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The PROBLEM OF PAIN
C. S. Lewis
William Collins
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in Great Britain by Geoffrey Bles 1940
Copyright © C. S. Lewis Pte Ltd 1940
Cover design and illustration by Kimberly Glyder
The right of C. S. Lewis to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780007461264
Ebook Edition © 2009 ISBN: 9780007332267
Version: 2015-11-20
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
Dedication
Chapter 2 - DIVINE OMNIPOTENCE
Chapter 7 - HUMAN PAIN, CONTINUED
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’.fn1 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 my readers except my conviction 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.
If any real theologian reads these pages he will very easily see that they are the work of a layman and an amateur. Except in the last two chapters, parts of which are admittedly speculative, I have believed myself to be restating
