The Problem of Pain and Suffering (religion 225)

The existence of pain and suffering in a world created by a good and almighty God is a fundamental theological dilemma and may be the most serious objection to the Christian religion. In the book, The Problem Of Pain , author C.S. Lewis addresses the issue of pain as a mere problem that demands a solution; he formulates it and goes about solving it. "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He 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" (p. 16). According to Lewis, this is the problem of pain in its simplest form. In his attempt to solve the problem of pain Lewis evaluates the past and the origin of religion, he offers his interpretation of the various justifications for why pain exists in today's society, and explains how one should deal with pain in order to live out God's will in the future. This essay will examine these rationales and will conclude with an analysis on how Lewis handles the four foundational sources for understanding the will of God through scripture, tradition, history, and modern context.

Lewis evaluates the past in order to explain the problem of pain. He does this by examining the origin of religion and discussing the three elements associated with all developed religions, in addition to an added one in Christianity. The first element is the experiences of the Numinous. Humans are capable of sensing the divine and spiritual presence through the Numinous. The Numinous is a mixed feeling of awe and dread and distinct from fear. Lewis states that there are two possible views of Numinous. The first is that it is simply in the mind and serves no biological function; yet will not disappear even in the most developed minds of poets, philosophers, or saints (p.10). The second view simply states that Numinous "is a direct experience of the really supernatural, to which the name Revelation might properly be given" (p. 10). Morality, the second element in developed religion, is universally acknowledged in human history. Lewis describes the moral experience as something felt by all people and felt to be disobeyed by all people. Lewis describes the third element shared by developed religion as occurring when people put morality and Numinous together. This occurs when they recognize that the power behind the Numinous is protecting morality (p. 11-12). The element unique to Christianity is the historical event when Jesus claimed to be the Son of the Numinous and source of morality (p. 13). Lewis presents two views that can be taken about Jesus and His claims; either He was a lunatic and deceiver or He actually was, and is what He said. Lewis states that if the first is wrong then the second must be accepted as true. Lewis goes on to state that it is by this act of accepting Jesus' claims to be the Christ that the problem of pain becomes a reality. "For pain would not be a problem unless, side by side with our daily experience of this painful world, we had received what we think a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving" (p. 14).

According to Lewis, human suffering in today's society is related to God's creation of nature with free will and human beings with free will. Lewis explains that when God created us free, He also created a free world separate from our wills. This separation of our will and nature's creates the possibility of conflict. Lewis uses fire as an example. Fire can be useful to warm the body, but at too close a distance it can burn and destroy. Lewis then brings up the fact that pain is classified according to the intensity. If the intensity of the pain is low it might not entail any suffering but just recognition of a feeling. For example a mild pain after exercise might be experienced not as suffering, but as a sign of an accomplishment. Pain that is disliked is suffering, which may be the result of a mental or physical experience. Lewis believes that the likelihood of pain is intrinsic in the reality of a world where human beings can meet. Through free will human beings have the capability to hurt one another. "It is men, not God, who have produced racks, whips, prisons, slavery, guns, bayonets, and bombs" (p. 86). Because of this, when people become wicked they misuse freedom to hurt each other. Lewis claims that this is the cause of up to four-fifths of suffering in today's world (pg 86).

A second modern day justification is that our being here and experiencing pain is a kind of education. We have to learn to surrender ourselves to God, because the tendency of humans is to be centered on their selves. Thus, since pain is immediately recognizable evil and evil is impossible to ignore it makes us aware that there is something wrong with our concern just about ourselves.

A third justification for pain in today's world is expressed in the common notion that bad people ought to suffer for their bad deeds. This appeals to everyone's sense of justice because it complies with the idea of giving someone what he or she deserves. Moreover, some people see punishment as a deterrence of others and as a reform of the offender. According to this view, God uses an undesirable mental or physical experience to cause pain and suffering in order to shatter the illusion of self-sufficiency. God's goal is to bring people out of self-centeredness and prepare them for another existence hereafter. From this perspective, the suffering of a creature in need of alteration is a mere corollary to God's goodness. Lewis argues that this is unjust because he believes it is immoral to inflict suffering on someone for the sake of deterring others if they don't deserve it.

