoid.

C.S. Lewis wrote an excellent story called The Great Divorce that eloquently describes a very Orthodox understanding of hell. Unlike Orthodox writers, though, he's not longwinded about it. :-\

I've read two books which were recommended to me by this subreddit.

The first book I read was The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. I was already a Lewis fan, but I had ignored this book. It is now by and far in my top 3 books, and it's still an emotional roller-coaster just thinking about it. That man had an absurd talent for offering theological insight through allegory. I was able to read it in two sittings.

The other book was Surprised by Hope by N.T. Wright. On top of me enjoying his insight, this book really cleaned up what I thought about death and the Christian afterlife, pre and post-resurrection. It was the theological insight I needed the hear on the topic, and it was very impactful on me.

Both are solid reads, and I'd recommend them to anyone.

1. This is known as the Problem of Evil. If you'd like to see discussion on this topic, please check out our . The attempt to answer this question is known as theodicy. There are two major theodicies that I'll briefly summarize, but in order to fully grasp the weight of these ideas, you're going to have to consult a lot of philosophical material. There's a reason why people can take many classes just on this problem. The first defense is called the Free Will Defense. In a nutshell, it says that God created creatures with free will - the ability to choose good or to choose evil. Unfortunately, some free creatures made poor decisions, and evil came into our world. The presence of this freely chosen evil is the reason for the pain and suffering we see today. Augustine is credited with one of the earliest formulations of this defense. Alvin Plantinga has published a more recent free will defense which very many people believe has refuted the Problem of Evil. The second theodicy is called the soul-making theodicy. Essentially, it says that God has a morally justified reason for allowing evil, and it is to create mature beings. Although this is obviously not a perfect world, it may be the best way to a perfect world. This theodicy asserts that evil allows for mature, perfected beings, and that without evil, people could not have been optimally perfect. John Hick is well-known for this theodicy.
   
   
2. I don't see why that would be the case. However, I am unconvinced of a Young Earth. If you meant to imply YEC, then I'm the wrong person to talk to.
   
   
3. This is the Problem of Hell. Again, many good discussions on this topic will be found in the FAQ. Personally, I do not believe that someone will find themselves in Hell because they believed wrongly. Salvation is not dependent upon a theology exam! I think that those in Hell have actively rejected God's grace and forgiveness. C. S. Lewis presents a compelling view of Hell in a chapter in The Problem of Pain. He says that Hell is a special prison where the lock and key are on the inside of the cell. Those in Hell will not allow themselves to be forgiven. The Great Divorce also gives an interesting look into what the heart of someone in Hell is like. All that being said, I firmly believe that salvation is found in Jesus Christ alone. It is the rejection of God, who is the source of what is good, that causes a person to damn himself.
   
   
4. This is a restatement of the Problem of Evil, which I discussed above.

I've been reading Dr. William Lane Craig's Reasonable Faith and finding it to be pretty stimulating so if you want something on the more academic end then that could be good.

CS Lewis's The Great Divorce is a good, quick read with an interesting take on the natures of Heaven and Hell.

Rev. Dr. Mary Kathleen Cunningham is a very good scholar who I studied under during undergrad and who has put together a very nice reader which surveys the spectrum of belief in the creationism/evolution debate called God and Evolution which is good if you're interested in that kind of thing.

Dr. Craig Keener has a good, cohesive commentary on the New Testament which you can buy as a single volume called The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament.

So there's a few to start out with. Let me know if you're looking for anything more specific and I can try to help (I have a budding theological library in my apartment).

You can see this perspective played out a little in The Great Divorce in which Lewis rides a bus from Earth to hell and then to heaven, and also in The Last Battle in which Aslan proclaims to the devout Calormene soldier, "all the service thou hast done to Tash [a false god], I accept as service done to me… no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him."

If you are looking for a imaging of what hell is, why it exists and why God may be just in letting hell exist, might I suggest reading the Great Divorce by CS Lewis. It presents a hell that is nothing like Dante's interpretation, but still shows how awful it could be and how much better a relationship with God would be.

https://www.amazon.com/Great-Divorce-C-S-Lewis/dp/0060652950

Edit: Typo

It's normal to have questions. It's good you're thinking about your religion.

>1 I heard the Bible has been altered (esp. the New Testament) by people so that they can eat pork, drink occasionally, not be circumcised, etc. However, the Quran hasn't. This is why my Muslim friends are all circumcised, don't eat pork, drink, etc. Like the stuff in the Old Testament. Is there any proof that the Bible is unaltered?

The dietary laws found in the OT are strictly for the nation of Israel. Most of them come as a sort of national penance for the idolatry at Sinai and were never meant to followed by the Gentiles. God elected Israel to prepare the world to see what election is grounded in (His gratuitous love). He choose a people who were of no account to demonstrate that when He elects, He does so freely and not because we bring anything to the table. He gave Israel the law to train them so that they would learn to grow accustomed to delighting in following God.

