Headscratchers / The Great Divorce

Predestination, pity, free will, and futility

• Why is God chauffeuring damned souls to Heaven he knows beforehand are predestined for Hell? If he truly wants to help them, why is he prolonging their suffering instead?
  • That's actually explored in-story by the Hard-Bitten Ghost — who basically says heaven and hell conspire to make everyone miserable, and are not really at war at all. The narrator nearly has a Heroic BSoD over it just before meeting George MacDonald, who (finally) explains what is going on.
  • And while Lewis doesn't answer the question of determinism (that is divine predetermination of individual people to damnation or salvation) in the story, he does so elsewhere — roughly paraphrased: that since God sees all times simultaneously, it's "now" for Him and at the same time "already when someone will have done something"; so it's not so much predestining someone to do something as just watching them do it from a perspective where they themselves can't see it yet. It's safe to assume that Lewis had the same view when writing this story: yes, God can "already" see how the ghosts will decide — but that is no reason not to offer them the choice. Since there's the same problem with free will in general — if all ends are already known, then why not just act accordingly and skip the part where someone thinks they have a choice about anything? — there is no fundamental difference between letting someone decide this for themselves and letting someone decide anything else for themselves. Even if it's ultimately futile and their decision is known in advance. What you are really asking is if human beings have free will at all (or just think they do), and why — which is the same question in story as out of it. If the author had thought no, there wouldn't be a story, after all. Plus, not having free will / a choice no matter how that choice turns out (which is sort of the point of "free") would be needlessly cruel — in story and out of it.
• If God sincerely wants everyone to be eternally happy, why is he allowing the finite material mortal life to screw up people's eternal afterlife and fate, often with serious consequences? This is even lampshaded by MacDonald warning of the The Evils of Free Will, and if he considered this, but lacking the reality changing power is unable to act upon or improve determinism to ensure "all paths lead to God", why then is an all-powerful God not understanding this, and in fact seemingly struggling to achieve this and has limited himself to a Good Is Impotent creator? The author had the deepest respect for MacDonald but has unintentionally made him wiser than the almighty he worships.
  • Would you be eternally happy as an agency-less drawing on a page? Free will and all that, you know. Also — all paths cannot lead to God, since some things are evil. You could ask — unde malum? And the answer would be — from wrong choices in a complex world. The Evils of Free Will if you please. Could the world be simpler, so simple the bad choices would never be possible? Perhaps. Perhaps not. You're a person, not a puppet. Persons can choose. Some choose... poorly. Every choice is unique, not a mechanical thing. Maybe only actual persons with free will can be happy in the first place — if so, this question is like asking why God won't make a square triangle.
  • All paths leading to God is a saying used in the theological sense, as the cosmic being is the end-all, be-all, of creation. Either you find eternal life in him, or you find your eternal death.
  • It's not true, by the way (which was admittedly the question asked: why it's not made that way) that all paths lead to God. People using this image like to compare existence to a mountain, with God at the top; and then say "all paths lead to the top of the mountain". Which, if you've ever gone hiking, you know that they don't: some paths go around the mountain, or to other mountains — or just from the parking lot to the parking meter, the souvenir shop, or the washroom. It's the same with philosophical thought paths: not all of them have the same destination. Sometimes, you just think about very ordinary questions, sometimes extraordinary questions — but not even all the latter lead to God. It's also the same in-story: not all the Hell Ghosts decide to go on a path that leads to God (that is, journey into the mountains) — some just wander about a bit and then head back to the parking lot; that is, back to the bus.
    • Some people sadly, will climb that mountain to purposely throw themselves off it. And there's nothing the mountain can do to stop it. If that were not true, Hell would not exist and there would be no story.
• The nature of the divinity of love (according to the theology) is honestly flipped on its head: Why are the Bright Ones who have come to understand the nature of God, unable to feel sorrow for those who fail to enter Heaven? Why is only God the only one in Heaven who has the capacity for empathy? It makes Heaven out to be a place where the saved are Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul. Again, obviously not the intention of Lewis but still unfolds in the narrative.
