total relism: It definitely does seem that way in the third movie, I agree. Also, once you read The Last Battle, you may see even more parallels.

Also, welcome to NarniaWeb! I look forward to seeing your thoughts around the forum.

I have been thinking about this recently, and I thought that Aslan's Country is not a completely perfect idea of heaven. The dwarves are there and have the ability to reject Aslan, showing there is (for lack of a better word) sin in Aslan's Country. Eustace also interrupts Lucy, a minor transgression but still would be considered sinful. I figured that it may be as if the further up and further in one goes into Aslan's Country, the less the ability to sin is. They noticed that they could not feel fear when swimming up the waterfall as they got further up and further in.
I am not sure if that was what Lewis intended, but it reminded me of spiritual growth. One cannot become a better person without growing closer to God (going further up and further in) and one cannot grow closer to God without becoming a better person.

I don't think that Lewis meant for it to be a perfect idea of Heaven. Lewis was a flawed man - just like the rest of us. As such, he was unable to fully capture what Heaven will be like - none of us know for sure, other than we know we will be in the presence of God. What Lewis was able to do with his discription of Aslan's Country was to give us a taste of the joy and excitement that we'll find in Heaven.

As far as the dwarves are concerned - were they still there after the judgement? I can't remember, and I haven't found the box that has my copy of the book.

I believe that Aslan’s Country is heaven. Whether it exists in fiction in the Narnia stories or if it is the real heaven doesn’t make much difference because the goodness in it is the same. The heaven of Narnia is generally C.S. Lewis’s view of the real place, and I think he had a pretty accurate picture of what heaven will be like.

I always loved the ending of The Last Battle and I think it does give us a very good portrayal of what heaven could be like. Certainly heaven is a place much like Aslan’s Country. But of course the story is fiction so we cannot know exactly how accurate it is. But maybe it is almost reality. Most people would probably be moved by the description. I certainly was deeply mesmerized by the those final chapters of the Narnia story, and I think it was the best possible conclusion. 🙂

Yes my dear brothers and sisters heaven is aslans country 

For me, the description of the New Narnia in The Last Battle is a far more attractive description of Heaven than what I got from the Bible, or from church. I like the idea that we will continue to grow and learn and that every day will be better than the one before. People in church told me that we would all look the same, and be dressed the same, and just chant "Praise the Lord, Hallelujah" endlessly while God just sits on his throne and laps it up. That would become tedious after five minutes, never mind eternity.

Posted by: @lilygloves

I have been thinking about this recently, and I thought that Aslan's Country is not a completely perfect idea of heaven. The dwarves are there and have the ability to reject Aslan, showing there is (for lack of a better word) sin in Aslan's Country.

The dwarfs are not actually in Aslan's Country. This is not sin.

Lewis put a sort of a waiting place into his story, a piece of land that feels Narnian but is not the Narnia they have just left. It is slightly ambiguous (but it is only a story!) The dwarfs refuse to accept the help Aslan gives, and don't follow the others.

At the 'judgement' where animals and creatures look at Aslan's face and go one way or the other, the dwarfs are not mentioned, but I sadly must conclude that they ended up going into the dark place away from Aslan. They certainly don't follow the children and other Narnians to the exciting new place where they eventually go through the gates.

Aslan's Country turns out to be either the part of 'Heaven' where the Real Narnia is, or Heaven itself, and as they see England there it must be the Real England, also in Heaven. This shows that Lewis has 'pulled back the camera to give a huge wide shot' at the end of his narration.

The final sentences show that they are in a place where there is certainly no more sin, and they are looking at the One who I look forward to seeing in that place.

Posted by: @coracle

The dwarfs are not actually in Aslan's Country. This is not sin.

Lewis put a sort of a waiting place into his story, a piece of land that feels Narnian but is not the Narnia they have just left. It is slightly ambiguous (but it is only a story!) The dwarfs refuse to accept the help Aslan gives, and don't follow the others.

At the 'judgement' where animals and creatures look at Aslan's face and go one way or the other, the dwarfs are not mentioned, but I sadly must conclude that they ended up going into the dark place away from Aslan. They certainly don't follow the children and other Narnians to the exciting new place where they eventually go through the gates.

This has got me wondering too — as you say, it's a bit ambiguous as to where the characters are when they first go through the door. It's not until after Aslan's final judgment that they start to see landmarks that look familiar, yet somehow different ("More like the real thing"), and gradually recognise that they are in the "real Narnia", of which the now-destroyed "old" Narnia was only a shadow.

However, the place they're in at first does seem to already have attributes that could only be associated with Aslan's country —  it's "the country where everything is allowed" (because nothing is evil or harmful), where the fruits are so perfect and delicious that the best fruit in our world would be poor by comparison, and where everyone's wounds and pains and old age have been healed. And the characters that we're following — Tirian and the Seven Friends — have already gone through the door and experienced these things before the final judgment happens. When they watch it happening, they're watching from inside the door. They're not included in the judgment; it's implied they've already "passed from death into life", to quote the Bible (John 5:24). They're not made to go out and come back, either through the door again or into Aslan's shadow. So I can't see that the Dwarfs would have been made to go out again either — unless we were told so, which we're not, either way.

From what I understand about Lewis's theology, I gather his thought was that those who end up in hell have so persistently and stubbornly clung to their own selfish sins and rejected God's grace and goodness, no matter how many times it was offered, that it's not God who shuts them out of heaven, but they themselves. (I know Lewis explores that idea in detail in The Great Divorce, which I haven't read yet, but it's on my list!) I think that's what the Dwarfs in The Last Battle are meant to portray — even though they're sitting in the midst of heaven, they are so absorbed in their own selfishness and arrogance that they can't see any of it, but only feel and experience being in a dark and smelly little stable. Maybe they remained sitting where they were forever? We just don't know.

For myself, I don't think the Dwarfs are meant to suggest that there is sin in heaven, but it also doesn't quite seem to follow that there's a part of the world beyond the door that isn't really Aslan's Country, either. I see them as just showing that even if such self-absorbed mentalities somehow DO get into heaven, they automatically shut themselves off from experiencing anything of it. They're at a point where even Aslan himself can't reach them, as he demonstrates.

Lewis expressly wasn't trying to put a systematically worked-out theology into the Chronicles, so I don't know if there's any way we can square this with what any particular denomination teaches about heaven, and probably we're not meant to. I see it as just an illustration of a point, not a 100% accurate representation of "the hereafter" — which is something we can only speculate about from this world, anyway...