The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis

I got this book for my birthday... in 2007, Thanks, M. I thought about reading it for 9 months, but never picked it up. Four days before Christmas (2007), a 26-year-old from my work was killed in a horrible accident. This book seemed relevant all of a sudden. I read with the attitude that if there was an answer to 'the question', I wanted it right then because I was contemplating a tragedy that seemed absolutely senseless. The next week my Dad was hospitalized. While he was stabalizing, I got serious bad news from a friend. I kept picking up this book, and every time it was getting more and more relevant.

Lewis (and I love him for it) never really answers the questions I thought he would, but he offers insight that shifts my thinking. He says, "I am only trying to show that the old Christian doctrine of being made 'perfect through suffering' is not incredible. To prove it palatable is beyond my design."

From the title on, he treats pain as a problem and not a question. He tells us that pain is only unjust to our self-centered universe. But, "man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake."

Ouch.

The argument that a good God wouldn't allow suffering is a moot point. God is love, but love does not imply an absence of pain. In fact, for Him, it brought on more suffering than anyone else has ever known. Goodness is not to be confused with pleasure. His goodness and His love are greater than we can comprehend. Paraphrasing what I understand Lewis saying: The mess we've made of the world doesn't change the quality of God's love or the purity of His goodness.

For me, the 'centre' of this book was that if pain brings us to repentance, it cannot be unjust. It is only the love of God that would allow us to suffer because "love is more sensitive than hatred itself to every blemish in the beloved." If God were indifferent He would let us self-destroy.

"When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be wanting what, in fact, will not make us happy." This struck a chord with me, because God has dealt with me, as He does with us all, about what I want versus what He wants. I think I know, but He really knows. Cutting edge psychology is confirming that we don't know intuitively what will make us truly happy or fulfilled. How frustrating. And yes, I already knew that. When we follow what we thought was right it's always a painful path.

If we suffer, and we trust God completely, there is a little part of our intellect that can accept the suffering as somehow, even if in an unknown way, giving us a chance to become what we are meant to be. We think that if we were free of pain, we would be more perfectly happy. Lewis says no, that is not the answer at all. In Heaven maybe, but not on on the Earth, not under the Curse. Joy and happiness can only be found in God, and we are born kicking and screaming into a world that has turned it's back on God.

This book encouraged me more than I thought it would. Partly because it's a good book, and partly because I needed the message. I wish the author were alive for me to write fan mail.

The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis

When I open a book with C.S. Lewis on the cover, I'm always expecting something grand. But Lewis never tries to sound grand. He wraps his ideas in the commonest words. Chapter 1 of this book begins, "Most of my generation were reproved as children for saying that we "loved" strawberries..." If you avoid this type of reading because it looks boring, take it from my attention span and I that this book is as interesting as it is important. It's a masterful explanation of all those things we call "love" in English. He's not just finishing the sentence "Love is___." Rather, he discusses all those things we call love, their similarities, and the differences. Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity are the Four. There are many quotes, but here are a couple: "In each of my friends there is something that only some other friend can fully bring out." "True friendship is the least jealous of loves." "The Vicar says Mrs. Fidget is now at rest. Let us hope she is. What's quite certain is that her family are." You can't read this without examining yourself and how you love. One passage that spoke out loud to me was about charity. He says, "Of all the arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might lead you to suffering." (I wish I'd written that!) He goes on, "When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ...There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken...lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket...it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable...The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell." Well, as much as I'd love to post the whole book on my blog, I hope that's enough to bait a few of you into reading it for yourselves.

Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis

I promise I'll get to some fun books, but Mere Christianity is a book that I think every Christian should read. It presents a framework for the Christian worldview. Although the doctrines are not always what I believe, it's written so I glean much more than I leave. The thing I love about Lewis is that he takes grand ideas and tells them to you in his perfectly understandable, British, grandfatherly voice. This book has an excellent chapter on morality. And Lewis is one of my favorite metaphor people. Here he uses a fleet of ships to illustrates our responsibility to ourselves, to each other, God, and our destination. He makes abstract ideas so clear to understand. This book is a gem! Here is one of my favorite quotes, mainly because I hear a lot of "patronising nonsense" at my crazy university. "Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."