Position Paper: Ecclesiology and Eschatology

The following is the fifth and final position paper for my systematic theology class, on ecclesiology and eschatology.

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I affirm, with the Nicene Creed, that the Church is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.[1] In the first place, this means the Church is one, a unity. I believe this unity is visible and organic, not just invisible and spiritual. That is, the Church, the Church Christ founded in the first century, has not split into pieces or grown into multiple "branches", all of which can be considered to be part of the true Church, over time. This unity is based on the unity of God and of those who are in Christ. In Christ, the many members of the Church are reconciled to God and each other, united into one body (Rom 12:4-5, Col 1:18-20) by the mystery of the sacrament of communion, by which we all become partakers in the singular body and blood of Christ (1 Cor 10:16-17), as well as by baptism and the indwelling of the one Holy Spirit. (1 Cor 12:12-13) So the apostle is able to say of the Galatians that "in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. ... you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:26-28 RSV) I define the Church by this biblical teaching rather than by empirical observation which suggests that it is diverse and divided.

The understanding of the unity of the Church as being merely spiritual in nature is thus unacceptable. It does not do justice to the incarnational nature of the church as both a divine and a human institution, just as the Lord, while fully God, also became fully human for our sake. Instead, it creates a division between the Church's two natures and holds that unity applies only in its invisible nature. In this it is an echo of the old heresy of Nestorianism, which imposed a sharp distinction between Christ's human and divine nature.[2] Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware explains that the separation between the visible and invisible church is only a reflection of our limited human perspective; the body of Christ is a single, incarnational reality just like Christ himself.[3] The unity of the Church is not merely an ideal to strive after; it is a promised and ever-present reality. Through historical study and a long period of spiritual seeking, I have come to identify the Orthodox Church as the same church that Christ founded.

Second, the Church is holy. This holiness is based on God's perfect holiness and is not dependent on the holiness of its members, least of all its imperfect earthly members. This view has been firmly established at least since the fourth-century Donatist controversy, when it was argued by Augustine.[4] This holiness is very much an "already-not yet" reality; mysteriously fully present and yet not fully realized in us. The apostle John says something similar: "Beloved, we are God's children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 Jhn 3:2) We are already God's children, but what we will ultimately become in him is not yet clear. Just as we partake in the body and blood of Christ through the Church, we also participate in his holiness through the worship, sacraments, fellowship, and prayer life of the Church. Titles for the Church like the people of God (2 Cor 6:16), bride of Christ (2 Cor 11:2), and temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 3:16-17, 6:19; Eph 2:21-22), as well as the body of Christ, all hint at the holiness in which all in the Church have a share.

Third, the Church is catholic. This is a frequently-misunderstood term, and not just because it is often seen as synonymous with "Roman Catholic" (as I used to think). It is often taken to mean "universal", as referring to the nature of the one Church as extending through time and space. While this is true of the Church, the word "catholic", as originally used, means "full and complete, all-embracing, and with nothing lacking.[5]" This can be seen from its Greek composition from the roots kata and holos, meaning roughly "according to the whole". This means, among other things, that the local church is not simply a piece of the true Church; the fullness of the entire Church is found in every single local church; nothing is lacking for its members to participate in the richness of the faith. As Paul says, the Church "is [Christ's] body, the fulness of him who fills all in all." (Eph 1:23, see also Col 2:10).

Fourth, the Church is apostolic, in at least three ways. Most simply, it began with the apostles. It is the Church established by Christ on the apostles' testimony to him. Second, it preserves the apostolic teaching of Christ, which was originally received from Christ (Mat 28:18-20) and is especially expressed in the New Testament. The Church receives, treasures, and passes on the apostolic tradition as described in the NT (1 Cor 11:2, 2 Thess 2:15, 2 Tim 2:2). In this way it is "the pillar and bulwark of the truth." (1 Tim 3:15) Third, like the apostles themselves, the Church is sent into the world with a mission (the Greek word apostolos means "sent one"), "to bear witness to His Kingdom, to keep His word and to do His will and His works in this world."[6] In this respect, the Church, and we individually as members of it, continues the work that Christ commissioned the apostles to do.

