We need to try and do a debrievement. Look at this. Everybody wants a life without pain. What does it get you? She needs to be on a poster somewhere. To remind people pain's there for a reason.
- Dr. Miranda Bailey, Grey's Anatomy Season 3 (Episode 3: Sometimes a Fantasy)
I bought The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis on 24 June 2008, when I went shopping with Meng Soon and Jeffrey at Kinokuniya. Here is my long-ish review and summary of the book which I enjoyed. It was an easier read than Mere Christianity.
It addresses the issue of pain. Most of us were taught in Sunday School that God is good and that God is almighty. However, in a world filled with suffering and pain, we have much difficulty reconciling the two truths; leading to the problem of pain. The conclusion has to be that either God is not almighty and therefore unable to do anything to help us, or that He is not good and thus the indifference to our suffering, or that He is neither good nor powerful.
C.S. Lewis wisely states in the preface that the book is written to solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering; it is a far higher task to teach fortitude and patience. He also added 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.
In his introductory, Lewis shares a simple Gospel. He directs the reader to the truth that God is good and that He is also all-powerful, and thereby leading us to the 'problem' of pain.
In the next chapter, Lewis begins to address the 'problem' of pain. We begin by looking more in depth to the meaning of divine omnipotence. Omnipotence means power to do everything, however, as Lewis points out, it is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out mutually exclusive alternatives. We cannot say, "God can give a creature free will and at the same time withold free will from it." Free will gives us the choice to love God, but at the same time exposes us to the risks to fall into sin.
Lewis continues to address the 'problem' of pain by exploring the meaning of divine goodness in chapter 3. I was especially moved by his description of love in this chapter. He points out that loving someone involves more that wanting him or her to escape suffering; that is mere kindness. Lewis demonstrates his point using the following analogies. (However, he also realises that the relation between Creator and creature is unique and cannot be paralleled by any relations between one creature and another.)
An artist's love for his artefact was spur him to rub and scrape it for the tenth time to improve it. Next, a man's love for a beast (e.g. a dog) doesn't mean that he tolerates its natural bad habits; the man trains it to be more lovable. Another analogy will be a father's love for a son; the father uses his authoritative love to make the son into the sort of human being he, rightly, in his superior wisdom, wants him to be. Finally, Lewis compares God's love for man with a man's love for a woman. He asks, "When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? Does any woman regard it as a sign of love in a man that he neither knows nor cares how she is looking?" Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them, but love cannot cease to will their removal.
Chapter 4 can be easily summarised using a scripture verse, Romans 3:23 - For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Lewis probes the issue of Human Wickedness because the examples given in the last chapter went to show that love may cause pain to its object, but only on the supposition that the object needs correction.
Lewis addresses the origin of sin in chapter 5 and shares his insights about The Fall of Man. He recounts the events in the garden of Eden and explains it pictorially. The thesis of this chapter is simply that man, as a species, spoiled himself, and that good to us in our present state, must therefore mean primarilty remedial or corrective good.
In this chapter, Lewis answers a question I had for Mr Chin during one of our cell session - shifting all my guilt to Adam.
Theoretically, I suppose, we might say "Yes: we behave like vermin, but then that is because we are vermin. And that, at any rate, is not our fault." But the fact that we are vermin, so far from being felt as an excuse, is a greater shame and grief to us than any of the particular acts which it leads us to commit.
Lewis used an example of a very badly brought up boy being introduced into a decent family. The family rightly remind themselves that it is 'not his own fault, but they also ought to hate his behaviour and seek to correct him.
In next chapters, Lewis examines Human Pain. He indicates that the human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it. Error and sin both have this property, that the deeper they are the less the victim suspects their existence; they are masked evil. Pain, however, is unmasked, unmistakable evil. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts in our pain.
In chapter 8, Lewis explores the doctrine of Hell. He admits that pain which alone can rouse a bad man to knowledge that all was not well, may also lead to a final and unrepented rebellion. The Omniscience, in all His wisdom, has to put an end to sin finally one day. I guess this point is driven home by the Joker (Heath Ledger) in the latest Batman movie - The Dark Knight. Lewis also points out that hell may very probably be a state of ourselves, instead of a place.
In the chapter on Animal Pain, Lewis mentions that while it is true that animals and plants react to pain, so does an anaesthetised human body; reaction does not imply sentience. We should not doubt God's goodness based on animals' "pains" beecause we do not fully understand them.
Lewis ends the book with a chapter on Heaven. Romans 8:18 - I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
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