Since the perception of human's sinful condition has largely disappeared from the modern perspective it is difficult for people to understand why God would inflict suffering in order to reform or bring humanity out of self-centeredness. Lewis considers two present day causes that contribute to modern people's denial of their sinful condition: the reduction of all virtues to kindness, and the effect of psychoanalysis on the public mind. The first cause deals with kindness, a quality that can be easily and fatally attributed to oneself on quite an insufficient basis, for we can feel comfortably benevolent towards fellow men, as long as their good doesn't conflict with ours. Therefore, someone can be easily comforted for all of his or her vices by believing that his or her heart is in the right place and he or she wouldn't hurt a fly, though in fact this person has never made the slightest attempt to help a fellow creature. "We think we are kind when we are only happy: it is not so easy, on the same grounds, to imagine oneself temperate, chaste, or humble" (pg 49). The second cause is the effect of psychoanalysis on the public mind, and more specifically, the doctrine of repressions and inhibitions. These doctrines have influenced many people with the sense that Shame is a dangerous and bad thing. People in today's world have been told to get things out into the open, not to humiliate oneself, but because these things are very natural and one should not be ashamed of them. In attempting to eliminate shame humans have broken down on of the defenses of the human spirit and, according to Lewis, there isn't anything to be done but to set out rebuilding it. "It is mad work to remove hypocrisy by removing the temptation to hypocrisy: the 'frankness' of people sunk below shame is a very cheap frankness" (pg 50).

In order to assist people today in perceiving their badness, Lewis suggests eight considerations that will help people come to realize their sinful condition. Some of these considerations include the idea that humans are deceived by looking on the outside of things, corporate guilt can distract attention from one's own guilts, people have the illusion that time cancels sin, etc. "We are, at present, creatures whose character must be, in some respects, a horror to God, as it is, when we really see it, a horror to ourselves" (p. 62). If suffering is necessary to our redemption we must expect that it will not end until God sees the world to be either redeemed or no further redeemable. Finally, Lewis makes the argument that people today should not make the problem of pain worse by talking about the sum of human suffering. No one can experience the total amount of pain, because unlike other evils, pain has no tendency in its own right to proliferate.

Lewis explains how one should deal with pain in order to live out God's will in the future. He argues that while suffering is not good in and of itself, any undesired mental or physical experience that causes pain can be good if the sufferer submits to the will of God. This is because when a creature submits to its Creator in every way then that creature will be happy and good. Lewis states that people are to imitate the pattern made by God, the Son, towards God, the Father, and completely surrender their wills to God in order to achieve the proper good. Lewis explains that the reason people experience pain is that they have trouble surrendering their will to God. Thus, for the future Lewis introduces the idea of mortification, which requires one to let go of his or her self-wills on a daily basis. Lewis claims that the presence of pain helps mortification by three ways. First, in order for people to surrender to God, they must be aware that something is wrong. In situations of extreme pain, people learn the most when God strengthens them. Second, pain destroys the notion that what one has is all he or she needs. It brings down the commonly held belief that God is only thought of when everything is going well. When some possession is taken away, it is only then that one realizes how much God is needed. Third, in a situation where something enjoyable and God's will coincide, how can people determine whether they are motivated by doing God's will or just by enjoying the action? Lewis states that pain allows people to know their motivations.

Due to the free will of humankind, pain can either cause a person to see that something is wrong or lead another person into an ultimate unrepentant rebellion. This leads to the fact that not every person will be redeemed. Though Lewis admits that this doctrine is troubling to him, he states that the Bible, Jesus' words, and reason back it up. Moreover, trials and sacrifices teach true self-sufficiency: to rely on God, to act out of heavenly strength, and to act out of a purely supernatural motive. Consequently, in the future when people act in this way they will become co-creators with God: "Human will becomes truly creative and truly our own when it is wholly God's, and this is one of the many senses in which he that loses his soul shall find it" (p. 101).