>2 Why did Jesus die for our sins, if anything is possible?

God did not have to become man and dwell among us (John 1.14) and be crucified for our sins. It was nevertheless fitting that He did so. Why? One reason is because it shows us what sort of love God has for us. He's fully invested in His creation. He knew from eternity that when He created this place, He was going to come down here and show His love in the Incarnation and crucifixion.

The Crucifix also inverts the world's expectations about power. Adam and Eve sinned because of pride, preferring themselves to God. So Jesus comes and shows us what true humility looks like (cf. Phil. 2). He doesn't "win" by power (though He could have), but shows His creatures what it looks like to love humbly.

>3 Why does God send us, who He created, to Hell to be eternally tortured if we don't believe (believe in me or I'll torture you)? I'm trying my hardest to believe and be a good Christian, but I have so many unanswered questions and doubts that are getting in the way.

Wouldn't Heaven for someone who does not love God actually be Hell? If they don't love Him now on earth, what makes you think they would enjoy Him in Heaven? It's not a safe assumption that the person who stood before God would automatically enjoy it. God has created creatures with a will because to love Him without being able to will it would be meaningless. It would be a sort of farce on God's part. However, that means some will freely choose to reject Him. If our wills mean anything, then God respects that and doesn't force those people to love Him for eternity (which is what Heaven is). I would read CS Lewis' The Great Divorce.

>4 Will God send those people who are raised in another religion, such as in Thailand (Buddhism), who don't have any external way of being informed of Christianity (like missionaries), to be tortured forever in Hell?

Some Christians believe this is so - that you're just out of luck if you happen not to be exposed to the Gospel. Catholics are not one of those sorts and I can only speak as a Catholic. For us, we follow St. Paul's thinking in Romans 2.14-15. Paul there talks about the natural law which is imprinted on our hearts by virtue of being created in the image of God. The Catechism says that the man who searches for God in another religion and does so earnestly is somehow being prepared for the Gospel (CCC 843) because all truth and goodness come from God. We trust those souls to God's mercy and justice, knowing that He is both.

>5 Why did God put a tree of knowledge if no one could eat from it? Like He purposely put the temptation there, knowing that at least some of us will be tempted to sin, and from there, be eternally damned.

Obedience which comes from love is the mark of the Christian life. CS Lewis' Perelandra does a good job at thinking about this. Basically Lewis says that there are sometimes rules which God gives which do not have a rationale on their own except that God has asked us to follow them. So in Perelandra, the woman is not allowed to live on the fixed land simply because God has asked her not to. By following this rule, however, she grows in love for God. She grows up, understanding what obedience is.

>6 Why does sin and the possibility of being sent to Hell for eternal torture exist, if God loves us more than anything? Doesn't He know that with creating humans, a lot of them will sin?

He does, but He hasn't remained aloof from the situation. Hebrews 4.15 tells us, "For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin." That's beautiful. Think on the Incarnation and the sheer gratuity of God's love in that act. Also see my above answer about hell.

>7 How would He judge agnostics? Like there are so many religions, and uncertainties, that some people will just gather from every religion that there is indeed a God who created us. Like people who follow basic morals like treating others well, but still do sins like, greed, lust (without rape or cheating), sodomy?

We don't know about any particular person who goes to hell. We simply trust God's goodness, His mercy, His justice, etc.

>8 Lust, masturbation, greed - why do those traits seem natural to humans, if they are sins? Like of course it's natural to look at the opposite sex and lust after them, especially when our hormones are raging.

Sin is the distortion of something good. Some women are beautiful. Recognizing their beauty isn't wrong. But sin warps our wills and desires, it warps our inclinations. Adam's and Eve's wills were in accord with their reason, but sin distorts this unity. This is why we do things (like sin) that we wish we did not (cf. Rom. 7). Neither lust, masturbation, nor greed are natural to man - they do not accord with the end for which God has created them (beatitude). Lust is an unhealthy fixation and a distortion of the natural goodness of human sexuality, which is given as a gift. Masturbation is the same - masturbation takes a gift meant for the sake of another (i.e. one's spouse) and misuses it for oneself. It takes something which is meant to be outward looking and makes it isolated. That's not what God created us for. Greed likewise is a disordered desire of goods. Any good thing we see on earth should point us to God, but greed terminates solely in created things and forgets the Creator.

I hope some of that helps.

I wish you would've put a question mark at the end, because then I could've assumed that you weren't being condescending (correct me if I'm wrong, I hope you aren't trying to be condescending).

