The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis

The Problem of my Pain

Anyone who is alive has experienced pain. Whether it is loss, sickness, poverty, or injustice, suffering is something that all human beings have in common. Everyone’s walk through pain is unique, so there is no way to compare one person’s suffering to another. I can empathize, but I cannot actually feel the turmoil going on inside of you. Understanding the problems or questions that our own suffering presents can be a long and winding road full of dead ends. The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis tackles these questions. Just as the questions are complex, so are the answer.  I could never accurately describe the entire argument offered in Lewis’ book, so I will focus on some of the questions I have been struggling to reconcile, as a semi mature Christian woman, and the help I found, but leave the rest of the case to much better minds then I.

"'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.'  This is the problem of pain in its simplest form."

Isn’t this the question we all ask when pain has walked into our lives and made it's home? For years I struggled with the question of God’s goodness, his power, and his desire for good in my life. Being the tender-hearted creature that I am, I could in no way look at this problem without attaching my emotional baggage to the question. But Lewis looks at the problem of pain under a microscope and addresses it as the intellectual question that it really is.

First we will look at the question of God’s power or his Omnipotence. Omnipotence is defined as “power to do all, or everything”. In Matthew 19:26 Jesus says “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.” seems simple enough right?  Lewis suggests that God cannot actually do “anything”. Now before you burn me at the stake let me explain. When we say “all things are possible with God” we tend to mean any silly notion that crosses our mind, but God cannot do anything against his character. God cannot be righteous and unrighteous at the same time-that would be nonsense. So God HAS the power to do all things that are consistent with his character.

Who cares if God has the power to do all things that are consistent with his character if we do not trust his character? This brings us to the question of God’s goodness. Isaiah 55:9 says “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”  So if God is wiser then us his judgment must differ from ours on many things, such as good and evil. What seems good to us may not be good in His eyes, and what seems evil may not be evil. Lewis points out that what we see as good could also be called kindness, and when we say that God is loving and good what we really mean is that he is kind to us, so when it seems he is no longer kind our whole idea of a good God falls apart. So what we are asking for is NOT a Father in heaven, but a senile grandfather that kindly gives us escape from any suffering. God is love, and love demands a lot more then kindness, Lewis says “Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but love cannot cease to will their removal.”. When we want God to care so little about us that He would stop meddling in our lives and let us do things as we see fit, that He would give up trying to train us into something so unlike our natural selves: we are NOT asking for more love, but less. God is transforming us into the image of His Son, and that requires suffering.

 The idea that God uses my pain to bring about good seemed harsh and unnecessary to me. Isn’t there an easier way? Lewis put is like this “We are not merely imperfect creatures who must be improved:  we are, as Newman said, rebels who must lay down our arms.  The first answer, then, to the question why our cure should be painful, is that to render back the will which we have so long claimed for our own, is in itself, wherever and however it is done, a grievous pain.” God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world. Pain shatters the illusions that all is well, and that we have all we need. Pain does not let us sit satisfied in our sin and rejection of God and believe that there is no more and no great then this.  If we believe that all we need in life is modest prosperity and the joy of having a family, but never know God, we will perish, and Our God of love is not content to watch us perish.

The many problems of pain could have us spinning in circles until we fall, unable to keep up with it all. Understanding the intellectual questions and possible answers can help us keep our footing, but untimely God brings healing. Answers bring understanding, but God brings healing. I would encourage anyone struggling through these complex questions to NOT give up and to let their questions spur them to want to know God more. And consider that pain is not always the problem.