The Problem of Pain. C. S. Lewis

       The PROBLEM OF PAIN

      C. S. Lewis

       Copyright

      William Collins

      An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

      1 London Bridge Street

      London SE1 9GF

       www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

      First published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1940

      Copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd 1940

      Cover design and illustration by Kimberly Glyder

      The right of C. S. Lewis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

      A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

      Source ISBN: 9780007461264

      Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007332267

      Version: 2015-11-20

       Dedication

      To

       The Inklings

      The Son of God suffered unto the death,

       not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.

      GEORGE MACDONALD,

       Unspoken Sermons, First Series

      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

       Copyright

      Dedication

       Epigraph

       Preface

       Chapter 1 - INTRODUCTORY

       Chapter 2 - DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE

Chapter 3 - DIVINE GOODNESS

       Chapter 4 - HUMAN WICKEDNESS

       Chapter 5 - THE FALL OF MAN

       Chapter 6 - HUMAN PAIN

       Chapter 7 - HUMAN PAIN, CONTINUED

       Chapter 8 - HELL

       Chapter 9 - ANIMAL PAIN

       Chapter 10 - HEAVEN

       APPENDIX

       Footnotes

       About the Author

       Books By C. S. Lewis

       About the Publisher

       PREFACE

      When Mr Ashley Sampson suggested to me the writing of this book, I asked leave to be allowed to write it anonymously, since, if I were to say what I really thought about pain, I should be forced to make statements of such apparent fortitude that they would become ridiculous if anyone knew who made them. Anonymity was rejected as inconsistent with the series; but Mr Sampson pointed out that I could write a preface explaining that I did not live up to my own principles! This exhilarating programme I am now carrying out. Let me confess at once, in the words of good Walter Hilton, that throughout this book ‘I feel myself so far from true feeling of that I speak, that I can naught else but cry mercy and desire after it as I may’.^fn1 Yet for that very reason there is one criticism which cannot be brought against me. No one can say ‘He jests at scars who never felt a wound’, for I have never for one moment been in a state of mind to which even the imagination of serious pain was less than intolerable. If any man is safe from the danger of underestimating this adversary, I am that man. I must add, too, that the only purpose of the book is to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; for the far higher task of teaching fortitude and patience I was never fool enough to suppose myself qualified, nor have I anything to offer my readers except my conviction that when pain is to be borne, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.

      If any real theologian reads these pages he will very easily see that they are the work of a layman and an amateur. Except in the last two chapters, parts of which are admittedly speculative, I have believed myself to be restating ancient and orthodox doctrines. If any parts of the book are ‘original’, in the sense of being novel or unorthodox, they are so against my will and as a result of my ignorance. I write, of course, as a layman of the Church of England: but I have tried to assume nothing that is not professed by all baptised and communicating Christians.

      As this is not a work of erudition I have taken little pains to trace ideas or quotations to their sources when they were not easily recoverable. Any theologian will see easily enough what, and how little, I have read.

      C. S. LEWIS

       Magdalen College, Oxford, 1940

       1 INTRODUCTORY

      I wonder at the hardihood with which such persons undertake to talk about God. In a treatise