  • God is not just driving the bus, he's visiting every damned soul beforehand to reason with them. Why is he trying so hard to save that which he already knows is now beyond his ability to save? Granted, it's in line with his character i.e. he reaps where he sowed not, but it doesn't make it any less illogical (and somewhat cruel).
• You are assuming that "reason with them" is the only purpose of those visits — when in fact, it may not be. This may serve the — if the person is in the end saved: additional, if not then: other — purpose of sending the message that You Are Not Alone. Remember that in-story, damnation is self-inflicted. To use a non-fictional parallel: would you offer an addict help to overcome their addiction even though you know that most cannot? Of course you would! So would the bus driver in the story — even if he knows it's (probably) not successful, because in either case even the offer of help might provide some small comfort.
• On that note there's also this passage that the author was certainly familiar with which makes it very in-character for the bus driver to visit someone imprisoned — because why shouldn't he do himself what he wants others to do.
• The only alternative would be a non-consensual Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul — and the jury is still out on whether that also constitutes Mind Rape if that action restores someone to a state where you can then retroactively ask their permission; but it'd definitely walk a line.
• "You can't rescue people who won't participate in their own rescue" is only half the story. Theoretically, God could well do this — except it would be Mind Rape, so He won't. Everyone gets what they want, in the end.
  • And, ultimately, you get what you want. There's always a chance (hence ferrying the souls from Hell to Heaven over and over again: they're never given up on, until they give up on themselves) — but you have to take it. No-one else can live your life. You will only be carried to Heaven if you allow it. In a sense: requiring your consent is the price you pay for the possibility to refuse it and tell God to stuff it.

Supposed sequel hooks and plot points perdues

• Why is God acting as Psychopomp and not giving the duty to the already assigned Archangel Azrael?
• Why is God running the bus from one specific location (town centre) in Hell? And is the bus trip the Hell Ghosts' last chance at salvation? It’s never explicitly stated as such, but in the case of lost souls such as Frank Smith, it may as well be. Because that’s an insane distance for him to walk back to, given that he’s shrunk down to nearly the minuscule quantum-foam level of Heaven’s reality.
  • Going from the headscratcher about the eternal sunrise "all moments are contained in this moment", there may not really be a "too far to walk to reach the bus in time" — as long as someone wants to take the bus, they'll get there eventually.
  • The dreamer even asks more or less this exact question, though I'll leave it up to you to decide whether the answer means the bus goes from several stops (and the narrator just happened to get on at the last before the trip to the Valley of the Shadow of Life); or that there is infinite time, and definitely all the time needed, to get to the stop, or both.
  • While in-universe the bus trip is the hell ghosts' only chance at escaping hell, there's no mention of them only being able to take it once — on the contrary, one of the ghosts who are on the bus ride along with the dreamer says he's expected and shall be met presently (one can only assume by the Bright Ones). As someone wrote a few headscratchers up: they're not given up on until they give up on themselves.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: This one is unlikely as none of the Hell Ghosts are remotely likely to do so (all any of them ever do is make mean comments in his general direction) — but considering his not so secret identity, what would happen if any of the ghosts decided to have a chat with the bus driver after reaching their destination? Would they already have to be halfway to becoming a Person to get the idea of thanking him for bringing them and be (most likely) additionally welcomed with the offer of making them all of a Person, so the point is more or less moot? Or if someone had gotten the idea to outright ask for this?
  • Or what if the dreamer had done the math after MacDonald told him, and decided to have a chat?
    • Extremely Short Timespan: possibly — making this the opposite of the headscratcher below. Not only because in the end it turns out to have been All Just a Dream; but In-Universe, this could be a reference to one of the more obscure bits of Christian theology. If so, then the whole story takes place in one night: the night from Holy Saturday / Great Sabbath / Black Saturday evening to Easter Sunday morning; when after dying on Good Friday, Christ descended into hell to get the damned out before rising from the dead at Easter.
