Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis & Aldous Huxley

Peter Kreeft's Between Heaven and Hell presents an imaginative philosophical dialogue set in the afterlife, featuring three intellectual giants who died on November 22, 1963: John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley. This creative conceit allows Kreeft to stage a focused debate on the identity and divinity of Jesus Christ, with each historical figure representing a distinct theological position that shaped twentieth-century thought.

In Kreeft's construction, Lewis defends orthodox Christianity, arguing for Jesus as the incarnate Son of God through his famous "Lord, Liar, or Lunatic" trilemma. Kennedy represents modern liberal Christianity or ethical humanism, maintaining that Jesus was a great moral teacher but not necessarily divine. Huxley advocates for Eastern religious philosophy, proposing that Jesus was an enlightened mystic who realized his unity with the divine principle accessible to all. Through these three voices, Kreeft examines the central christological question that divides religious worldviews.

The dialogue format serves Kreeft's apologetic purposes while acknowledging the complexity of competing perspectives. Rather than presenting a simple polemic, he allows each position to be articulated with sophistication, drawing on the actual writings and known views of the three figures. The afterlife setting adds dramatic urgency to questions typically confined to academic theology, suggesting that one's stance on Jesus's identity carries eternal consequences.

Kreeft's method combines accessible philosophical argument with literary imagination, making complex theological debates engaging for general readers. The work contributes to contemporary apologetics by demonstrating how the question of Jesus's divinity remains central to broader questions about God, religious truth, and human destiny. By using well-known cultural figures rather than abstract positions, Kreeft personalizes the theological options available in modern pluralistic society.

The book's significance lies in its systematic examination of three major interpretative frameworks for understanding Jesus and, by extension, the nature of religious truth. While Kreeft's own Catholic commitments clearly influence the dialogue's trajectory, with Lewis's position receiving the most robust defense, the work succeeds in clarifying what is at stake in christological debates. It demonstrates how different starting assumptions about reality, religious experience, and textual authority lead to incompatible conclusions about Christianity's central claim.