Lewis also suggests that in the future people ought not to give a trivial meaning to the word love. This is obvious when Lewis explains the meaning of God's love and describes the four types of love that exist. When one refers to the goodness of God, one generally means God's love and by love most mean kindness. Lewis defines kindness as "the desire to see others than the self-happy; not happy in this way or that, but just happy" (p. 31). Lewis states that God's true love has more stern characteristics than just simple kindness. He describes four types of love and compares them to the relationship of God and people. The first, artist for artifact, is compared to Jeremiah's vision of the potter and the clay. The second, man for beast, is compared to God being the Shepherd and His people, the sheep. The third, father to son, is described when God is our Father as the Lord's Prayer. The fourth, man for woman, is compared to Israel as the false wife and the church as the bride of Christ. An important statement Lewis makes is that "the problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves, is only insoluble as long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word love, and look as if man were the center of them" (p.40). Therefore, it is important for people to understand the true meaning of love and recognize that the purpose of creation was for God to love us, not the other way around.

Throughout his book Lewis attempts to solve the problem of pain. In order to do this he reverts back to the four foundational sources: scripture, tradition, history, and modern text. It is apparent through his arguments that Lewis relies heavily on scripture, history, and tradition to solve the problem of pain. This is especially evident when Lewis gives reasons for the evilness of people in terms of the Fall of man. He believes that the first sin in the Fall of man was against God and he agrees with Saint Augustine that it was a result of pride. Moreover, it is apparent that Lewis prefers scripture and tradition to modern text by his rejection of the sub-Christian explanations of evil, which argue that God produces impartially the effects to which we give good and evil. These theories include Monism, the belief that God is the source of good and evil and God is separate from the universe. And also Dualism, the belief that God produces good, while an equal and independent Power produces evil. Lewis also relies on scripture and tradition to answer the question, "How could a bad creature have come from the hands of a good Creator? Lewis relies on the traditional Christian answer that man and the rest of creation, was initially good, but through the abuse of freedom, humans made themselves an abominable, wicked creature. This doctrine, which he insists has no support in science, only in scripture, is particularly foreign to the modern mind, which operates within a progressive and materialist paradigm. Moreover, Lewis uses scripture, tradition, and history to convey the concept of Hell. This is evident in his argument that the doctrine of Hell has the support of scripture and God's own words, it has always been upheld by Christendom, and it has the support of reason. While admitting that Hell cannot be made a tolerable doctrine, Lewis attempts to show why it is moral by a criticism of objections ordinarily made against it. Thus, it is obvious that Lewis attempts to address the issues of pain by relying heavily on scripture and tradition to solve the problem of pain.

On the other hand, Lewis also uses modern context to negate tradition and scripture when he addresses the problem of pain in its simplest form. As mentioned earlier, this problem stems from the idea that if God were good, all His creations would be made happy and content; and if God were all-powerful, then He could do anything he wanted and could make all His creatures content. However, since His creatures are not all happy, God is not actually all good or all-powerful. The idea that God is not all-powerful and omnipotent goes against the traditional and historical interpretations of the scriptures in the Bible. In addition, in becomes apparent early on in his book that Lewis does not believe the Adam and Eve story can be taken seriously by his audience at a literal level in a Darwinian age.

In conclusion, Lewis relies heavily on scripture, tradition, and history to explain evilness in terms of the Fall of man, to reject theories of Monism and Dualism, to justify how a good Creator could make a bad creature, and to convey the concept of hell. Conversely, Lewis relies on modern context when questioning God's omnipotence. All in all, Lewis relies to some extent on all four foundational sources in order to understand the will of God and attempt to solve the problem of pain.