• When the inescapable light of God, now revealed, smashes down on Hell, causing terrible agony for the damned who remain there (imagine getting crushed by concrete blocks) does that spell the end for the Hell Ghosts? Or now that Hell has become Hell, is it too late for some unable to stand the pain to cry ‘Thy will be done’?
  • As far as I read it the solid blocks are the narrator's integration into the last vestiges of the dream (while waking up) of the books he pulled down when he fell off the chair that he'd been sleeping in falling all around him — they needn't be part of the story proper at all:
• However since this answer sounds like a cop-out: the two questions you ask themselves seem something of a Sequel Hook — the dreamer/narrator is no longer around to see this right now because he's woken up; but a later story had it been written might have picked up on it. The narrator didn't get crushed, obviously, it woke him: there might also be ways to protect the other ghosts from getting crushed, or to rescue them from hell after nightfall. The impression I got when reading the story was that the dream's setting is somehow outside of both time and space — a moment frozen in time where anything that happens doesn't take any time at all^note it's moments before the sunrise for hours, and this is the author that wrote the trope namer for Narnia Time — so that future (when day comes in the Valley of the Shadow of Life and night falls in hell) may never come, because not having time this place doesn't have a future. The situation, and the choice, may always be the same for all eternity. As the Burning One tells the ghost with the Lizard:
• Where are Satan and his fallen angels? It is shown that the more evil and self-centered the being, the tinier they get. Did they literally implode into nothingness? If so, how are they still able to do mischief in life?
  • They needn't even to ever have existed in story for it to work — as the whole point is that the damned make their own hell unprompted by any outside influence; and are unable to leave it behind unless they leave their own evil and self-centeredness behind with it. It fits the story even better if we human beings "do our own mischief in life" and there are no demons in the first place, never were.

Salvation is an outrage — and it's all God's fault

• How did the Bright Ones, sometimes with sins far graver than those in Hell get saved? It feels less of a Plot Hole and more of a Riddle for the Ages on the author's part. How did they let go of their hatred, which they elaborate upon, when the Hell Ghosts are unable to? If Universal Reconciliation were in play that would make more sense: they've completed their journey, whereas the Hellish Ghosts have only just begun. Except that's not the case here.
• Some of these things are really bad. For example, the main difference between the Roman Emperor Trajan (who is mentioned in passing as one of the Hell Ghosts who managed to give up his self and stay in Heaven) and someone like Stalin is technology — and that's really it. It's not that Trajan didn't want to do exactly what the 20th century dictators did — make his own idea of good and evil absolute and totalitarian. Had he had the means of the 20th century...
• As someone stated on the main page under Karma Houdini: Some Bright Ones are exactly this by most measures. It's a severe stumbling block for some ghosts (most notably the Big Ghost whose guide got to Heaven via deathbed conversion). The point Lewis is making is that everyone in heaven is a Karma Houdini: no one person deserves to be there more than another — as in the end, no one does. The ones who make it are those who realise they'll never earn it on their own, and accept it as a gift.
• Of all the Bright Ones Heaven decided to show the Big Ghost, why on Earth did it pick Len first? Better if it eased the guy who holds grudges into paradise rather than drop that bombshell straight away. Yes everyone in Heaven has pulled off a Karma Houdini, but you would not show a Jew a saved Hitler at the gates would you? You have to have more sense than that if you want to save sinners.
• And would you show a consummate Nazi straight out of Hell a Jew who is in Heaven first thing when you're telling her she has to get rid of every last bit of her Nazism if she wants to go there, too? Not even though, but explicitly because Nazism sees Jews as the embodiment of all evil? Sure you would.
  • Seriously, though: it's heavily implied that showing the Big Ghost the absolute worst thing he can imagine, a murderer who got to Heaven, is sort of the point. (And additionally it's showing how Len didn't just go there "anyway" — it's a bit downplayed, as the Big Ghost doesn't register it, but Len mentions nearly offhandedly that the price was giving up his self: "I had to, after the murder" — showing the Big Ghost the only way anyone can get in.)
