Right now, I’m reading The Problem of Pain by CS Lewis for the first time. Only three chapters in, and it’s already been a fantastic reminder of why I love CS Lewis’ writing so much.
His writing demonstrates his depth of thought. First is the depth and care which is required to write something so clear and engaging. Such eloquence doesn’t come from hurried thought. Second and more importantly is that the content of his writing is the sort that betrays deep meditation. His books never seem to display thoughts which are new or fresh to him, but instead they bear the aroma of ideas he has considered and reconsidered for years.
CS Lewis is a man who delights in understanding the truth as far as he is able, yet always with a deeply felt sense of his own intellectual limitations. He humbly acknowledges the shallowness of his intellect as he records ponderings of a mind far deeper than most of ours. If his writing didn’t always drip with such sincerity, I would think his disclaimer of his being a layperson a joke (Lewis, 10).
Beyond his delight in apprehending the truth for himself, he writes because he wants to offer the same gift to others as far as he is able. Certainly, it is a gift that many have enjoyed.
All the same, I write now because there is a mistake that CS Lewis makes at the outset of his reasoning in considering the presence of suffering in God’s world. This is a mistake I find commonly made as Christians and especially non-Christians attempt to render a judgment on the goodness or love of God, so it will be helpful to address. It is the mistake of measuring God’s goodness by the wrong metric.
CS Lewis states the Problem of Pain as follows at the beginning of the second chapter:
If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both. (Lewis, 26)
As of yet in my reading, Lewis has two objections to such a formulation.
The first objection is the subject of the second chapter, which is a consideration of whether God’s being almighty means he can make a world which contains no pain. I will briefly summarize this argument, but it is not the section I want to address as mistaken.
The second objection is that God’s goodness does not mean he wants to make all his creatures perfectly happy, and it has been the subject of his third chapter. There is a flaw in his specific objection which I will address.
In Lewis’ second chapter, he argues that God is mighty enough to do anything, but God is also reasonable. So while God is perfectly able to control his world and there is nothing external to God which can hinder any action he wills to take, God did not make a world which is logically incoherent because God himself is perfectly coherent (Lewis, 26-29). God does not create a world which contains self-contradictory realities. In Lewis’ words, “you may attribute miracles to [God], but not nonsense” (Lewis, 28).
Lewis provides as an example of such nonsense the statement that “God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it” (Lewis, 28). He provides the disclaimer that “human reasoners often make mistakes” (Lewis, 28), so he does not assume that everything which he might consider self-contradictory actually is. Rather, he simply offers the thought that there are constraints upon God’s omnipotence which arise from the reality of God’s reason, wisdom, and coherence. Even to call such things “constraints” isn’t quite right, but describing the interplay between God’s attributes is notoriously difficult to do.
You might be wondering what this has to do with the Problem of Pain. Here’s where we get back to the main train of thought.
Lewis posits that one of the features which God wanted to include in the world is for there to be creatures which cohabitate the same space such that they can have a relationship with God and with one another (Lewis, 29-30). I won’t recount his entire train of thought, but one of his conclusions is that the shared space must have consistent rules which do not simply change to match the momentary whims of an individual creature (Lewis, 30-34). Otherwise, that space would not be able to be manipulated in such a way that allows for communication, love, or cooperation (Lewis, 30-31). If the air were constantly shifting the laws of its existence to match my given fancy, then my neighbor would not be able to consistently manipulate the air so that could I hear him speak (Lewis, 31).
If free agents are introduced to such a neutral space, then a free agent may decide to do something harmful with that neutral space to another person. “The permanent nature of wood which enables us to use it as a beam also enables us to use it for hitting our neighbour on the head” (Lewis, 33). So one possible reason that pain may necessarily exist is that free agents in a neutral space have the option of using that neutral space to inflict suffering on others.
In general, CS Lewis’ thought on this issue seems sound to me. There are causes of suffering he does not address, but that is only because they are not relevant to the core of his discussion. For example, human sin broke creation in ways which create pain that is not immediately the result of a human sin. Further, pain inflicted by the sin of free agents will not exist in Heaven because while creatures would still occupy neutral space, they would not use that neutral space to harm one another because there are no sinners in Heaven. Heaven’s environment is also not inflicted with the curse of Adam’s sin. There will eventually be a world without pain, but Lewis’ argument simply suggests that pain can exist as a logical necessity of some further and greater purpose of God. Lewis posits this as an example rather than as a comprehensive justification of the existence of pain.
In Lewis’ third chapter, he addresses the belief that God’s goodness means that God wants all his creatures perfectly happy from moment to moment. He thinks that people in general mistakenly view God’s being good as God’s being only and always kind (Lewis, 39-40). But God’s love is greater than mere kindness because love seeks for its object to be as best as it can be. Mere kindness “cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering” (Lewis, 40-41).
On the contrary, a father that loves his son is not content for his son to be happy from moment to moment. Rather, a father who loves his son will inflict suffering on his son toward the end of his son becoming a good man. This is what discipline entails. A father who only cares that his son is hedonistically happy from moment to moment does not love his son, he has utter contempt for his son (Lewis, 41; Heb 12:7-8).
However, God is not merely kind to us – although he is kind – but he loves us. As such, God will inflict suffering for the purpose of our good. Lewis argues that because God loves us, he cannot leave us in our current state. Rather, God loves us as we are, so he labors to make us loveable, and when we have been made supremely loveable and receive his love uninhibited by impurity, we will be immeasurably happy (48). Lewis argues that the classic Problem of Pain mistakenly measures God’s goodness by human happiness instead of increasing human loveliness, and it only considers the present instead of the future.
