One by one the lost souls step off the Great Divorce bus to enjoy a holiday in Heaven, and one by one they realize they prefer living in that other place. The choice is theirs. They are welcome to stay, but to remain requires the surrender of that which they “prefer to joy.” They are not prepared to make that sacrifice. Call it self-exclusion, self-alienation, self-damnation—the essential element of the libertarian model of hell is the creature’s free rejection of the divine gift of eternal life. The damned would rather endure the dreariness and boredom of the grey town than suffer the love of the Father. The bus runs every day. The ride is free. The residents may avail themselves of the holiday as many times as they wish. But repeatedly, perpetually, everlastingly, they decline the invitation to move to the realm of Joy.
“But what of the poor Ghosts who never get into the omnibus at all?”
“Everyone who wishes it does,” replies the imaginary George MacDonald. “Never fear.”
There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, in the end, “Thy will be done.” All that are in Hell, choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell. No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened.
So far the libertarian and universalist are in full agreement. But a question remains: If rejection of God brings ever-increasing diminishment of being (symbolized by Lewis as insubstantiality)—and therefore ever-increasing suffering (for suffering there must be the further one distances oneself from the source of happiness)—how can anyone sustain perpetual resistance to the offer of Joy? Will not everyone eventually break? Jerry Walls acknowledges this point in Heaven, Hell and Purgatory: “We can only absorb so much pain, so if hell forcibly imposes ever-greater suffering, no one could resist forever” (p. 78).
What an interesting comparison of Lewis with his master, MacDonald!
What CS Lewis’ account seems to lack (dare I say so of this masterpiece?) is on two fronts:
1. The obduracy of the wicked in his account assumes that their desire for the good remains dysfunctional (resistant) even upon beholding the slain Lamb in his glory, as if that vision would have no further effect that my rather lame attempts at sharing the gospel do in this life. How is this possible? For Maximos, it is not possible. But for Lewis in ‘The Great Divorce,’ it works because the damned don’t behold Christ until AFTER they make their way to the horizon. That is, the story omits the ‘coming again in glory’ part of this judgement, mainly so that Lewis can make his point about the process of letting go which creates the torment. That point which does need making (Macrina does it well), but the cost seems too high if Christ is nowhere seen.
2. The obduracy of the wicked in his account allows for complete dehumanization such that nothing of the hypostasis remains. Wright uses this same approach in this annihilationism, but I think the Eastern Fathers are clear: the divine spark and image of God can never be utterly and entirely extinguished. The diamond of the image remains even when the likeness is marred, but the Refiner’s Fire is able to restore that which can be buried but not eradicated, since it was donated by God in the first place.