Related to the second meaning, the continuity of the faith of the Church with the apostles' teaching can be seen in the process of apostolic succession, by which the teaching is passed down in an unbroken chain of leadership stretching from the apostles to the present. This idea was argued by the pre-Nicene church fathers to rebuke false teachers who based their ideas on their own reading of Scripture or a "secret tradition" that Christ passed on apart from the apostles. Irenaeus, the most revered theologian of the second century, was a prominent spokesman for apostolic succession, writing in his work Against Heresies, "It is within the power of all ... to contemplate clearly the tradition of the apostles manifested throughout the whole world; and we are in a position to reckon up those who were by the apostles instituted bishops in the Churches, and [to demonstrate] the succession of these men to our own times; those who neither taught nor knew of anything like what these [heretics] rave about."[7] Like the early Church, I see the episcopal model of church polity as normative, since the role of bishops (overseers) was and is crucial to the preservation and articulation of orthodox Christian teaching.

I affirm the infallibility of the Church—the whole Church. "This again follows from the indissoluble unity between God and His Church. Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot err, and since the Church is Christ's body, since it is a continued Pentecost, it is therefore infallible."[8] Again, the apostle teaches that the Church is the "pillar and bulwark of the truth." (1 Tim 3:15) As well, Christ promised the Spirit to guide the Church into all truth. (Jhn 16:13) This teaching is frequently misunderstood. It does not mean that any individual within the visible Church is infallible, as Roman Catholics would claim. It also does not mean that the Church cannot hold mistaken points of view or opinions; for example, the Orthodox Church is currently considering the possibility that it may have been mistaken about the heretical status of the Oriental Orthodox churches for the past 1500 years. (That is, that they may not actually hold the view on Christology that was condemned by the council of Chalcedon) It also does not mean that large portions of the Church cannot fall into false teaching, as was seen in the Arian controversy. The infallibility of the Church pertains to dogma, particularly the canons of the seven ecumenical councils as well as lesser councils or other teachings that are later accepted by the whole Church. In matters like these, I believe that according to the promises of Christ and the guidance of the Holy Spirit, it is impossible for the whole Church to embrace error.

I affirm the function of the Church, as a place where the salvation of the gospel of Christ is made manifest. This occurs through the worship of the Church directed to God, the participation of its members in riches of God's grace, and the outward-oriented ministry of the Church to the world. In worship which transcends time and place, the Church joins the angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect", the Church of all ages and places, in their unceasing praise of God (Heb 12:22-24). Through the Church, we enter communion with both God our father and our brothers and sisters in Christ; again, we all become part of the one body of Christ. "We are members one of another" (Eph 4:25); it is in the Church, not individually, that we receive salvation and are transformed into Christ's likeness. "The church thus serves not only as a signpost of the coming fulfillment of divine purposes with and for the whole creation but as a manifestation of that fulfillment 'ahead of time', as it were—already in this age, yet fully to come in the eschaton."[9] Though salvation is a lifelong journey, through the Church we experience it in eschatological fullness, so that Paul is able to speak of the whole path of salvation in the past tense. (Rom 8:29-30) And again, the Church is apostolic in that it is sent out into the world both to witness to Christ (Acts 1:8) and to demonstrate the love of Christ through practical action as well as words. (1 Jhn 3:17-18)[10]

I affirm that the Church is the continuation and fulfillment of national Israel as the people of God. Through Christ it inherits the promises made to Israel. Paul argues extensively for the Church's continuity with Israel repeatedly in Romans (2:28-29, 3:28-31, 4:11-12,16,18, 9:7-8, 10:12); elsewhere he says "There is neither Jew nor Greek ... for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal 3:28) It is not that God's covenant with Israel has been revoked (Paul argues this extensively in Romans 9-11); rather, this covenant is fulfilled in all that it set out to accomplish in the new covenant in Christ's blood, plus the promised salvation of the gentiles. (Isa 52:10) Therefore, since Christ is the one mediator between God and man (1 Tim 2:5), it is advisable to interpret Paul's words about the continuing future of Israel in Romans 11 as presaging a large-scale conversion of Jews into the Church.[11] There is no other way leading to salvation.

