JOLLYBLOGGER: Review of Beyond the Shadowlands by Wayne Martindale

John Calvin begins his Institutes by saying he is not real sure about where he should begin. He isn't sure if he should begin his study with the knowledge of God or the knowledge of man. He says that man cannot know God unless he understands his need for God, yet he can't know himself unless he understands God.

I have some similar thoughts regarding the book Beyond the Shadowlands by Wayne Martindale. This is an examination of the views of C. S. Lewis on heaven and hell. I am not sure whether I should be recommeding this book to those who have read a lot of Lewis or to those who have never read him. To get the most out of the book I think it is helpful to have read Lewis's works. The book talks about lots of things that those who have never read Lewis will have a hard time understanding since it liberally quotes from and analyzes Lewis's work, particularly his fiction. At the same time, though one who has never read Lewis may not understand everything Martindale is talking about here, Martindale has enough here to whet the Lewis novice's appetite and make him hunger for more.

I am somewhere in between on this. I have read some of Lewis's works and therefore resonated with much of what Martindale had to say. Yet there is a lot of Lewis yet to be read in my life so I got a few tastes of what may come in my C.S. Lewis-reading-future. I did enjoy the book and can highly recommend it. The book covers a good deal of ground and I won't be able to do justice to it here in a short review, but I'll give it a shot.

First of all, Martindale focuses on Lewis's fiction. Though Lewis wrote a good deal of straight didactic literature he believed that fiction was uniquely capable of communicating things that didactic literature couldn't. Fiction can shape the imagination and this is crucial to Lewis, especially in writing on heaven and hell. Rather than focusing on the more didactic passages from Lewis's writing and then using the fiction to illustrate it, Martindale majors on the fiction and occasionally uses the didactic writings to explain them when necessary.

My favorite parts of the book were those on the Chronicles of Narnia. My old professor Steve Brown used to tell us that we could consider ourselves uneducated if we had never read the Chronicles of Narnia. He was right - I have loved them for a long time and Martindale does a wonderful job of explaining some of the things I had read and enjoyed but didn't quite understand.

Part of the genius of Lewis in all of his writings, but especially in the Chronicles of Narnia, was his understanding that the human mind is unable to grasp heavenly realities. We don't have the mental and spiritual abilities to understand these things. Yet, there is great value in trying to imagine heaven. So, to deal with this paradox, when speaking of these things Lewis always sets us on the outskirts of heaven and hell. This way he reminds us that he is not describing heaven and hell as they really are, but is giving our imaginations some tastes of what they are like.

And this is where Lewis, and Martindale, are strongest. Lewis had a very good understanding of Scripture, and a very subtle and nuanced understanding of Scripture which shows forth in his fictional writings. Martindale does a good job of making explicit some of the things that are implicit in Lewis's writings.

He also deals with some of the more controversial aspects of Lewis's views. In The Last Battle there is a scene at the end where one of the servants of Tash, who represents the devil, is admitted into heaven. When I first read this it was quite troubling to me. Martindale makes a yeoman's effort to explain this in a favorable way to Lewis and he does shed some interesting light on the subject. Martindale speaks of the fact that Lewis was not a universalist. And this is true of the story - not all the followers of Tash make it into heaven, just the one. He also ably shows that Lewis believed salvation is all of grace, so that the follower of Tash who makes it into heaven is saved by Aslan/Christ, not by his own works. It is the merit of of Aslan/Christ by which he is saved. Martindale and Lewis basically state that this character was really calling out to Aslan/Christ when he was serving Tash.

This discussion was helpful to get the big picture of what Lewis believed, and in some respects even supports the doctrine of election. Remember, not all of the servants of Tash got into heaven, only this one chosen by Aslan so we can't pin universalism on Lewis here. But I also don't think Lewis's view does justice to Acts 4:12:

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids

The danger in Lewis's view here is that it suggests that someone can be saved without naming the name of Christ.

Another troublesome aspect of Lewis's view on the hereafter is his view of purgatory. Again, Martindale does a yeoman's job of showing how Lewis viewed Christ's work as sufficient to save us from our sins, so that purgatory is not an addendum to the sufferings of Christ. For Lewis purgatory is not so much a place of punishment as of preparation. Still, he is in error in this view because Christ's atoning sacrifice is all the preparation we need.

So, when reading Lewis you always have to read him knowing that he is not a theologian and he is off base in some areas. Yet, he is so good in so many areas that you are really missing a blessing by not reading him. If you keep your biblical filters engaged Lewis won't cause you any trouble. And what you gain from Lewis more than outweighs these other things. He will engage your imagination and make you long for heaven. And even though his doctrine is confusing at times, it is still Christ who gets you to heaven in his works.

And Martindale is an able interpreter of Lewis whom I recommend to those who have read Lewis and those who haven't.

I want to thank Stacy Harp at Mind and Media and Blog for Books for arranging this opportunity for me to review this book. This book was given as a gift by the good folks at Crossway Publishers for the purpose of this review and I have not received any compensation for it.

7 Comments

Not saved without naming the name of Christ? I don't accept that as an absolute. Let's say that some wicked parents keep someone in a dungeon from birth until the age of 25, feeding that person but otherwise treating him/her as an animal. That prisoner then dies. I do not believe God would sentence someone like that to eternity in hell when they've been in a living hell on earth with no opportunity to escape the present or to know Christ.

Posted by: Joel Thomas | May 15, 2005 at 09:34 PM

One of my favorite things about Lewis is that he admitted he wasn't a theologian. If I remember right, there were a couple of places in Mere Christianity where he openly says that he might me wrong about his intrepretation of scripture.

Posted by: Scott Banwart | May 16, 2005 at 10:13 AM

I think Martindale does more than just suggest that the character might have been calling out to Aslan instead of Tash, or that Aslan accepted his worship of Tash as worship of Aslan. He rightfully points out that in the context of the story itself (i.e., The Last Battle) it is difficult to say for certain that the character is in fact dead at the moment of revelation.

It is certainly one possible interpretation and is clearly consistent with Lewis' uncertainty about exactly how God dealt with unbelievers (in Mere Christianity he makes the observation that while he can't be absolutely certain what it means to be saved "through Christ" he would encourage everyone to get to know the one through whom is the only hope of salvation). I just think Martindale's discussion of the ways in which that scene could be interpreted highlighted the fact that Lewis wasn't making any absolute statements of faith.

Posted by: Bill Wallo | May 17, 2005 at 04:46 PM

"The danger in Lewis's view here is that it suggests that someone can be saved without naming the name of Christ."

I don't think that's necessarily a danger. Of course salvation can only be through Christ, but that need not necessarily mean that one has to have an explicit knowledge of him to be saved (especially if one holds to a strong doctrine of election).

Compare for example Matthew 25, where Jesus welcomes into eternal reward those who have helped the poor etc. They do not recognise him, but he says 'whatever you did to the least of these, you did to me', which is I think the idea that Lewis was driving at. There is no salvation outside of Christ, but this need not mean that those outside of Christianity cannot be saved by Christ.

Posted by: Sven | May 23, 2005 at 07:14 AM

One thing I learned from the book was that I need to read more Lewis! I read Mere Christianity and Miracles recently, and read part of the Narnia chronicles when I was a kid, but there's a LOT more reading for me to do.

Anybody know where I can get a copy of Pilgrim's Regress?

Posted by: Warren | May 23, 2005 at 09:45 AM