It is subtle, but here Lewis has already made his mistake. Let me simplify his argument so that his mistake may become more apparent.
The classic Problem of Pain assumes that if God were good, he would want to make his creatures presently and always happy. Lewis instead argues that God’s goodness does not imply a desire for his creatures to be presently and always happy. God’s goodness means that he wants his creatures to become ever more lovely. Through an increasing ability to receive his love, his creatures become happy.
If his mistake is not yet apparent, let me offer a major problem: the vast majority of humanity is not destined to have God make them ever more lovely and loved. The majority of humanity is destined for Hell (Matt 7:13-14). In Hell, God is not making those people ever more lovely and loved, he is inflicting the justly-deserved pain of Hell’s never-ending torment (Mark 9:47-48; Matt 25:31-46, esp 46; Rev 20:10). If God’s goodness and the goodness of his creation is measured by all his creatures’ happiness, then God is not good. If God’s goodness and the goodness of his creation is measured by the increasing moral worth of all his creatures, then God is not good.
This is Lewis’ mistake. The classic Problem of Pain attempts to measure God’s goodness by the present and future happiness of God’s creatures. Lewis attempts to measure God’s goodness by the future loveliness of God’s creatures. Lewis’ measure is better, but still wrong.
Instead, I should ask: why are we using humans as the standard by which we measure God’s goodness or the goodness of his creation? Whether we measure God’s goodness or the goodness of his creation by human happiness or human loveliness, we make exactly the same mistake. We are using humans as a standard to measure God and his work.
This is a symptom of a deeper issue in which we place God as a defendant in our courtroom by assuming that it is our place to judge him anyway (Rom 9:19-2; Dan 9:45). In reality, God is our judge in all circumstances (Gen 18:25; Ps 96:11-13; Rom 2:5-11). So even as we seek to understand the purpose behind suffering, we must do so understanding that we are not in any position to cast a judgment on God. This is both because he is the Creator and we are creatures, and it is also because we are the wicked ones. As if a sinful man could sit in condemnation of the very source and standard of goodness, even though we’ve been trying to since Adam blamed God for giving him Eve (Gen 3:8-12).
But provided we are not approaching the presence of suffering in God’s world with an attitude of judgment, it is helpful to understand why. Consider the prophet Habakkuk who questions God with sincerity and then humbly waits to see “what [God] will speak to me, and how I may reply when I am reproved” (Hab 2:2, NASB1995). It is not wrong to wonder or struggle with why God acts as he does, and we can come to a deeper knowledge of God through such a struggle. So why does God allow suffering if not for the happiness or growth of all his creatures?
A deeper treatment of this can be found in my podcast episode on why God allows suffering (Spotify, web), but the true purpose of God’s actions is his own glory and pleasure (Rev 4:11). This purpose includes God’s creation of a world which fell, thus including sinful agents who feel and inflict pain, some of which become his everlasting objects of love and generosity, and most of which become objects of his everlasting contempt and judgment.
God is glorified by his creation either through that creation’s willing worship or through that creation’s unwilling subjection to God’s judgment.
God is glorified by the sinner who is judged, and God is glorified by the sinner who is saved. God is glorified by his servant who lives forever, and God is glorified by his enemy who dies forever. God is glorified by the sinner who repents, and God is glorified by his sovereignty over which sinner repents and which sinner does not repent.
Every single thing in the world has as its ultimate purpose the glory of God, not the pleasure or even the aggregate moral nobility of individual humans. Human suffering is included in this purpose. We do not naturally like that, but God is also glorified when his servants allow their preferences and admirations to be sanctified to match God’s desires and purposes.
I believe that this uncomfortable truth is worth knowing and acknowledging despite our distaste for it. This is because I believe that the truth is good and our knowledge of truth is inherently good (John 8:31-32). Further, I believe that believing truth is good for us and serves us pragmatically. Believing truth unlocks blessings we might not expect, including an improved ability to navigate, enjoy, and endure the world we live in.
It is good to fully internalize that the world is not for us, it is for God. This reaches even to the level that our own suffering and the suffering of others is in service to the ultimate purpose of God’s glory, and that is good. That is not easy for me to write, it is not easy for me to accept, it is likely not easy to read or hear. Even so, it is true. It is true, and it is thus good for us to believe.
So CS Lewis messed up. He messed up right at the beginning of the book too. Am I going to stop reading The Problem of Pain because of this mistake at the foundation of its argument? No. I am still going to continue reading and likely thoroughly enjoy this book.
That is because this book does not fundamentally solve the problem of human pain, but it does give a compelling reason for believers’ pain. It is not true that God’s ultimate desire for all humans is their ever-increasing loveliness and their ever-increasing receipt of God’s love into eternity. It is true that God has chosen to glorify himself in part by desiring for believers their ever-increasing loveliness and their ever-increasing receipt of God’s love into eternity.
If you’re a Christian, that’s about you. God is going to glorify himself in part by being bottomlessly loving to you forever, and your pain contributes to that.
I am not expecting that CS Lewis’ book will help me to understand and appreciate the purpose of humanity’s pain, but I think it will help me to understand and appreciate the purpose of my pain as a Christian. In part, God is using my suffering – even my deepest and worst suffering – to produce my maturity, my loveliness, and my increased ability to receive God’s love now and into eternity.
CS Lewis isn’t solving the Problem of Pain, but he’s helping me solve the Problem of my own Pain. It’s going to be a great read.
Works Cited
Lewis, CS. The Problem of Pain: How Human Suffering Raises Almost Intolerable Intellectual Problems. New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1962.