I deny that the Church consists essentially of a collection of individuals who are "saved", have an "authentic relationship with God", are "true Christians", etc. My definition of "Christian" is dependent on the Church, rather than the other way around. The Church is the incarnational institution established by Christ, which preserves the apostolic faith truly witnessing to him, and they are Christians who belong to it. There is definitely a sense in which Christians are seen as constituting the body of Christ, but as members of it. (1 Cor 12:27) In other words, when we become Christians, the Church does not expand to include us; we become part of its unity. The unity of the Church amid divisions among its members depends on there being something recognizable as the "Church" that continues whole even after schism, which is not possible if the Church is nothing more than a collection of individuals.

It is frequently said that "outside the church there is no salvation." Does this mean that everyone who does not formally belong to the "true church" is not saved? By no means! Just as those who are formally members of the Church can still be living according to the law of sin and death, dead to the life of the Church,[12] "there may be members of the Church who are not visibly such, but whose membership is known to God alone."[13] I do not claim that God's grace is limited to those within the Orthodox Church; I don't fully understand the mysteries of his love. But this does not mean that the "true" Church is invisible or discontinuous from the visible Church, or that it is not necessary to seek salvation through it. "What God may do should not become the outer perimeter of what humans should do."[14]

I affirm (again with the Creed) that Jesus will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. He will return the way he left the disciples (Acts 1:11) to judge the nations (Mat 25:31-33). The kingdom of God, currently present only within the Church, will triumph over and succeed the kingdom of this world (Rev 11:15), and this kingdom, Christ's kingdom, will be eternal. (Luk 1:32-33) Everything beyond the creedal statement is opinion. One of my opinions of this judgment (shared widely by Orthodox theologians) is that I don't interpret Matthew 25:31-33 literally, that we will wait in line with everyone who has ever lived to be sorted by Christ as judge. Rather, "the very presence of Christ as the Truth and the Light is itself the judgment of the world."[15] As Jesus teaches in Matthew 25, we will be judged based on how we have fulfilled the law by loving and serving others (Rom 13:10), or, equivalently, by how we have loved and served him. (Mat 25:40,45)

I deny that God actively imprisons or tortures people in hell. The judgment is our response to Christ's return in glory, not a literal proclamation by him of our individual fate. We are not "sent" to heaven or hell by any external power, but by our own hearts. Thomas Hopko explains: "Now men can live without the love of Christ in their lives. They can exist as if there were no God, no Christ, no Spirit, no Church, no spiritual life. At the end of the ages this will no longer be possible."[16] I believe that the essence of hell is not being banished from the presence of God (which would be a relief for those who hate him, appears to consider God's presence in quasi-spatial terms, and which, if applied consistently, would simply be annihilation), but continuing to exist eternally in the presence and knowledge of God. For the righteous, this is heaven, for the wicked; it is the torment of hell. The fire of hell is none other than our God, the consuming fire. (Heb 12:29)

I affirm that we cannot know when Christ will return, as he makes clear. (Mat 24:36, 25:13; Mar 13:32; Luk 12:40; Acts 1:7) Though much about the eschatological day of the Lord is obscure, the Scriptures make very clear that Jesus will return at an unexpected time. (How this will work when one group or another always seems to be expecting his imminent return, I don't know!) Any teacher or sect that claims to have knowledge of the day of Christ's return is either lying or deluded, and refuses to listen to the teaching of Scripture about this. The truth is, Christ could return tomorrow or he could return in centuries. We cannot know one way or another. Hence, Jesus teaches us to be ready (Mat 24:42-51), to live in a state of readiness. This readiness does not look like stocking up and preparing for an imminent and expected disaster, but like actively practicing the teachings of Christ, living the life of the Church in a constant vigil so as to greet the Lord at his return.

I affirm (once more with the Creed) the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come, as especially taught by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. The resurrection will be the completion of the salvation from sin and death that Christ purchased for us. It will be a bodily (not just spiritual) resurrection, but not a return to our mortal bodies. Rather, our once-weak bodies will be raised imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual (rather than physical, whatever that means. (1 Cor 15:42-44) In this, as in the rest of salvation, we will follow the example of Christ, "the first-born from the dead". (Col 1:18) The resurrection of the dead will be the Lord's ultimate victory over death (1 Cor 15:54-55) and will also be accompanied by the perfection of the rest of the creation (Rom 8:21). The world will become the paradise that God created it to become; the kingdom of heaven will fill the whole earth. (Rev 11:15) God's good purposes for his wayward creation will be completed, for all eternity.

