The Great Divorce And The Screwtape Letters

Lewis's book, The Screwtape Letters, has shown me many challenges in which I go through in my everyday life. These challenge levels range from simple stuff that can just happen at my house to serious stuff outside in the world. One of the more simple challenges that this book provides insight to, occurs in chapter three. That chapter focuses on something as simple as making your mother upset. It goes into depth about how he can talk or act a certain way to make her upset with him. In doing this, Screwtape and Wormwood want the human to become isolated from his mom. One of the more serious challenges that is featured in the book is the continual evaluation of the Church and Christianity. The chapters dealing with these issues are chapters one, two, four, and eight. All of these chapters selected had issues or evaluations dealing with the Church or Christianity in a negative

The conception of Heaven and Hell is meant to provide a means of justice in the afterlife, C.S. Lewis has a different view than the traditional idea on what that may look like. In “The Great Divorce”, Lewis defends that God is just by writing about a just version of Heaven and Hell. First, I summarize a general image of the traditional Christian idea of Heaven and Hell and explain the issues that come with it. Next, I offer C.S. Lewis’s counter position on Heaven and Hell. Lastly, I assess Lewis’s conception, arguing that it does not escape the justice issue of the traditional image of the afterlife.

in divorce. There is a lot of stress on all the people involved. The man has

Lewis experienced events in his childhood that would help mold him into the man he became, and influence his literature in the years to come. Lewis was an introvertive kid and enjoyed being by himself (Christian History Institute, para. 3). This introvertive attribute of Lewis helped him develop a strong love for reading. Lewis specifically enjoyed fantasy books about animals. This love of fantasy stories and animals would go on to influence his book series, The Chronicles of Narnia (Into The Wardrobe, para. 5). Lewis also shared a very close relationship with his brother

This policy should stay as it is because it is effective. Over the years, ever since it became a law in the 1800s, the grounds and defenses for divorce have proved useful. There have had to be changes made to the law because of controversial issues, such as women not having property in a divorce and the infamous fault-based divorce. The grounds for divorce have changed a lot since only having adultery and needing it to be proven by the plaintiff. The law has changed so much over time that it has addressed most of the issues pertaining to it and fixed it. That is how the Married Women’s Property Act of 1848, family courts, and the no-fault divorces came to be (The History of Divorce Law in the USA, 2014). The issues with divorce were addressed by the government and now there isn’t anything to change for some people.

In the United States, an all-too-frequent occurrence unfortunately is divorce. I feel that this is a sad thing. Billy Collins tackles this delicate issue masterfully in his poem “Divorce,” an eighteen-word, four-line poem that catches the tone of many splits while using simple things like utensils and tables to make examples of a couple’s situation, using metaphors, imagery, nostalgia, and irony.

According to MacDonald, heaven and hell cannot coexist in a single soul, and while it is possible to leave hell and enter heaven, doing so implies turning away (repentance); or as depicted by Lewis, giving up paltry worldly pleasures and self-indulgences — which have become impossible for the dead anyway — and embracing ultimate and unceasing joy itself.

C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest spiritual writers the world has known, wrote the Screwtape Letters to mock the evil works of the devil and give us an understanding of spiritual warfare that is constantly going on all around us. Many people refuse to believe their lives are being interfered with by spiritual forces, but it is not something that should be ignored. Lewis saw the importance in recognizing spiritual warfare in order to learn how to fight it, and that is one of his inspirations for writing this book. Although we aren’t sure how demons attempt to lead us away from God, Lewis gives a detailed account on what he believes is a way they could go about it.

Books surrounded Lewis. Stone describes his house as filled with books, crowding bookcases, hallways, and rooms. Lewis had no limitation on what he could or could not read, although it quickly became evident that Jack preferred fantasy books such as Potter’s Peter Rabbit (Stone 4-5). After his mother died, Stone described what happened with Lewis’s schooling. Because Albert Lewis, C.S. Lewis’s father was afraid of financial ruin, he sent Jack and his brother to a cheap boarding school, Wynyard. At Wynyard the conditions were terrible and Lewis found no education (Stone 15, 19-20). Even though his childhood experiences were not the greatest Jack was still able to succeed in his

C.S Lewis is clear that his opinion is that the all types of love are branched from the love of Christ. Screwtape and Wormwood devise a plan to strip the patient of his love for people and things of this world in order to turn him away from Christ and hand him over to the devil. God’s love for humanity is incomprehensible to Screwtape, he thinks that the purpose of life is to better oneself and take control of others. In the book, Screwtape explains how they merely want to absorb the patient for their own personal gain and their desires are compared to God’s saying “One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not (as one would gladly believe) mere propaganda, but an appalling truth” (Lewis Part VIII). C.S Lewis describes God as one who does not want to take over and destroy but as a God who wants to give, unite and love his people. Throughout the book, we see Screwtape’s attempts to rid the patient of love but this job is not as easy as he originally believes it to be.

It is often said that something big that happens in your childhood can make a huge difference in your life. Lewis’ first bible made him want to become a preacher. As he states that he would never forget as his mother read the first words in the book saying, “In the

The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis describes what Heaven and hell is like. It is fair to say that often people question what Heaven and hell will really be like. C.S. Lewis’s book describes many common thoughts and also some thoughts that do not line up quite as well. The narrator of The Great Divorce is dreaming of these two places and is taken through a series of events that allows him to see Heaven and Hell.

Marriage is a commitment of spending the rest of one’s life with someone he or she cherishes deeply. It is the joining of two people in a bond that lasts until death, but in practice is increasingly cut short by divorce/ separation. Most people claim that they want their marriage to last a lifetime, and who wouldn’t? However, over half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce. In 2010, Paul Amato published a statement on divorce in the prestigious Journal of Marriage and Family. He states, “At the end of the 20th century, 43% - 46% of marriages were predicted to end in dissolution.” In the short poem written by Washington Irving “Rip Van Winkle”, Rips relationship with his wife was horrible because of the point of view, characters, and symbolism.

With all the criticism directed at Lewis’ books for inconstancies. Two sides exist to be taken. Firstly, many say to avoid these books altogether, because they are false doctrines and should avoided. Secondly, the changes are fine since without these modifications the stories would be vague and bland. Several of these doctrines that do not line up with the Bible are plain different beliefs or ignorance. C. S. Lewis himself wrote, “Speaking personally, if I demanded that a person’s views on every subject under the sun be identical to mine as a condition to be helped by them, then if I had met myself 20 years ago, I’d have to disfellowship myself!”() Clive knows that humans are fallible and that no one’s beliefs are one-hundred percent correct, people continue to grow spiritually thus changing their beliefs. Later writes “We are all in process. None of us gets everything right all the time. That stands true for every Christian who has ever breathed oxygen.”() He knew that just because he was a famous writer of Christian literature he would still make mistakes. Before

However, something worth noting before delving into the argument of this essay, is the background of C.S Lewis. Although this is not a research essay, his personal religion does hold some relevance to the context of this essay. Despite some struggles with his belief in religion at an early age, by the time he was late into his adult years, C.S Lewis was a definite Christian. Not only was this his personal religion, but also very publicly so. He wrote novels explicitly outlining his Christian views and gave several