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31 pages 1 hour read

C. S. Lewis

The Problem of Pain

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1940

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Chapters 7-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 7 Summary: “Human Pain, Continued”

Lewis provides “six propositions” in this chapter, which he says are necessary to understanding suffering. The first is that there is a paradox in Christian belief: Scripture teaches that the poor are blessed, but we strive to eradicate poverty; in the same way, suffering is good for us, yet we do not embrace suffering. A person who does good to another person, Lewis explains, cooperates with God’s will, but a person who is cruel God uses as a tool to for his own purposes. A second proposition is that there will be no end to suffering until God sees that the world is redeemed, since suffering is necessary for redemption,.

The third proposition is that the “surrender” God calls Christians to make applies only to God, not to political entities. The fourth is that God scatters joy, fun, and happiness throughout our lives, but we should not mistake these for our ultimate end goal, which is alignment with God. The fifth proposition is that suffering is not compounded by the number of people suffering. As Lewis writes, “There is no such thing as a sum of suffering, for no one suffers it” (73). The sixth and final proposition is that pain is “sterile,” in that once it has ended, it is over.

Chapter 8 Summary: “Hell”

Lewis begins this chapter with the suggestion that no matter the lengths God might go to redeem humankind, there may well be individuals who cannot, or will not, find redemption, because they will refuse to subject their own will to the will of God. Those people are consigned to hell—a doctrine Lewis hates, yet he believes it is supported by Scripture. He writes that Christianity is complex in that the savior died by torture to save humans, but He still allows them to go to hell by their own free will. Just as God will not interfere to prevent our suffering, God will also not interfere to save us from hell.

Lewis explores whether it’s possible for someone who is evil to find redemption. He argues that they can, but only if the evildoer understands how forgiveness works—it necessitates an admission of guilt. If someone were to reject forgiveness and redemption and refuse to submit his will to God, then hell awaits, and hell, Lewis writes, is “punishment” and “destruction” and “privation, exclusion, or banishment into ‘the darkness outside’” (79). Lewis argues that we have the freedom to choose where we end up, and those who go to hell. He parallels the two afterworlds, heaven and hell, to the way their residents lived their lives: “[Those in hell] enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free” (81).

Chapter 9 Summary: “Animal Pain”

Lewis now discusses whether animals suffer in the same way that humans do. Obviously, animals do suffer, but he considers what the point of their suffering is. The problem being that animals don’t need redemption, don’t sin, and don’t have a moral structure, so their pain isn’t necessary for the same reasons that human pain is. If the point of human suffering is to encourage us to submit to the will of God and restore us, we must explore why animals suffer.

The question of animal suffering centers on three questions: what do animals suffer, how did their suffering come about, and why does animal suffering exist, if not for the same purpose as human suffering? Lewis concludes that we do not actually know the nature of animal suffering, and may we well be ascribing to them, via pathetic fallacy, our own human emotions. As to how animal suffering came about, Lewis posits that animals pre-existed humans, and that God may have made humans to prevent this very thing. Lewis suggests that, had Adam not followed Satan’s advice, which led to the Fall, animals might have been redeemed by man in much the same way that a human betters the lives of the domesticated animals in his care.

The relationship between man and animal is like this, Lewis explains: “Man was appointed by God to have dominion over the beasts, and everything a man does to an animal is either a lawful exercise, or a sacrilegious abuse, of an authority by divine right” (89). Because of this connection between man and animal (man being the intermediary between God and animal), animals participate in the results of the Fall: they suffer, but not for the same corrective reason that humans suffer.

Chapter 10 Summary: “Heaven”

Lewis opens the chapter on heaven with the same rationale he introduced in the chapter on hell, which is this: Christianity depends on the existence of heaven. Without heaven, Christianity is false. While Lewis believes heaven does, in fact, exist, he recognizes that some claim that heaven is a “bribe”—a reward for good behavior on Earth. Some claim that the promise of heaven makes the motivation to be good impure, because we ought not attempt to be good only because we want to go to heaven. Lewis dismisses both claims and says that heaven is “the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want” (95), that is, the ultimate thing that every person desires. In fact, Lewis says, God has made each of us unique, and in that uniqueness we crave the place in heaven that has been crafted specifically for us by our loving God: “Your place in heaven will seem to be made for you and you alone, because you were made for it—made for it stitch by stitch as a glove is made for a hand” (95).

Because we desire to reach heaven, we must suffer the pain that teaches us to subjugate our will to the will of God. We must put the “self” below God in importance and learn to embrace the experience of life that is ours alone. This experience will necessarily include pain, and furthermore, each of our lives will bring us into a relationship with God that is also uniquely ours. Lewis writes, “If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the Church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the instruments played the same note” (97). Thus, Lewis says, we must realize that we have been made by God as an individual unlike any other, our lives will be filled with experiences that belong to us alone, and we will be in a relationship with God that looks like no one else’s relationship with God.

Chapters 7-10 Analysis

In crafting his position on the existence of human suffering and pain, C. S. Lewis engages with the fundamentals of Christian belief: whether heaven and hell exist, what man’s relationship to animals is, and whether and why animals suffer, and what ultimate purpose human suffering might serve. Having established a rapport with the reader by weaving personal experience in previous chapters, Lewis capitalizes on that author-reader relationship by introducing just enough supporting evidence to convince, but not overwhelm, the reader. He touches on the work of several renowned theologians and references Scripture, but he is careful not to get bogged down in any external sources.

Lewis also uses descriptive language and similes to help his readers understand his position, create memorable images, and make the writing interesting. He describes each human as being perfectly crafted for their place in heaven, mirroring the cliché “fits like a glove.” He adds that Christianity relies on individuality, comparing a church in which the people all celebrate God the same way to an orchestra that only plays the same note; here, Lewis effectively illustrates the unique role each Christian has while pointing out that anything else would be boring and unpleasant.

God gives us free will; on this, Lewis is very clear. Free will includes the freedom to choose to do evil. Yet even in doing evil, we can be used by God as instructional tools. This is not to say that there are no consequence to doing evil or that we should not be bothered to try to do good instead of evil, but rather to say that God is more powerful than whatever evil we do, and he uses our actions—good and bad—in service of God’s ultimate goal, which is to redeem us and bring us back into relationship with God.

Furthermore, Lewis believes that God uses pain to teach us not only empathy, but also the importance of subjugating our own will to the will of God, which is the source of true happiness.

Hell awaits those who refuse to place God before the self and submit their free will to the will of God. Animals have not sinned, but they do suffer, and their suffering suggests a shared experience and relationship with man in the Fall and redemption. Lastly, heaven exists, and it is the goal that each of our souls seeks. Our place in heaven has been uniquely crafted for us by God, just as each of our lives has been uniquely crafted for us by God. Because of this, we each worship God in our own special and particular way, which is both appropriate and a source of joy to God.

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