I deny that the goal of eschatology is to discern a hidden schedule of events that will take place in the "end times". The subject of eschatology may be described with language like an "eschatological agenda"[17] or even "God's timetable".[18] This linear kind of thinking, which risks over-focusing on the order of events a the exclusion of their deeper meaning, simply misses the point of eschatology. The point is Christ, who is the true End we look to. (Rev 22:13) "Wherever He is present, there the End is also present."[19] In other words, the End is not some series of events to look forward to in the future—for those in the Church, the End is already here!

Thus Paul is able to speak of our deliverance to the kingdom of the Son in the past tense (Col 1:12-13), and our resurrection with Christ and elevation to the heavenly places. (Eph 2:4-6) As he says elsewhere, "behold, now is the acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation." (2 Cor 6:2) The End is not simply waiting at the conclusion of history for us; for Christians, it is an eternal now, as if intersecting with every point on our time line at a right angle from the transcendent beyond, calling us out of the linear succession of moments that seems so natural to our existence and into eternal life. Thus, I disagree with the tenor of eschatological theories about the "rapture" the tribulation, the millennium, and the nature and relative ordering of these things, especially inasmuch as they are presented as what the study of eschatology is "really about". They are highly speculative (sometimes approaching conspiracy theories) and needlessly distract from the fact that the End has already come. Glorify him!

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1. "The Nicene Creed" in The Orthodox Study Bible (eds. Jack Norman Sparks et al.; Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2008), 1791.
2. Patrick Barnes, The Church is Visible and One: A Critique of Protestant Eschatology (12 January 2015), 30.
3. Timothy Ware, The Orthodox Church (London: Penguin Books, 1993), 243–245.
4. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition (100-600) (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1978), 311.
5. Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, (12 January 2015), I.2.16.
6. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, I.2.16.
7. Irenaeus, Against Heresies (Kindle Edition: Veritatis Splendor Publications, 2012), III.3.1.
8. Ware, The Orthodox Church, 248.
9. James R. Payton Jr., Light from the Christian East: An Introduction to the Orthodox Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2007), 150.
10. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 972–974, 978–979.
11. Erickson, Christian Theology, 965.
12. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, IV.1.9.
13. Ware, The Orthodox Church, 248.
14. Payton, Light from the Christian East, 171–172.
15. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, I.2.14.
16. Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, IV.8.2.
17. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1119.
18. Erickson, Christian Theology, 1095.
19. Stephen Freeman, "Is There a Christian Theory of History?", Glory to God for All Things 7 November 2014, < http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2014/11/07/christian-theory-history> (16 January 2015).

Story and Wonder: What Harry Potter taught me about heaven

Warning: This post contains spoilers from, of all things, Harry Potter.

In my posts on the Fall, I mentioned that the eschatological hope (that is, "Heaven") for Christians is much more than playing a harp or singing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" for all eternity. But what is it, then? Peter says to "set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming." (1 Peter 1:13) For me, at least, this is impossible if "grace" in the culminated sense Peter uses it remains an abstract quantity that we have some of now but will have more of later--or if it's expressed in painfully simple ways like "doing nothing but praising God for eternity". These images of grace do little to inspire hope in me--yet the Bible doesn't take the time to go into much detail on what, exactly, we're supposed to be hoping for. I think some imagination is called for.

C.S. Lewis' picture of eternity as not static but continually-increasing joy, wonder, and fullness hits me much more deeply and powerfully, and therefore I think it's closer to the truth. But even aware of this picture, for years another doubt nagged at me. I had trouble imagining how eternity could be anything other than terribly dull without any conflict. After all, what good story today is without some kind of conflict, whether it be person-against-person, human-against-nature, or good-against-evil? The Lord of the Rings with no conflict would just be a series of fantastical travel observations. Many stories would have even less left than this. The central storyline of the Bible is a sort of conflict (one-sided though it may be) between God and sin. Yet part of what the Bible does say about heaven is that all these conflicts will be done away with, along with suffering, crying, pain, etc. (Revelation 21:4) This sounds great, but what could be left to spice up this dull, conflict-less existence?

