The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis             Paperback: 162 pgs.           

     Writers are often said to “spill a lot of ink”, as the saying goes, with their wordy compositions, but Lewis, on the contrary, did his best to conserve ink.  He had a knack for writing short non-fiction books, yet they are chockful of concentrated truth.  This book is a good example of his conciseness.  He manages, in less than 200 pages, to show why suffering in this world is inevitable and why God is justified in allowing it— clearly, no easy feat!  It should be noted that this book is not a manual on developing the patience and fortitude to go through suffering; it is instead an answer to the intellectual objection of pain as a reason for rejecting Christianity.

He methodically discusses all the relevant subjects related to the topic of suffering: God’s omnipotence & goodness, human sin and pain, the Fall, and suffering as it relates to heaven and hell; he even includes an illuminating chapter about why animals suffer.  Every time I read Lewis, it makes me want to pick up Aristotle, Plato, Augustine and other ancient and medieval writers he quotes, as he does in this book.  I may get around to these classics one of these days, but I’m not sure they can summarize their teachings and make them as intelligible to this modern reader as Lewis does.

Not that this is easy to read— Lewis’s writing skill makes it more understandable, but it still is philosophy, which is, of course, challenging to understand, especially for the non-academic.  There are a few other complaints I had in reading it.  For one, Lewis believed in evolution and mentions it here— a fact that will no doubt bother other Christians, as well— but it is only a relatively brief point; he doesn’t talk about it throughout the book.  I also have a problem with how he seems to take apart the argument for God’s existence from nature in the very first chapter, an argument that Scripture itself endorses (Psalm 19).

If you’re looking for a way to escape your troubles & get lost in another world, this may be the worst book to pick up, as it’s all about our troubles in this fallen world.  But if you want answers to questions of why you suffer, why the world is full of pain and how God can be just in allowing it, this book is generally a great read.  Lewis makes a very convincing case— and he only spilled only a little ink in doing so.