The Problem of Pain

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain:
it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world" (91).
C. S. Lewis's The Problem of Pain (1940)

Points for Reflection

Chapter Six ("Human Pain")

1. Lewis maintains that God uses one kind of pain to birth a better sort of growing pain: the suffering brought about by sin prompts humans to willingly pursue mortification/usurpation of the sinful self currently in control (89-90, 93-95). Do you agree that suffering often prompts self-reflection and change?
2. why does Lewis embrace the human instinct that "bad men ought to suffer" instead of rejecting it as base and unenlightened (91-92)?
3. do you agree with Lewis' assertion that "the ugliest things in human nature are perversions of good or innocent things" (92)?
4. does Lewis' suggestion that God allows suffering to upened the happiness of honest, hard-working people in order to draw them closer to himself make God seem, ultimately, cruel or compassionate (95)?
5. according to Lewis, why might God regard the vices of prostitutes more leniently than those of successful bankers (96)?
6. do you agree that one cannot be assured that s/he is acting for God's sake unless the action s/he takes is in some way painful--contrary to her/his inclinations (97-98)?
7. as Lewis would have it, that obedience to the Divine will which constitutes free surrender of oneself is necessarily unpleasant and void of desire (99-100). Do you agree?
8. Lewis has obviously self-deprecated as sinful that self-reliant pride which refuses to acknowledge one’s need for the Creator.  What type of self-sufficiency does he later promote, suggesting that pain actually catalyzes it (101-102)?
9. what action does Lewis identify as "the supreme enacting and perfection of Christianity" (102)?
10. Lewis maintains that the idea of death's giving birth to life can be found throughout history, across many cultures (102-104). Is this true of contemporary, western culture? Do we find this same idea in elements of our own lives--in popular narratives, dominant philosophies, and/or political practice?
11. how does Christianity, according to Lewis, render "the doctrine of death . . . more tolerable" (102-104)?
12. what two emotions does Lewis include in his mapping of the "tribulational system" activated by and centred around pain (105-107), and in what ways can the imagination abuse these two emotions, creating an unhealthy attitude towards suffering (107-109)?
13. identify the similar posture towards poverty shared by Marxism and Christianity (109).

Chapter Seven ("Human Pain , Continued")

1. what aspects of suffering does Lewis value (110)?
2. how does “simple evil” produce “complex good” (111)?
3. does Lewis recommend wholly eschewing ascetic practices and forms of self-torture like fasting (112-13)?
4. how does Lewis reconcile the blessings of suffering with the call to love others sacrificially (110-14)?

Chapter Eight ("Hell")

1. which does Lewis attempt in chapter eight, to make Hell appear "tolerable" or "moral" (121)?
2. does the detailed sketch of a sinful man provided by Lewis (122-23) seem fantastic, or does it have the ring of reality?  Does the portrait seem parodic and hyperbolic, or grounded and familiar?
3. do you agree w/ Lewis’ claim that forgiveness, to be complete, must not only be offered but accepted (124)?
4. what does Lewis mean by the suggestion that perdition might be an already present reality as much as it is an imposed judgment & relocation (124-25)?
5. according to Lewis, does offering someone forgiveness ensure that forgiveness is "complete" (124)?
6. Lewis links the very capacity for enjoying good to the taste for what (125)? What does he mean by this?
7. does Lewis conceive of eternity as a line, plane, or solid (125)?
8. which does Lewis privilege when conceiving of Hell: visions of torture and suffering, or utter destruction and privation (127-28, 128-29)?
9. which does Lewis privilege when conceiving of Hell: visions of torture and suffering, or utter destruction and privation (127-28, 128-29)?
10. what do you think of Lewis' recommendation that any consideration of Hell remain personal--that we always consider the possible damnation not only of easy, exterior targets, but of ourselves (130-31)?

Chapter Nine ("Animal Pain")

1. coming soon!

Chapter Ten ("Heaven")

1. what does Lewis mean by the claim that "Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire" (149).
2. Lewis argues that humanity's longing for heaven is irrefutable, woven into our unfulfilled desires and inexplicable, unmet longings--we each hunger for a unique, custom-made thing that remains tantalizingly out of our reach (149-52). Can you identify yearnings in your own life, "unattainable ecstas[ies]" (152) that fit these criteria?
3. does Lewis believe that, in heaven, God celebrates the diversity of humanity, or remolds it into infinite sameness (151-52, 154-55)?
4. Lewis likens life on earth as training for life eternal, which he compares to what two, particular forms of revelry (158-59)?
5. Lewis often draws attention to the incompleteness and limitations of his own ideas, as well as to his ignorance (82-83, etc.) Do these kinds of admissions endear him to you, or prompt you to respect him less?

Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu