Passing by Matt Perry's blog, I was reminded that 43 years ago today (November 22, 1963) C. S. Lewis, John Kennedy, and Aldous Huxley died (and you thought that thing about deaths coming in threes was a myth!).

A few years back, Peter Kreeft wrote a very charming book in the form of a Socratic dialogue about the conversation Lewis, Kennedy and Huxley had on "the other side" while waiting for their fate. The book appropriately enough is entitled Between Heaven and Hell. Here's how it begins.

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 is 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.

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 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 you'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?

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 a part of heaven. Which way will you have it Aldous?

Kennedy: Wait, please! Before you two take off, could you please give me some assurances about this sort of debate? I was a debater too, but we politicians confined ourselves to the concrete and the tangible. I'm not all that convinced that you can do anything more than talk through your hat about things you've never seen.

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 and hell. How the hell--how in heaven's name--how on earth--do you know anything about heaven and hell? Have you ever been there?

Lewis: Yes, indeed. I've been in and out of the back doors many times.

Huxley: You see, Mr. President...

Kennedy: Please call me Jack.

Lewis: That will be rather confusing. My friends call me Jack.

And so it goes for another hundred or so pages. Kreeft's Between Heaven and Hell is a delightful read, but carries many serious themes about the Christian faith as well.

Peter Kreeft. Between Heaven & Hell: A Dialogue Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1982.

Tags: C. S. Lewis