The Problem of Pain

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Summary: Grief books I like
Review: Hello,
I am searching for answers for my grief. I bought The Problem of Pain and a grief workbook, Write from Your Heart, A Healing Grief Journal,that is helping work my way through this difficult time. In the journal I have the opportunity create a memory book while at the same time I am working through my grief using the daily prompts, Bible verses, and quotes.
It is helping.

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Summary: Clarifies some things but leaves me wondering more
Review: I purchased this book at the recommendation of an evangelical Christian friend of mine after suffering crippling athletic injuries. Lewis does shed some light on why there is suffering in this world even though its Creator is believed to be all-powerful and loving. He spends a lot of time at the beginning justifiying belief in an omniscient, omnipotent Supreme Being & Creator (God), but it didn't really answer all my questions regarding the problem of pain. It was satisfying in some respects intellectually, but not on the emotional level. It is still worth reading, whatever your religious beliefs, if you are seeking answers to the difficult questions of life.

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Summary: How does God use the pain we bear?
Review: I think it is Lewis' point that this life on planet earth involves a series of good events intersperced with very painfult ones. We start this life with few of its bumps and terrors. [Even embryos can absorb painful events if they survive at all.] God seeks to create man as one with whom He can have companionship so He does not want to control the creation. Man struggles through random events of pain and sorrow but also of beauty and joy. Man develops his own character during the course of his life. In this way God creates man with character by letting man develop it himself but using pain, sorrow, beauty and joy supplied by God's creation. One of the mysteries of the universe is how we can take with us through death the character God wants for his companionship.

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Summary: Insights Presented for and to and about Christians
Review: I would recommend this book--The Problem of Pain--very strongly to the Christian reader. Certainly, the thrust of this book is NOT to convince agnostics and atheists of the validity of the Christian platform, and anyone choosing to live in the Fool's Paradise that is agnosticism will come away from a reading of this book just as incredulous and empirically-minded as before. As any well-versed Christian knows, a testimony of God and of Christ comes not through study and reason alone. Any agnostic or atheist wishing to investigate the fundamental claims of Christianity would be better off studying C.S. Lewis' "God in the Dock," or "The Grand Miracle"(an abridged version of "God in the Dock").

Chiefly, I think that this book is meant to help Christians--or those with Judeo-Christian leanings--to reconcile the existence of pain with the realities of God's mercy, benevolence, and grace. Christians--and people of many other religions--believe life in the universe to be the result of a deliberate and calculated act of creation (nothing random or irrational, as the agnostics postulate). In light of this fact, a great number of Christians wonder why God would knowingly and intentionally create a world in which pain and sin had the possibility of being introduced.

Lewis very accutely observes, in this book, that free will--while certainly POSSIBLE without the option to commit evil--would be utterly WORTHLESS without the option to commit evil. As I have prayerfully contemplated this doctrine, I have come to know if its truth. For instance, when my father or mother told me--and still tell me--that they love me, it was and is deeply meaningful because I know that they CHOOSE to love me. If all my parents could possibly have done was love me, with no active decision on their part to do so, their love would have no meaning. They COULD have chosen to abandon or abuse me, but they did not. And that gives meaning, indeed, to all of their love and nurturing. We do not congratulate fish for breathing under water, after all (it's the only way they possibly can breathe!).

Lewis also observes, with emphasis, the fact that Jesus Christ could only have been one of two things: A lunatic or a God. The combined multitude of witnesses that knew Him--according to both Scriptural and Non-Scriptural documentation--affirm that if there was one thing Jesus constantly declared it was His own Godhood, and His Sonship to God the Father. When all of the evidence is taken into account, the representation universally set forth is that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be God. Some denied it, some believed it, but all knew that this was, at least, His claim.

And, of course, all things taken into consideration, only a madman would have even the slightest inclination to make such claims unless the claims were true. Jim Jones and David Koresh are two primary examples of men who falsely claimed to be God, and who were, as is undoubtedly known, both certifiably insane.

Lewis makes the point, also, that with pain comes humility, and with humility comes receptiveness to God. If we were never to experience pains or disappointments in life, we would always take our blessings and gifts for granted. Either that, or we would worship the gifts (blessings) instead of the Gift-giver (God).

The point is also made--and it agrees perfectly with Emerson's essay on the Law of Compensation--that every "loss" in life is, in reality, a sacrifice offered to the acquisition of something else: If a man loses his left arm, he develops an impressivley strong right arm; If a woman loses a husband to death, she is relieved of her duties as wife, and thus is free to go about doing other things.

Finally, the Tester and the tested are both positively identified. Unfortunately, many--including some professed Christians--assume to be testing God. If, for example, they read in the newspapers of an elderly man shot down and robbed by thugs, they will say, "God failed him." But, the fact is, through all of the tribulations and turmoils of life, WE are the ones being tested, NOT God. God is already the paragon of absolute perfection. We, on the other hand, must prove ourselves in the test that is life (and, in the case of thugs robbing elderly men, such thugs fail the test quite horribly).

To love and adore God in a perfect world--a world without pain or opposition--would be no major accomplishment. But, to love and adore Him in spite of all temptation and adversity is a most supreme accomplishment.

This is a most praiseworthy book!









