“[Mortals] say of some temporal suffering, "No future bliss can make up for it," not knowing Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "Let me have but this and I'll take the consequences": little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both processes begin even before death.”

— Clive Staples Lewis , book The Great Divorce

Source: The Great Divorce (1944–1945), Ch. 9

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Clive Staples Lewis 272

Christian apologist, novelist, and Medievalist 1898–1963

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“Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse; envy alone wants both.”

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“The answers from Genesis tell us that there was no death, bloodshed, disease, or suffering before sin. All these things are a consequence of sin. That's why Christians can't believe in millions of years for the fossil record - it's a horrible record of death, disease, and suffering, which couldn't have happened in the Garden before Adam fell.”

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