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In ''Mere Christianity'', Lewis also emphasizes the understanding of salvation as deification to the exclusion of the Roman Catholic and Protestant thought that salvation includes being "pardoned," or "justified" by God. Finally, Lewis did not believe in a penal hell, choosing instead the understanding that "hell" is the unfortunate state of mind of a person who has not developed the capacity for love and joy, regardless of their religion (see ''The Great Divorce,'' ''The Problem of Pain,'' and ''The Last Battle''). "The damned are successful rebels to the end, enslaved within the horrible freedom they have demanded. The doors of hell are locked on the inside." (''Problem of Pain.'') In a parallel fashion, Lewis believed in heaven as the experience of having a heavenly kind of character: "The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a 'Heaven' for them." (''Mere Christianity'') In the entire corpus of Lewis's work, it is impossible to find a statement of belief in "penalties against non-believing sinners," "penal atonement" or any such heterodox Roman Catholic ideas.
===Divine wrath as Enhancing Human Joy=== Insteadof a belief in divine penalties, Lewis agreed with [http://www.stathanasius.miss.on.coptorthodox.ca/Menu/Patrology/SchoolOfAlexandria/DeansClement.htm St. Clement of Alexandria] that God's punishment of all humans is a "wise fire" that delivers us from death to life, evil to good, gloom to joy, if only we had enough ''sense'' and ''trust'' to "lay ourselves open" to God's infinite justice. As Clement comforts us, "The punishment that God imposes is due not to anger, but to justice, for the neglect of justice contributes nothing to our improvement." In ''Problem of Pain,'' Lewis describes divine retribution in similar terms as the painful but salutary process by which God plants his flag of truth in our soul. God's justice is "a truly ethical demand that, soon or late, the right should be asserted, the flag planted in this horribly rebellious soul." According to Lewis, we will not be saved from hell until we permit God to render this infinite wrath upon us. This is a very radical notion that Lewis adopts directly from the central thought of his "master" George MacDonald. (See Lewis's book: ''George MacDonald, An Anthology''.) This paradoxical theology, which has unmistakeable antecedents in ancient Christianity, is totally contrary to what most of his modern western audience understands to be the "Christian Gospel," -- to them, the good news is that God will ''not'' punish us because Christ is our penal substitute -- and thus . Thus Lewis dares speak of it only in the most indirect terms in his theological literature and in the most oblique allusions in his fantastic literature:
When the reader contrasts these two dialogues, the reader sees that Lewis had the greatest admiration for those to whom the doctrines of penal hell and penal atonement are immediately perceived to be palpably untrue and who instead cry exultant to God with a child-heart: ‘Do with me as thou wilt!’ Lewis did not believe that it was possible for Christians to be saved from hell so long as you manage they are successful in their scheme to evade God's justice and wrath. Thus, Lewis believed that Western Christians will be the very last ones to be saved, after the pagans and the atheists. The last sin that will dissolve as they enter into the consuming fire of divine love is the Christian theories of penal atonement and penal hell. In the words of Lewis's "master," MacDonald, "When they see the glory of God, [Western Christians] will see the eternal difference between the false and the true, and not till then."
In short, Lewis was a universalist in the way that Orthodox Christianity teaches universalism, believing that God loves all his creatures now and throughout eternity, and we experience "hell" only insofar as, and so long as, we choose not to conform ourselves to Divine Love. Like the Orthodox, Lewis believed that we could repent beyond the grave and we could all hope for (but not predict with certainty) ''apokatastasis'', universal reconciliation of humanity to divine goodness (see ''The Great Divorce''). According to Lewis, a human is not required to accept any particular religious beliefs or doctrine in order to be "saved," (''ie.'' in order to turn from gloom to joy). A brilliant article on this matter is is [http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-05292002-153921/unrestricted/etd.pdf Reason, Imagination, and Universalism in C. S. Lewis]
