I have always struggled with the idea of being being a bodyless soul in heaven. I don’t mean that I have struggled with it in such a way as to doubt it, or that I don’t want it. I mean that I cannot conceptualize it in my mind. It is a mystery of mysteries. But I have always encouraged myself by remembering that I’m not God, and therefore I am not capable of understanding everything (nor should I understand everything). I also encourage myself by remembering that God the Father and the Holy Spirit are pure spirit without bodies. They are, however, omnipresent, while we will never be so.
With that said, this weekend I read something that helped. My daughter and I have just finished re-reading The Silver Chair, by C.S. Lewis, from the Chronicles of Narnia. I had many fond memories of this book going in. I considered it one of my two favorites of the Narnia series. I love the luner atmosphere of the story (the melancholy nature of Puddleglum, the constant brushes with insanity, etc). The scene of Caspian, Eustace, and Jill returning to our world ‘bright shining as the sun’ has gripped my imagination ever since first reading the story. But I discovered a few gems this time that I missed last time, and one of them handles the subject of a man in the ‘intermediate state,’ if you will. That man is Caspian.
Caspian dies in the story, but he comes to life again, in a new form of sorts, an ageless form, though he obviously remains himself, in Aslan’s country. As Eustace meets the newly risen Caspian, Lewis writes,
Eustace made a step toward him with both hands held out, but then drew back with a startled expression.
‘Look here! I say,’ he stammered. ‘It’s all very well. But aren’t you-? I mean, didn’t you-?’
‘Oh, don’t be such an ass,’ said Caspian.
‘But,’ said Eustace, looking at Aslan. ‘Hasn’t he-er-died?’
‘Yes,’ said the Lion in a very quiet voice, almost (Jill thought) as if he were laughing. ‘He has died. Most people have, you know. Even I have. There are very few who haven’t.’
‘Oh,’ said Caspian. ‘I see what’s bothering you. You think I’m a ghost, or some nonsense. But don’t you see? I would be that if I appeared in Narnia now: because I don’t belong there any more. But one can’t be a ghost in one’s own country. I might be a ghost if I got into your world. I don’t know. But I suppose it isn’t yours either, now you’re here.’
–The Silver Chair, chapter 16.
That one sentence – ‘One can’t be a ghost in one’s own country’ – rang true to me. It allowed me to imaginatively embrace something that I had struggled to comprehend. That’s the best picture of existence in heaven, outside of the Bible, that I have ever read. And I read it in a children’s story. This only goes to illustrate the point so often made by Lewis and G.K. Chesterton: the imagination is best used in seeking the truth. Lewis uses his imagination here for just that purpose.
- Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8).