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Summary: A suggestion for C.S. Lewis Lovers
Review: I'm an enourmous fan of C.S. Lewis and have been for many years. His explorations of Christianity bring a much needed intellegence to the faith and I have always been so grateful for his writing. On more then a few occasions, I have given his books to secular friends as an introduction to Christianity and have read them myself several times. His insight and observations have always given me something new to consider. unfortunately, I've always found other Christian writers of fiction to be strongly lacking the same level of intellegence. Recently, however, a good friend loaned me a copy of We All Fall down by Brian Caldwell. I found the novel to be every bit as intellegent and enjoyable as Lewis. Caldwell writes with real energy and passion and his novel made me rethink many aspects of my faith. I would strongly recomend it for people who enjoy C.S. Lewis. It's a great book.

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Summary: The theoLOGICAL reason we suffer.
Review: If God loves us, why do we suffer? Why is there pain? Why? Christian Apologist extraordinaire C.S. Lewis studies the possible answer to these questions. The answers are intellectually stimulating and thought provoking, to say the least, for those interested in the direction (Christian, primarily orthodox) Lewis's argument takes. What is more fascinating about the text is the rigid emotional distance Lewis has to the subject, his own personal experience with Pain (told in A Grief Observed) still many years away. Those wanting a more easy to relate to study should read Grief. Those wanting a strictly intellectual and emotionally distant look at the concepts and Christian answers could do a lot worse than The Problem With Pain. Highly recommended.

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Summary: The theoLOGICAL reason we suffer.
Review: If God loves us, why do we suffer? Why is there pain? Why? Christian Apologist extraordinaire C.S. Lewis studies the possible answer to these questions. The answers are intellectually stimulating and thought provoking, to say the least, for those interested in the direction (Christian, primarily orthodox) Lewis's argument takes. What is more fascinating about the text is the rigid emotional distance Lewis has to the subject, his own personal experience with Pain (told in A Grief Observed) still many years away. Those wanting a more easy to relate to study should read Grief. Those wanting a strictly intellectual and emotionally distant look at the concepts and Christian answers could do a lot worse than The Problem With Pain. Highly recommended.

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Summary: Interesting and Thought-provoking.
Review: In "The Problem of Pain" Lewis deciphers a very trying question for the whole of Christianity - why must humanity suffer. Many atheists argue that if God were both omnipotent and good, why does he allow such a world of pain to exist? Lewis answers this question and many others in a style that can easily be compared with a learned scholar, not a layman.

While I don't agree with all of Lewis's suppositions in "The Problem of Pain" (namely some of the statements found in the chapter "The Fall of Man" dealing with the origins of the human species), he still by and large offers up a very convincing case deeply rooted in the best Christian doctrine around - The Bible. The problem of pain for the Christian may be summed up rather simply: 1) Man, not God, was and is the creator and instigator of pain through Adam's sin. 2) Pain is a megaphone God uses to speak to us - sharply perhaps, uncomfortably, even unbearably - but if pain did not exist, would the joy and peace of God's love be the same? God uses pain to rouse a deaf world, to let us all know that something is wrong, that we need something beyond ourselves. 3) While life can be exceedingly painful at times, there is always the happiness, the sunrises and the mountain streams, for us to enjoy. Pain allows us see joy even more clearly. As Lewis himself writes, "Our Father refreshed us on the journey with some pleasant Inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home."

An interesting and thought-provoking read from the 20th century's greatest Christian theologian, apologist, and "layman".

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Summary: Addendum to earlier review
Review: In an earlier review of this work, I noted that the material should be acceptable to any Christian denomination. This is not exactly true, as there are a few denominations which deny the existence of free will... a main staple of Lewis' apologetica. A member of these congregations reading any of Lewis' work will either reject his conclusions, or be convinced by him that free will actually exists in a Christian context (thus probably removing the reader from that congregation.) TPoP does not bother arguing in favor of free will; so members of these congregations will not be likely to get anything useful out of it. (Lewis' best treatment of the free will issue is probably in the 2nd edition of _Miracles: A Preliminary Study_.)

On the related issue of predestination: Lewis uses a modified version of this theory which transcends the limitations of predestination (ie, providing for free will) while concurrently keeping the idea of God as omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Denominations where predestination is not an issue will find Lewis easy to deal with. Denominations where predestination is definitely an issue will have a tougher time, as Lewis' ideas on the matter are very complicated. As someone who has believed in predestination, I can vouch that Lewis' work keeps the essentials while solving most (perhaps all) of the philosophical problems... it has worked for me.<g>

Finally, Lewis' major work does not largely reflect his Anglicanism; in fact, he caught a lot of heat from some Anglican clergy because of this. M:aPS, MC and TPoP are written from a non-denominational standpoint, which is why I wrote that any denomination will find them useful, and which is what Lewis specifically intended. However, there are very many Christian denominations in the world--every Baptist church, for instance, has the potential to be its own 'denomination' if it wishes--so please take this recommendation as the generalization it was intended to be, not in a rigorous sense.

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Summary: Lewis in Essay Form
Review: In the Problem of Pain Lewis tackles a question that has morally plagued society for centuries, "Why does bad things happen to good people?"
Lewis using his logic to answer this question rewrites alot of things modern man thinks he already knows!
He does a fine job of answering this question, and explaining why a loving God would allow people to suffer, though the first few chapters come accross wordy, and the obviousness that Lewis wasn't up for the battle of this book is prevelant in the first chapter.