The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis (Review)
As I read The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham, the main character’s disbelief in God stemmed from the degree of pain and suffering in the world. His comments reminded me that I had not previously read The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis, so I moved Lewis’s essay up my list. In it, Lewis posits that human suffering and the prospect of hell are insufficient grounds to conclude there is no God or that God is not good and powerful.
Lewis started by looking at the human foundations of awe and morality. He notes there seems to be little evolutionary benefit to awe in relation to the spiritual realm. One might imagine it’s the natural explanation for all that appeared beyond explanation, but it is also reasonable to conclude that such belief in the supernatural is grounded in some reality. While exploring the moral codes that exist across all time and location, Lewis also notes that everyone fails adherence to their respective moral code. Thus, there is universal understanding of guilt.
Lewis cited Plato who observed that a person cannot be kind unless they have all other virtues, for virtue is a singular concept—all the requisite skills to live a contented life. Lewis states that every vice will lead to cruelty. The only prevention of inflicting cowardice, conceit, or slothfulness on your neighbor is that their welfare has not yet conflicted with your own safety, self-approval, or ease.
The demand, expectation, or hope that God should simply forgive everyone misconstrues what forgiveness is. Condoning evil means ignoring it. But forgiving requires the wrongdoer to both request forgiveness from the person against whom the evil was committed and receiving forgiveness from that person. If someone admits no guilt, there can be no forgiveness.
Lewis distilled his question to the following phrase: “If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.” Yet this conclusions neglects the core creation that makes love possible: free will. Dr. William Lane Craig argues that evil is not a created thing but a privation of reality. He likens it to cold, which is the absence of heat. Cold is not illusory; for you know it is cold when there is no heat. Similarly, God’s rightly order can be ignored and defied because of what God created: free will. Lewis continues by observing “the freedom of a creature must mean freedom to choose: and choice implies the existence of things to choose between.”
Christianity agrees there is a problem of pain, but it provides an explanation. Primarily, evil is a deviation from the way things ought to be, and it is the framework that God granted humans free will to choose God or to reject God. If there is no free will, then humans would be mere automatons following directives, which is not love. Yet even where there is rejection of God and evil arises, pain refines us and draws people closer to God. Lewis offers this observation: “We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
As with many books of a philosophical tilt, it is a bit of a shame to read The Problem of Pain by myself. It is a book that is best a prompt for discussion and critique with others. As it stands, however, Lewis’s book was a complementary partner for The Razor’s Edge, as the ideas were an interesting contrast of ideas. The Problem of Pain is a quick read and a thoughtful one. It’s no surprise that the book has persisted for 80 years as classic literature, and I recommend it for anyone who enjoys philosophy and religion.
