Scripture Readings
Isaiah 56:1–7
Psalm 27:4–9
Lewis spent considerable time responding to letters. This is a reply to a Mrs. Johnson where he answered a series of questions she presented.
‘Do people get another chance after death? I refer to Charles Williams.’
Distinguish (A) A second chance in the strict sense, i.e., a new earthly life in which you would attempt afresh all the problems you failed at in the present one (as in religions of Re-Incarnation). (B) Purgatory: a process by which the work of redemption continues, and first perhaps begins to be noticeable after death. I think Charles Williams depicts B, not A.
‘What would happen if I had died an atheist?’
We are never given any knowledge of ‘What would have happened if . . .’
‘What happens to Jews who are still waiting for the Messiah?’
I think that every prayer which is sincerely made even to a false god or to a very imperfectly conceived true God, is accepted by the true God and that Christ saves many who do not think they know Him. For He is (dimly) present in the good side of the inferior teachers they follow. In the parable of the Sheep and the Goats (Matt. 25:31 and following) those who are saved do not seem to know that they have served Christ. But of course our anxiety about unbelievers is most usefully employed when it leads us not to speculation but to earnest prayer for them and the attempt to be in our own lives such good advertisements for Christianity as will make it attractive.
‘Is the Bible infallible?’
It is Christ Himself, not the Bible, who is the true word of God. The Bible, read in the right spirit and with the guidance of good teachers will bring us to Him. When it becomes really necessary (i.e., for our spiritual life, not for controversy or curiosity) to know whether a particular passage is rightly translated or is myth (but of course myth specially chosen by God from among countless myths to carry a spiritual truth) or history, we shall no doubt be guided to the right answer. But we must not use the Bible (our fathers too often did) as a sort of Encyclopedia out of which texts (isolated from their context and not read without attention to the whole nature and purport of the books in which they occur) can be taken for use as weapons.
‘If a thief killed Eileen would I be wrong to want him to die?’
The question of what you wd. ‘want’ is off the point. Capital punishment might be wrong tho’ the relations of the murdered man wanted him killed: it might be right tho’ they did not want this. The question is whether a Xtian nation ought or ought not to put murderers to death: not what passions interested individuals may feel.
‘Is killing in self defense all right?’
There is no doubt at all that the natural impulse to ‘hit back’ must be fought against by the Xtian whenever it arises. If one I love is tortured or murdered my desire to avenge him must be given no quarter. So far as nothing but this question of retaliation comes in ‘turn the other cheek’ is the Christian law. It is, however, quite another matter when the neutral, public authority (not the aggrieved person) may order killing of either private murderers or public enemies in mass. It is quite clear that our earliest Christian writer, St Paul, approved of capital punishment—he says ‘the magistrate bears and should bear the sword’. It is recorded that the soldiers who came to St John Baptist asking, ‘What shall we do?’ were not told to leave the army. When Our Lord Himself praised the Centurion He never hinted that the military profession was in itself sinful. This has been the general view of Christendom. Pacifism is a v. recent and local variation. We must of course respect and tolerate Pacifists, but I think their view erroneous.
‘Will we recognize our loved ones in Heaven?’
The symbols under which Heaven is presented to us are (a) a dinner party, (b) a wedding, (c) a city, and (d) a concert. It wd. be grotesque to suppose that the guests or citizens or members of the choir didn’t know one another. And how can love of one another be commanded in this life if it is to be cut short at death?
‘If Wayne didn’t go to Heaven I wouldn’t want to either. Would his name be erased from my brain?’
Whatever the answer is, I’m sure it is not that (‘erased from the brain’). When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased. If you and I ever come to love God perfectly, the answer to this tormenting question will then become clear, and will be far more beautiful than we cd. ever imagine. We can’t have it now.
THE COLLECTED LETTERS OF C. S. LEWIS
Volume III, 8 November 1952