The Great Divorce Read Online Free PDF

call narrow. It all turns on what are honest opinions.’
    â€˜Mine certainly were. They were not only honest but heroic. I asserted them fearlessly. When the doctrine of the Resurrection ceased to commend itself to the critical faculties which God had given me, I openly rejected it. I preached my famous sermon. I defied the whole chapter. I took every risk.’
    â€˜What risk? What was at all likely to come of it except what actually came—popularity, sales for your books, invitations, and finally a bishopric?’
    â€˜Dick, this is unworthy of you. What are you suggesting?’
    â€˜Friend, I am not suggesting at all. You see, I know now. Let us be frank. Our opinions were not honestly come by.We simply found ourselves in contact with a certain current of ideas and plunged into it because it seemed modern and successful. At College, you know, we just started automatically writing the kind of essays that got good marks and saying the kind of things that won applause. When, in our whole lives, did we honestly face, in solitude, the one question on which all turned: whether after all the Supernatural might not in fact occur? When did we put up one moment’s real resistance to the loss of our faith?’
    â€˜If this is meant to be a sketch of the genesis of liberal theology in general, I reply that it is a mere libel. Do you suggest that men like…’
    â€˜I have nothing to do with any generality. Nor with any man but you and me. Oh, as you love your own soul, remember. You know that you and I were playing with loaded dice. We didn’t want the other to be true. We were afraid of crude salvationism, afraid of a breach with the spirit of the age, afraid of ridicule, afraid (above all) of real spiritual fears and hopes.’
    â€˜I’m far from denying that young men may make mistakes. They may well be influenced by current fashions of thought. But it’s not a question of how the opinions are formed. The point is that they were my honest opinions, sincerely expressed.’
    â€˜Of course. Having allowed oneself to drift, unresisting, unpraying, accepting every half-conscious solicitation from our desires, we reached a point where we no longer believed the Faith. Just in the same way, a jealous man, drifting and unresisting, reaches a point at which he believes lies about his best friend: a drunkard reaches a point at which (for the moment) he actually believes that another glass will do him no harm. The beliefs are sincere in the sense that they do occur as psychological events in the man’s mind. If that’s what you mean by sincerity they are sincere, and so were ours. But errors which are sincere in that sense are not innocent.’
    â€˜You’ll be justifying the Inquisition in a moment!’
    â€˜Why? Because the Middle Ages erred in one direction, does it follow that there is no error in the opposite direction?’
    â€˜Well, this is extremely interesting,’ said the Episcopal Ghost. ‘It’s a point of view. Certainly, it’s a point of view. In the meantime…’
    â€˜There is no meantime,’ replied the other. ‘All that is over. We are not playing now. I have been talking of the past (your past and mine) only in order that you may turn from it forever. One wrench and the tooth will be out.You can begin as if nothing had ever gone wrong. White as snow. It’s all true, you know. He is in me, for you, with that power. And—I have come a long journey to meet you. You have seen Hell: you are in sight of Heaven. Will you, even now, repent and believe?’
    â€˜I’m not sure that I’ve got the exact point you are trying to make,’ said the Ghost.
    â€˜I am not trying to make any point,’ said the Spirit. ‘I am telling you to repent and believe.’
    â€˜But my dear boy, I believe already. We may not be perfectly agreed, but you have completely misjudged me if you do not realise that my