The

PROBLEM OF PAIN

C. S. Lewis

An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

the problem of pain. Copyright © 1940, C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright restored © 1996 by C. S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

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first harpercollins paperback edition published in 2001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lewis, C. S. (Clive Staples), 1898–1963.

The problem of pain / C. S. Lewis.

p. cm.

Originally published: New York: Macmillan, 1944.

ISBN 978-0-06-065296-8

1. Pain—Religious aspects—Christianity. 2. Suffering—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Good and evil. 4. Providence and government of God. I. Title.

BT732.7.L48 2000

231'.8—dc21

00-049861

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

preface

1 introductory

2 divine omnipotence

3 divine goodness

4 human wickedness

5 the fall of man

6 human pain

7 human pain, continued

8 hell

9 animal pain

10 heaven

appendix

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’.1 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 ...