  • Speaking of "worst you can imagine": Heaven's whole approach reminds one of people who aren't evil, but fearful — fear so bad that it's an anxiety disorder. The way they can be healed of that fear does not sound at all like something for the fearful itself, and rather counter-intuitive: it's done by confrontation with exactly the thing that is causing them the fear in the first place, so that they can learn to let go of the fear. In-story, the same method is used not for fear, but for evil. Heaven is very plainly and openly Good Is Not Nice and Cruel to Be Kind about all this in a way reminiscent of Granny Weatherwax of Discworld fame: "she didn't do good for people, she did right by them" (while her sister Lily makes their life a fairy tale come true with them as the main character; which ends BADLY even if the ending is supposed to be a happy one). That the Hell Ghosts can't really be eased into it instead is commented on by the Burning Angel, who notes that the gradual process is no use (maybe it's not even possible) when curing the Ghost with the Lizard. It's quite probably that the same applies to all Hell Ghosts, including the Big Ghost. The reason for the brutally honest Cruel to Be Kind way of going about it is explained (sort of) by MacDonald.
• That being said, once someone realises they need help, and by acknowledging that to themselves actually opens up enough to let themselves be helped; then they can and will have any and every help they need. The story shows this most with the Lady with the Unicorns and the Ghost with the Lizard. The story doesn't show (except with the Lizard Ghost) how that help then looks; but it's entirely probable that that can then be less Cruel to Be Kind. But confronting the problem has to come before this to make this choice between "do I want the help I need or not?" even possible — anything else would be an unconsented Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: forcing them to become good. By making that choice for them.^note For further elaboration on making the choice for them by miracle, mystery, or authority; see also the entry under Grand Inquisitor Scene on the page for The Brothers Karamazov or indeed that scene itself. Possible, certainly, considering whom we are talking about; but would it be right? Most people (including the bus driver in-story) would say no.
• To the point of having sense when saving the Hell Ghosts — the most sensible point to consider is: what do you want to save them from? In-story, this is always some sort of Self-Inflicted Hell: something is keeping them shut up inside their own selves. Saving them means taking the Hell out of them much more than taking them out of Hell — because their Hell is something they carry around with them. And they are keeping that something, even if the only way to save themselves from being shut up would be to let it go. Sometimes (it's at least implied this would always be the case in some form) this means giving up their self along with it — just like Len said: the only thing he could do was give up his self. This is what is meant by "not keeping even the most intimate souvenir of hell" if you want to get out of it — keeping just a little bit of the idea they'd shut themselves up in would be an individual ghost's intimate souvenir of hell. And it would drag the ghost back to there, eventually.
  • What is keeping the big ghost is the idea of "(getting) what I deserve" — and of other people getting what they deserve?
  • This is why it's exactly the point of what Heaven is doing when they send Len to meet him: showing the Big Ghost someone who really doesn't "deserve it" in his eyes. Looking down on others, especially Len; and going by "what everyone deserves", especially Len — That is the idea the Big Ghost is using to shut himself up in Hell. Exactly that is the idea he must give up if he wants to stay in Heaven — and exactly that is why they send Len. And also, the Big Ghost is more bothered about whether Len deserves to be in Heaven than whether he himself does — so: send Len.
  • And it's outrageous to the Big Ghost! But if he can't or won't overcome that outrage, he's not going to be able to stay, because exactly this idea of outrage is what he is using to always drag himself back into Hell. It's become so much a part of his being, that giving it up would mean him, too, giving up his self. And this is what the choice is that is spelled out so bluntly. All or nothing: give up wanting to decide who goes to Heaven better than Heaven could decide themselves who they'll let in — or else go back to the bus. What they are really telling him is: sorry, there is no possible third option — why should they lead him on instead?
• And it goes even deeper than the personal grudge the Big Ghost is holding. If you know better than someone else what is "good for" him or her than the person could ever know themselves (what they deserve, who they let in); then you're an absolute moral power — and as such you must hate anyone who tells you: there's no such thing except God (and by the way: you're not him). This is why he finds Heaven's Cruel to Be Kind ultimatum so outrageous, and heads back to the bus.