But I've realized there is something else that can captivate us in a story, to say nothing of real life, at least as much as conflict: wonder. That is, the kind of awe-infused, starry-eyed, joyful apprehension of something whose grandness makes us feel very small. I felt glimmers of it it last week on my trip to England when I was hiking in the picturesque Cotswalds, walking through Christchurch great hall (which served as the inspiration for the great hall in the silver-screen Hogwarts), or stepping into the cavernous St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

It's funny I should mention Hogwarts, because I was about to tie this line of thinking in with Harry Potter anyway. As I have mentioned to many of my friends, I don't like the Harry Potter books--but that's only part of the story. I don't like books four through seven--but I did, and still do, enjoy the first three. The reason for this is the near-total change in tone that takes place throughout the series. In the beginning of the series, there is a continual sense of wonder pervading the story as Harry, raised among muggles, becomes resituated in a world literally pervaded with magic. Rowling does an excellent job of allowing us to share in this wonder along with Harry. Yes, there is conflict even in The Sorcerer's Stone--but this conflict only really takes over the plot from wonder toward the end, to tie everything in the first book up in a satisfying conclusion. (It's been years since I've read the books, so I'm probably generalizing)

But later, an especially in book four and beyond, the tone shifts completely. The central focus shifts from wonder to conflict--it's no longer about Harry making his way through the wizarding world, but about defending it from Voldemort. As the stories grew darker to increasingly resemble the kind of action movie they were later made into, as beloved characters started dying left and right, the part of me that so enjoyed the first few books was increasingly frustrated and, at the end of book six with the death of Albus Dumbledore, gave up all hope, heartbroken.

You could argue that J.K. Rowling simply wanted the stories to grow up with their readers (tell that to an 11-year-old whose parents just got him a set of all seven books to read at once), but I grew right up along with everyone else and still vastly prefer the first three books over the last three. Apparently I still prefer wonder over conflict for telling a good story--and I don't think I'm alone, even among adults.

My experience teaching preschoolers in Sunday School gives another perspective on this. Kids have much lower standards for things worthy of their attention. My kids can endlessly entertain themselves with markers and blank construction paper, some blocks, or a bin full of dress-up clothes. When I read to them, the books in our room can have some extremely simplistic conflict to them, or not; it doesn't make a huge difference to them.

Obviously I'm not a developmental psychologist, nor have I received any education on how to work with kids, and I can only guess at what's going on in their little heads, but it seems safe to say that kids see the world in a very different way than we do. When the idea of operating a dump truck (even a toy one) is exotic and exciting enough to grab your attention week after week, life doesn't need conflict to be exciting.

We have become accustomed to the world around us in a way that kids haven't, yet, and often this can mean  we cease to be driven by wonder as they are. Let me offer the hypothesis that this will change in heaven. By knowing Christ and through the paradigm shift that occurs, we begin to get glimpses of a vast spiritual reality (that is, the "face of God", 1 Corinthians 13:12) that was previously obscured by the blindness of sin--a landscape worthy of literally endless wonder even for a cynical adult like myself. This was especially evident to me as I was rereading the ending of The Last Battle and tying it in with Romans 8. What if it really is that good?

The idea of eternity as continual wonder with increasing knowing of God makes no sense if we think of "knowing God" in a propositional sense; that is, simply knowing He is perfectly good, loving, just, &c. and having this knowledge confirmed beyond all doubt. In fact, I've never found mere propositional knowledge of God to be the least bit useful in a devotional or worship sense. Psalm 46:10 says, "Be still and know that I am God", but somehow meditating on a tautology doesn't do it for me. (Maybe I'm not "knowing" hard enough, or doing it wrong) I think it means something else. Maybe we shouldn't expect thinking about spiritual truths disconnected from our everyday reality to change our lives. Theology was never meant to be lofty and abstract, but concrete and firmly rooted in a particular context.

