Dialogue
Time: November 22, 1963
Place: Somewhere beyond death
Characters: C. S. Lewis, Theist
John F. Kennedy, Humanist
Aldous Huxley, Pantheist
John F. Kennedy, Humanist
Aldous Huxley, Pantheist
Kennedy: Where the hell are we?
Lewis: You must be a Catholic!
Kennedy: You could tell by the accent, eh?
Lewis: Yes. I say—aren’t you President Kennedy? How did you get here—wherever here is?
Kennedy: Ex-President, I think: I seem to have been assassinated. Who are you? And—to return to my first question—where the hell are we?
Lewis: I’m C. S. Lewis. I just died too, and I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about the location. This place just feels too good to be hell. On the other hand, I didn’t see any God, did you?
Kennedy: No.
Lewis: Then it can’t be heaven either. I wonder whether we’re stuck in limbo.
Kennedy: Ugh! Do you really think so?
Lewis: Actually, I think it more likely that it’s purgatory, especially if we end up getting out of it and into heaven. I did a bit of speculating about such places as a writer, especially in The Great Divorce. I don’t suppose you’ve read it? No . . . well
. . . But surely you should be familiar with such concepts if you were a Roman Catholic.
. . . But surely you should be familiar with such concepts if you were a Roman Catholic.
One world at a time?
Kennedy: Well . . . I was more of a modern Catholic; I never bothered about transcendental mysteries or mythology. I was too busy trying to take care of the world I lived in for escapist thinking. “One world at a time,” as Thoreau put it.
Lewis: You can see now that you were wrong, can’t you?
Kennedy: What do you mean?
Lewis: Why, first that it isn’t mythology. It’s real. Wherever we are, here we are, large as life. And second, that the rule isn’t “one world at a time.” Here we are in another world talking about our past life on earth. That’s two worlds at a time by my count. And while we were on earth we could think about this world too; that’s also two worlds at a time, isn’t it? Finally, it’s not escapism. In fact, not to have prepared for this journey while we were living on earth would have been escapism. Don’t you agree?
Kennedy: Hmm . . . I suppose you’re right. But look! Someone else is coming. Can you make out who it is?
Lewis: Why, it’s Huxley! Aldous Huxley. Aldous, welcome. How did you get here?
Huxley: Same way you did, I’m sure. I just died. Oh, I say! Kennedy and Lewis! What good company to die in—or live in, whatever we’re doing. Where is this place, anyway?
Kennedy: That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Lewis thinks it may be some sort of limbo or purgatory. I’m just hoping it’s not hell.
Huxley: Well, you’re both wrong. It’s heaven. It must be heaven.
Kennedy: Why?
Is heaven everywhere?
Huxley: Because everywhere is heaven, if only you have enlightened eyes.
Lewis: Even hell?
Huxley: Oh, this is going to be fun! Lewis, you’ve lost none of your cantankerous penchant for Socratic questioning, have you? I remember you made Oxford a regular hornets’ nest when you debated back on earth, and now you’ve shipped your hornets to heaven. This is a nice challenge.
Lewis: Then reply to it. If everywhere is heaven, then either hell does not exist, or hell is part of heaven. Which way will you have it, Aldous?
Kennedy: Wait, please! Before you two take off, could you give me some assurances about this sort of debate? I was a debater too, but we politicians confined ourselves to the concrete and tangible. I’m not at all convinced you can do anything more than talk through your hat about things you’ve never seen.
The
question of method: how can we know?
question of method: how can we know?
Lewis: So you want an assurance that there is some method of really finding the truth about things we can’t see.
Kennedy: Yes. Before you take off, be sure you have a plane that can fly, and can get back to earth and land. Lewis, you said you wrote a book about heaven. How the hell—how in heaven’s name—how on earth—do you know anything about heaven? Have you ever been there?
Lewis: Yes, indeed. I’ve been in and out of the back doors of both many times.
Huxley: You see, Mr. President . . .
Kennedy: Please call me Jack.
Lewis: That will be rather confusing. My friends called me Jack.
Huxley: Suppose we let rank have first choice. Would you mind if we called you Lewis?
Lewis: If you please. Clarity seems to be the thing here, not titles.
Huxley: Fine. Now Jack, Lewis meant that remark about heaven spiritually, not literally.
Kennedy: Oh, well, if that’s all you mean . . .
Lewis: No, wait. Let’s not get bogged down in the swamps of “spiritual senses.” Let’s use words as literally as we can. I have not been in either heaven or hell literally.
Kennedy: Fine. Then how can you possibly know anything about them?
Lewis: I’ve been told.
Kennedy: What? What do you mean?
Lewis: Do you know anything at all about Tibet?
Kennedy: Of...