Why does Hell exist? Lewis' answer

After finishing “The Great Divorce,” I kept thinking that Hell seems to be a topic close to Lewis’ heart, meaning that Lewis has a passion for thinking about why Hell exists in a world full of mercy in which God sent his son to descent into Hell and paid the ultimate price for human sins. Because of this passion, images are portrayed throughout certain books written by Lewis and an Inkling to offer a picture of why it still exists if the price for human sins has already been paid. Here is a little bit of my thinking process:

One piece of the image comes from Lewis in the Problem of Pain in which he states that there are some evil wills inside men that do not want to change. “ You will remember that in the parable, the saved go to a place made for them, while the damned go to a place never made for them at all,” (PP 127)…“What is cast (or casts itself) into Hell is not a man; it is remains,” (PP 128). These ideas seem to suggest that because humans have free will, they can choose to reject the gift God is offering all human beings. As a result, humans cast themselves into Hell.

Another piece of the image comes from The Last Battle in which Lewis writes about dwarfs huddled together in an open, lush green place. However, although they can hear Lucy and the other characters speaking to them, the dwarfs still believe that they are stuck in the dark stable. They cannot smell the fresh items offered to them, they think manure is being shoved in their face. “The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs” is a phrase they keep repeating. All this suggests that they are living for themselves; they are stuck in their own minds and that is their Hell according to Lewis. “Heaven” is there all around them if only they would reject their thinking but they will not.

Yet another piece of the puzzle comes from Descent into Hell, especially the character Wentworth. This character revealed that even though humans cast themselves into Hell because they will not reject their ways, there may still be windows of opportunity to turn back. However, there is a point of no return. All of this was shown through Wentworth’s decisions: first to not be happy for his friend about the knighthood. Then about not being able to spend time with Adela and soon he became more and more wrapped up in his mind even though there were opportunities to escape until the day he was asked to come and make sure the uniforms were made correctly. “He looked, and he swung, as if on his rope, as if at a point of decision—to go on or to climb up,” (DH 144) but as he walked around the guard and gave the answer Mrs. Parry wanted to hear, “His future was secure, both proximate and ultimate,” (DH 145).

A forth (and final?) image is noted in A Great Divorce reflects Lewis’ idea that going to Hell is becoming less human because it was not a place made for man. “A damned soul is nearly nothing: it is shrunk, shut up in itself…Their fists are clenched, their teeth are clenched, their eyes fast shut” (GD 139). They are merely ghost images that have no real existence.