Just before Psalm 46:10, verse 8 says to "come behold the works of the Lord". We come closer to the face and knowledge of God not primarily by philosophical meditations (though these can also help in putting things together) but by seeing Him at work in and through our own experiences, the people around us, even ourselves--portraying God in mighty actions first, descriptive words second. In the Old Testament this is often done by celebrating the story of the Exodus or military victories as God's doing (the premodern worldview of the Ancient Near East saw everything that happened as the will of God/the gods). In the New Testament people know God primarily by way of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Maybe the purpose of the Bible is to allow future generations of Christians to have that same experience of the cross on which all of history turns.

On the Great Divorce

Whether you're a Christian looking to deepen your walk with God or barely even know Him, I can't recommend the writings of C.S. Lewis highly enough. They're at once intellectually deep, beautifully persuasive, and purely enjoyable to read in a way I've never seen in more contemporary authors. The Chronicles of Narnia were a highlight of my childhood (and of many others', no doubt), and I continue to enjoy them and his theological writings today. (And am told I need to read his space trilogy)

As to the purpose of this post: I just finished reading The Great Divorce, an allegorical story depicting a nameless narrator's journey from Hell to Heaven. The central idea of the book is a rejection of the "marriage of Heaven and Hell", the idea that all roads lead to Heaven and that we can get there while keeping the favorite trappings of our earthly lives.

The story starts with the narrator in a dingy town in perpetual twilight. He enters a line at a bus stop, with the bus bound elsewhere. In conversations with other passengers the town is revealed to be an afterlife of sorts, where you can summon any object by simply thinking it. Far from making the town a paradise, people use the ability to make themselves homes far from everyone else since no one can stand each other there.

The bus soon comes up over an enormous cliff to a wondrous country where everything is bigger, fuller, more solid than below and where the sun is just about to rise. For the passengers (who look like ghosts compared to their surroundings) blades of grass are diamond-hard and weigh tons. The rest of the novel is the narrator's accounts of the interactions between the ghosts and the bright, solid 'spirits' who inhabit the land. The selfish motives of the ghosts--pride, greed, lust, self-obsession, possessive love--are revealed in stark contrast to the selflessness and compassion of the spirits, who are people the ghosts had known in life and continually implore their old friends to come with them to the mountains, learning to love this country and its benevolent King.

Always the ghosts have something they cling to that keeps them from accepting the offer of forgiveness and love the spirits extend. One ghost hates the idea of taking moral advice from the spirit of a man who murdered his friend in life. A mother is singularly obsessed with seeing her son again and refuses to trade her possessive love for selfless compassion. Disheartened by what he sees, the narrator begins to question whether it's really possible for a ghost to stay in the land and become solid.

But finally he sees a ghost with a lizard (representing lust) perched on his shoulder, whispering in his ear. As he makes excuses for his companion, an angel is constantly asking him for permission to kill it. When he relents and his lust is killed, he is transformed into a bright spirit and the lizard into a stallion on which he rides off into the mountains. It's the most beautiful story of redemption I've ever read, an illustration of dying to sin and living to God.

Accompanying the narrator on this journey is the spirit of George MacDonald, a theological hero of Lewis' in real life, who provides explanation of the refusal of (most) of the ghosts to look outside themselves and stay. Their obsessions, their refusal to let go of everything they put ahead of God, blinds them to His grace. Explains MacDonald,

"Good beats upon the damned incessantly as sound waves beat on the ears of the deaf, but they cannot receive it. Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut. First they will not, in the end they cannot, open their hands for gifts, or their mouth for food, or their eyes to see."

Elsewhere he likens Heaven and Hell less to actual places as to states of mind, of fellowship or separation from God.

"The good man's past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad man's past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things...the Blessed will say 'We have never lived anywhere except in Heaven,' and the Lost, 'We were always in Hell.' And both will speak truly."

My favorite quote from the book emphasizes that where we end up, Heaven or Hell, is not a surprise, it is a decision we all make.

"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 one who seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it. Those who seek find. To those who knock it is opened."

As Lewis emphasizes in the preface (and MacDonald in the last chapter), the story is not an idea of what Heaven and Hell will literally be like. It's an allegorical picture of what they are, and the choices we all make that determine where we end up. And in this it is one of the most amazing books I've read.

If you rode the bus from Hell to Heaven, what would be nagging at you to go back?