So here is the thing - God wrote his law into nature. We know it intuitively. We just don't follow it because we think we know better. This is true if you are in the Bible belt or some isolated tribe in the amazon. People tend to be pretty comfortable living this way, because that little pang of conscience we get when we sin gets smaller and ^smaller ^and ^^smaller. What people don't get about heaven and hell though is that for those who are comfortable in their sins, whether they be sexual promiscuity, or greed, or arrogance, or whatever, heaven is a very unpleasant place. Without some pretty major, invasive transformation, no one would enjoy being there, because the lies we tell ourselves about how we are good people become painfully obvious. Every time in the Bible that someone apprehends God in his glory, they fall down in stark terror. We need to be cleansed in order to enjoy the pleasures of God.

So, every day, that isolated tribesman has a choice. Does he live a life of moral perfection? Or does he compare himself against others, decide he's not that bad, and live life for himself? Invariably he chooses to do the latter, and every time that is a choice against the salvation that you say he is doomed to miss. But here is the thing - he wouldn't want that salvation. None of us do. The conversion from nonchristian to saint in heaven is very long and painful, and there isn't a single person who would want to arrive at that destination if asked about it before that process is started.

CS Lewis (author of the Narnia series) wrote a fascinating thought experiment on this subject, called The Great Divorce.

1. Because the Bible isn't a theology textbook. It's an epic narrative. I highly recommend The Bible Project for help in understanding this.
   
2. Sounds like your definition of "Hell" is more influenced by the Middle Ages than the Bible. I recommend doing a word study on the words "hell (Gehenna)", "hades", and "the grave (Sheol)" in the Bible. You might be surprised by what you find. I also recommend reading The Great Divorce, by C.S. Lewis.
   
3. You're judged by your actions, not your ability to understand the universe. God is fully aware of our lack of awareness, and will take that into account.
   
4. Ah, the Election debate. This is where the "Bible is an epic narrative" thing becomes very important. Election/Predestination in the Bible is about Israel's role in God's plan. It's not about who gets to go to Heaven. God planned/elected/predestined/pre-purposed/chose Israel to have a particular role to play in His plan to save humanity from our slavery to sin. That role was fulfilled through Jesus (the climax of the epic narrative). God didn't predestine people for Heaven/Hell, rather He chose one people-group to be his instrument of redemption for the world. I recommend this video for help understanding the high-level epic narrative and Israel's purpose in it.
   
5. Actually, I would argue the Bible has a pretty compelling answer: Humans.
   
6. Having the Spirit residing in you doesn't guarantee intellectual agreement. It's not like you get an information download when you become a Christian. We still have to work through issues where we disagree, but if we have the Spirit in us, we will be able to do so in love.

Hello, I'm a bit late to this parade (I just heard Dr. Peterson's podcast with Joe Rogan yesterday) but I wanted to weigh in here.

There are a lot of good sources from a variety of Christian viewpoints. Many of the ones already listed are very good, but I don't see anything from my own particular version of Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy), so I wanted to suggest two resource for you from that perspective as well as another from C.S. Lewis whose words are held dear by most Christians.



The first is a lecture by Fr. John Behr, the current dean of St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary. He holds Masters of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy from Oxford University. This one is on YouTube and is 1.5 hours in length. It is called Death, the Final Frontier.There are a couple of minutes of fluff at the beginning but it starts to really roll into something I think Jordan Peterson fans would enjoy at the 3-minute mark. It is ostensibly about death, but it is a great critique of modern western culture viewed through the lens of liturgical Christianity.

This second is a recording of a lecture provided by a former dean of the same seminary that I think cuts to the heart of what Christianity actually means. It is called "The Word of the Cross" by Rev. Dr. Thomas Hopko and is around two hours total and has been broken into four individual sections by an Orthodox podcast publisher:
Part 1
[Part 2] (http://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/hopko_lectures/the_word_of_the_cross_part_2)
Part 3
Part 4

Lastly, I would direct you toward the writings of C.S. Lewis. When I was a young teenage atheist, his arguments were very persuasive for me and have been very popular amongst most Christians. I know many Protestants, Orthodox, and Catholics who have all found their first theological footing in Lewis' work. Mere Christianity is probably the best source to steer you toward, but I think his best ideas can be found in The Abolition of Man, The Great Divorce, and Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold. Since you've professed a preference for audio content, I will point you toward a YouTube playlist of the series of BBC radio broadcast lectures that C.S. Lewis gave during WWII that were the core of what later became Mere Christianity.

I'm tempted to also suggest that you read Thomas Merton, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Kirkegaard, Dostoyevsky, St. John Chrysostom, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many, many others. Enjoy your journey!

Well, complete and total separation from God, for one.

The Great Divorce Is a good, fictional look at how much that might suck.