On a side note this is also the origin of a lot of resentments in real life, and a probable reason it's in the story: people hating others telling them that (God's, in the case of Heaven) moral law is absolute and applies to them — they can't make their own. This was one of the main reasons (to get back to your question) the actual historic Nazis (and the proto-Nazis before them) hated the Jews — because they told them that, totalitarian ideas or no: they, also, must abide by the Ten Commandments. So your comparison isn't as far from the story as it may seem at first glance.

• You can’t flip the question back at the troper who asked it. A Nazi has done evil, they must be shown the full depravity of their actions. They would expect a Jew at the gates. The question was a Jew (fell short of God for one trivial reason or other) being shown a saved Nazi who murdered countless Jews who got into Heaven because of a deathbed conversion. The Jew would be outraged, and disgusted, and rightly so. This is same reason you don’t throw a child who can’t swim into the deep end of the swimming pool. Baby steps. They have to learn how to paddle in the shallow end first. Heaven is flawed in its methods. Or maybe the Bright Ones suck at helping the damned in general? The only ghost who got saved was by an Angel. The lady who was ashamed of her own nakedness the daft sods couldn’t save, and sent a unicorn stampede upon her.
  • This is called a Rousseauian inversion — colloquially put: "what if the shoe were on the other foot?" — and it is one of the time-honored logical methods one can use for fact-finding when thinking a question through for oneself if one is really looking for an actual answer that best fits those facts. And I do actually want to find an answer to your question: it's worth it, and you deserve one — which is why I am so thoroughly thinking it through — instead of just saying "intentionally invoking Godwin's law to end a debate doesn't work" and calling it a day.
  • The Nazi would not expect a Jew at the gates any more than the other way around — but they wouldn't put it in those words. Translated into today's speech, they'd say: "finding a baby killing, Zionist^note worse than Naziism in the speaker's eyes, human rights violating, illegal settler who aids and abets crimes against humanity^note and most likely member of the global conspiracy for the new world order and a global government — you know, the works expanding their illegal occupation to Kingdom Come^note who's likely in their pocket because she's been in some form bought off is a moral outrage and invalidates any claims Heaven could ever make or have made to any form of ethics, morality, or goodness!!!!!^note see: Terry Pratchett for the meaning of !!!!!" They mean it when they think Jews are Always Chaotic Evil qua virtue of simply existing (this perspective flip is more than just rhetorical) — they'd be just as disgusted and outraged as you suggest it'd be in the other example; but not rightly so. And with the Big Ghost, the outrage is also not rightly so; so I rather think this comparison is better.
  • There is one way in which your comparison fits better: the Big Ghost rejects Len not because of something inherent that he is (as it is in my Always Chaotic Evil example), but because of what he did (murder). The Big Ghost thinks that Len's deathbed conversion isn't enough to invalidate that, and that Len doesn't deserve to have a Karma Houdini pulled for him because it's too bad. So the question becomes: are there things that are too bad for that offer of a carte blanche Karma Houdini in exchange for giving up one's self — and where would the line be drawn? Depending on where one comes down on this question outside the book of course is directly connected to what one makes of the Big Ghost's case in the book. Most people would definitely draw the line before your example — and on the other hand be divided about Len. But if you're serious about that offer being valid for everything — as Heaven is in-universe — then that is the root of the problem. And that is what the Big Ghost must confront in order to give or refuse informed consent to becoming a Person. It's no use asking without giving full information.
  • As the Burning Angel said: gradual baby steps are no use. This is only speculation, but the way the book implies it in-universe is that keeping something, anything — no matter how temporarily to ease the transition, no matter how tiny a little bit of something — that you'd give up later anyway: that is what wouldn't work, because "give up later" is what's impossible. And as it wouldn't work in the book's setting, taking those anyway although it wouldn't work would be dishonestly leading the Ghosts on — which is crueller than being honest with them from the outset.
