CS Lewis and the Case for Mere Purgatory

It is well known that CS Lewis took very seriously the doctrines of heaven and hell, and wrote extensively about them. It is less well known that he also believed in purgatory. Although his explicit writings on purgatory are relatively scant, there is ample material relevant to the doctrine in his theological works, especially Mere Christianity. I will argue that Lewis provides good reasons to affirm a version of the doctrine of purgatory, for Protestants as well as Roman Catholics.

Jerry L. Walls is Professor of Philosophy and Scholar in Residence at Houston Baptist University. Among his books is a trilogy on the afterlife: Hell: The Logic of Damnation; Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy; and Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation; and more recently, Heaven, Hell and Purgatory: Rethinking the Things that Matter Most. He is the co-editor (with Trent Dougherty), of the forthcoming volume, Two Dozen (or so) Arguments for God: The Plantinga Project.