I am going to collate everything back into one five-part response, because otherwise I will get hopelessly lost trying to follow multiple threads. Okay. Point by point:
You don't seem to care much for LB, so I won't go into it except to say that I see Lucy's statement about the stable as a continuation/knowledge of Christianity as an outcome of her search for Aslan in our world which began in VODT.
My basic problem with TLB is that in order to see it as an emotionally satisfying and ethically acceptable ending, you must agree to some tacit assumptions that I cannot agree to: namely that this particular crisis is self-evidently insoluble in a way that previous crises weren't; that senseless, random death (as opposed to, say, death in service of a cause) can be seen as a happy or even desirable ending (or is somehow not senseless and random); and that it is good and admirable for Aslan to call down the end of all things, divide all souls into the saved and the damned, and go home without a qualm. I realize that it's a relatively faithful dramatization of the Apocalypse mythology, and that if you believe in a literal heaven and God's plan and so on, it may not come off as senselessly, arbitrarily cruel. But because I do not share those beliefs, even if I can intellectually see that the book is a coherent treatise about humanity's powerlessness without God, and a vivid dramatization of John's revelation, my emotional reaction is visceral disgust and betrayal, because my ethical framework is shaped by the assumption of randomness rather than the assumption of a divine plan.
If Lewis had included even as much as three sentences in which someone explained that Narnia was growing old and had reached the end of its appointed time, or that the lack of community that makes it difficult for Tirian, Jill, and Eustace to rally support is a sign of the coming end, I might have been more reconciled to the end of the world. As it is, Roonwit's tale of calamity in the stars did not make me think 'end of the world' but made me think 'great crisis' -- and all the previous great crises had been solved.
The basic Christian idea of humanity is that we have become 'bent': we view ourselves as gods and want to be left alone to worship ourselves and our pleasures, to put it one way. Those who do not, through grace, love God would not want to be anywhere near him .... It would be unjust for God to force people who don't want to be anywhere near him to stand in his presence for eternity. It would be cruel. So God gives them what they want: to be away from him, to live their own lives without his presence. And, like the dwarfs in LB, they'll live exactly how they expect to live.
Maybe so. That is not, however, the impression I got from TLB. The dwarfs are left alone to believe what they want; I can accept that. However, the great sorting of souls does not simply leave those who don't love Aslan alone. Instead of coming into the stable and being allowed to ignore Aslan's presence, the Talking Beasts cease to be Talking Beasts which always felt, to me, as if Aslan were taking away all chance of them ever regretting that choice and choosing anew -- taking away their minds and selves and, if we're talking religion, their very souls. Which is horrifically unjust and cruel. (It's also discriminatory, since he doesn't turn the humans who reject him into mindless beasts. That always bothered me.) Furthermore, all those who fear and hate Aslan do not simply refuse to enter the stable. They swerve off into Aslan's shadow, which has a terribly ominous feel; either they are immediately transported to hell, or they remain in Narnia and die in ice shortly thereafter, or they are unmade as the Talking Beasts have been un-souled.
I think the implication of finality bothers me most: the idea that you get only one choice, and must abide by it for the rest of eternity, as if you will never learn or change but will be fixed from that moment onward. Lewis implies (by saying that the children never saw the damned again) that hell is forever. That is a denial of life and free will, and I find it ethically unacceptable.
on theology, ethics, and authorial intent, part 1
You don't seem to care much for LB, so I won't go into it except to say that I see Lucy's statement about the stable as a continuation/knowledge of Christianity as an outcome of her search for Aslan in our world which began in VODT.
My basic problem with TLB is that in order to see it as an emotionally satisfying and ethically acceptable ending, you must agree to some tacit assumptions that I cannot agree to: namely that this particular crisis is self-evidently insoluble in a way that previous crises weren't; that senseless, random death (as opposed to, say, death in service of a cause) can be seen as a happy or even desirable ending (or is somehow not senseless and random); and that it is good and admirable for Aslan to call down the end of all things, divide all souls into the saved and the damned, and go home without a qualm. I realize that it's a relatively faithful dramatization of the Apocalypse mythology, and that if you believe in a literal heaven and God's plan and so on, it may not come off as senselessly, arbitrarily cruel. But because I do not share those beliefs, even if I can intellectually see that the book is a coherent treatise about humanity's powerlessness without God, and a vivid dramatization of John's revelation, my emotional reaction is visceral disgust and betrayal, because my ethical framework is shaped by the assumption of randomness rather than the assumption of a divine plan.
If Lewis had included even as much as three sentences in which someone explained that Narnia was growing old and had reached the end of its appointed time, or that the lack of community that makes it difficult for Tirian, Jill, and Eustace to rally support is a sign of the coming end, I might have been more reconciled to the end of the world. As it is, Roonwit's tale of calamity in the stars did not make me think 'end of the world' but made me think 'great crisis' -- and all the previous great crises had been solved.
The basic Christian idea of humanity is that we have become 'bent': we view ourselves as gods and want to be left alone to worship ourselves and our pleasures, to put it one way. Those who do not, through grace, love God would not want to be anywhere near him .... It would be unjust for God to force people who don't want to be anywhere near him to stand in his presence for eternity. It would be cruel. So God gives them what they want: to be away from him, to live their own lives without his presence. And, like the dwarfs in LB, they'll live exactly how they expect to live.
Maybe so. That is not, however, the impression I got from TLB. The dwarfs are left alone to believe what they want; I can accept that. However, the great sorting of souls does not simply leave those who don't love Aslan alone. Instead of coming into the stable and being allowed to ignore Aslan's presence, the Talking Beasts cease to be Talking Beasts which always felt, to me, as if Aslan were taking away all chance of them ever regretting that choice and choosing anew -- taking away their minds and selves and, if we're talking religion, their very souls. Which is horrifically unjust and cruel. (It's also discriminatory, since he doesn't turn the humans who reject him into mindless beasts. That always bothered me.) Furthermore, all those who fear and hate Aslan do not simply refuse to enter the stable. They swerve off into Aslan's shadow, which has a terribly ominous feel; either they are immediately transported to hell, or they remain in Narnia and die in ice shortly thereafter, or they are unmade as the Talking Beasts have been un-souled.
I think the implication of finality bothers me most: the idea that you get only one choice, and must abide by it for the rest of eternity, as if you will never learn or change but will be fixed from that moment onward. Lewis implies (by saying that the children never saw the damned again) that hell is forever. That is a denial of life and free will, and I find it ethically unacceptable.