  • I think you misunderstand the Lady with the Unicorns: she doesn't want to be seen "naked" (that is, in the state next to nothing that is all of her own being she is without becoming a Person) because she is overly concerned with her appearance, not with the reason for it (which reason is self-inflicted damnation). Simply put: she's vain as a peacock — except that "dress to impress" in-universe is, unfortunately, being solid; which she can't be. So: she's stuck — and doesn't want anyone to see her like that before she figures out a way to better make herself up. Showing her that there are other, bigger problems than looks, well...
• The Big Ghost is a self-righteous prick who points out everybody else's flaws and sins but never counts his own. He is enraged to find that "bad people" can get into heaven, even though he isn't actually very good himself. Thus, when he demands "his rights" he is quite mistaken. He believes that by being "decent" that he is entitled to paradise. Guess what? Nobody is entitled to have residence in Heaven. God invites us in on the condition that we willingly throw away our selfishness. Many people will stomp back to Hell when they are told they can't have Heaven as they desire.
  • You misunderstand the Big Ghost — what he originally wanted was justice, because he hates evil. And those who love God must hate evil; because who's kind to the cruel where it's misplaced will start to be cruel to the kind (at the very least as a side effect by not stopping the cruelties). "Mercy" without any bounds or conditions would be wanton arbitrariness; and would hurt the people most who are the weakest. The Big Ghost's problem is that he wants too much of this — and fails in the opposite direction of "justice" without any bounds or conditions. Thus, he completely fails to see the conditions that were attached to Len's pardon. And as the form of retribution he wants isn't compatible with Heaven's justice system (which completely escapes him), because Heaven's compensative justice is something he can't grasp; he thinks they don't have any justice at all.
• If the Big Ghost wanted justice, he would not have abused his own family or his employees in life. When Len confronts the Big Ghost about his not-so-decent private life, the Ghost refuses to think it's anything as unjust as murder and tries to sweep that subject under the rug by pulling the whole "but I didn't kill Jack" routine. And look at what the Big Ghost did at the bus stop in Hell. He pummeled the absolute crap out of another ghost just for insinuating that the Big Ghost and the whole crowd near the bus stop did not constitute acceptable company. That is hardly justice of any kind.
  • In the Big Ghost's eyes, they deserve it — that is his form of justice: they need to be taught to finally face life on life's terms. Their subpar slacking just won't do: they need to start acting normal. They need to do their part. But the Big Ghost will knock some sense into them, because knocks is the only language they understand. He's the only one doing any work, the only one doing his best, the only one upholding their marriage, the only one making sure no one falls out of line, and the only one seeing to it that everyone contributes all they should or indeed anything "around here". He's trying to bring about the New Human Being in everyone around him — and he goddamn well wants his reward for it. In real life, you see this most in Kindergarten teachers, Communists, and Granola Girl mummies of small children — it's a typical female form of violence; but the Big Ghost combines it with hard knocks to become a male example.
• This brings us back to the first part of things. The Big Ghost is a self-righteous prick. He uses himself as the standard of morality and refuses to look past himself. And because he refuses to give up his self-righteousness, even with Len begging him to change on bended knee, the Big Ghost stomps back to Hell, thinking that Heaven isn't really Heaven. A wise man would probably ask the Big Ghost at this point, "are you wiser or smarter than God?"
  • No — if he were a jerk/prick he'd be enjoying what he does. And if he were merely self-righteous, he'd be using himself as a standard instead of an outside ideal of justice. The Big Ghost does neither: in his eyes, he is commiting a personal sacrifice to bring greater ideals into the world by what he does. It's just that what he does turns out to be evil: he's a Knight Templar (though not a Tautological Templar), not a Jerk.
  • Luckily for anyone who doesn't exactly have the mind of a saint but ends up doing the right thing anyway — though unluckily for the Big Ghost and any other knights templar — no one is judged by intentions. But that's just what the Big Ghost can't understand. Neither does he love God nor does he hate evil: he's abandoned everything else for his idea (of justice, in his case). And because he can't let go of that, he can't let go of Hell. In a way, just like Pam with her monomaniac ideal of motherlove.