I don’t think CS Lewis ever articulated the real reason why people go to hell, especially in light of God’s ever fiery wrath. Whilst he thinks of hell as self-imposed, most people who do go hell never intend to but unwittingly do things that anger him. Something like John Lennon saying that the Beatles is bigger than Jesus. Then his band breaks up and he himself gets shot (the gunman might possibly be Jesus’s hitman).
To make matters worse, even most (at least non-practising) Christians go to hell. They never did anything legally wrong but they never bother to improve themselves either. (Tina’s own maternal grandfather might be in hell too despite him being a law-abiding citizen.) I actually think The Divine Comedy has a better vision of why people go to hell despite being law-abiding citizens themselves. You still have kindly popes in hell.
That’s in-line with other testimonies of Christians selling fellow (however non-practising) Christians and even missionaries and pastors in hell too. I guess even if CS Lewis has an idea of what hell’s like, he found it much too frightening to dwell upon it and why people go to hell anyways even if they’re not doing anything illegal. It could be his own opinion or take that it would be their own fault.
But at other times, he himself’s very much intimidated by God’s wrath that might explain why he doesn’t take the idea of hell that seriously at times. Hell’s not merely self-imposed, it’s very much God’s wrath in action. God is judge, hunter and executioner whom he spares little mercy for people who never bother to improve at all.
Or those who seriously offended him like John Lennon. The idea of an angry God may’ve intimidated Lewis a lot to the point where he stops short of knowing what it’s actually like at times. He struggled with it but not to the point of proper introspection that I think he missed a mark even if he got it half right at times. (Perhaps Lewis struggled a lot in in his faith so.)
fynm 