I don’t think Lewis believed souls WERE condemned to hell. God didn’t send you to hell, you sent yourself there. You weren’t tortured by demons in hell, you tortured yourself. Hell and heaven were the same place.
And he certainly believed in the idea of “pagan scriptures”, that things like the greek myths were created by people grasping for the divine and getting partway there but falling short.
I thought from the foreword that Lewis genuinely believed in devils as fallen angels who ate souls.
Screwtape mentions that Father Spike ‘really believes. This may yet mar all.’ so it would seem that for Lewis faith alone does not save. I got the impression he felt works saved, regardless of an individual’s religious faith or lack thereof.
DocCathode writes:
> I’m curious, having just reread the Letters I don’t get the impression that Lewis
> thought atheism alone would condemn a soul to hell. He mentions that all the
> great teachers taught the same message. Although not explicitly stated, I get
> the strong impression that he didn’t think Christianity was the only way to
> heaven. Am I wrong?
At the end of The Last Battle, a character who has given honest worship all his life to the false god Tash and who has otherwise lead a good life enters the heaven of Narnia. He is told that he honestly tried to do his best, even though he was in a situation where his good effort was used badly by others. Perhaps then by analogy Lewis thought the same of people in our world.
Diogenes the Cynic, my personal view is that Lewis’s arguments are incomplete. I would use the terms that James Hall, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Richmond used in the course on tape about the philosophy of religion from The Teaching Company (which I listened to at one point) about most standard arguments in any direction about religion: “This argument does not achieve closure.” I’m not sure if the present state of philosophy is up to proving anything definitive about this subject.
It’s crazy reading this book and seeing just how much Lewis understood about human nature. As you continued to read you began to see more and more how Lewis understood this. You would read and wonder “Do I do this? Do people do this to me? Where have I seen this before?” and that is not something you get from every book you pick up. As to your two quotes, it truly is amazing how much time we waste every day. If you sit down and think about what you have been doing and spending your time on, more frequently than not, you will see that you have been wasting most of your time on things that do not and will not matter. Your second quote is also something that we see in almost every day life. Relationships are interesting and you realize all the bad habits you have in them from reading this book.
I am wondering what your favorite quotes are from the Screwtape Letters. There are just so many great quotes, which ones stand out the most to YOU?
-JMcCurry