The Great Divorce
By: C.S. Lewis
First Time I Read It: Summer, 2001
Number of Times I’ve Read It: Countless
Kenneth Tynan said of Lewis: “How thrilling he makes goodness seem – how tangible and radiant.” That is the essence of Lewis, in all his works. I had read several other of this works prior to reading “The Great Divorce” in the summer of 2001. But the philosophical possibilities presented in this treatise struck a cord that still causes me to gluttonously devour every word each time I open my now tattered copy. Almost every page is saturated with the ink used to underline ideas articulated in a way only Lewis can.
To write each quote here would take forever, so I’ll limit it to my favorite:
“For every attempt to see the shape of eternity except through the lens of Time destroys your knowledge of Freedom. Witness the doctrine of Predestination, which shows (truly enough) that eternal reality is not waiting for a future in which to be real; but at the price of removing Freedom which is the deeper truth of the two. And wouldn’t Universalism do the same? Ye cannot know eternal reality by a definition. Time itself, and all acts and events that fill Time, are the definition, and it must be lived. The Lord said we were gods. How long could ye bear to look (without Time’s lens) on the greatness of your own soul and the eternal reality of her choice?”