The Problem of Pain

I believe when I announced that C.S. Lewis' The Problem of Pain was going to be the next one I pulled off of my non-fiction stack, my dear friend Amanda told me it was a "toughie". And she was certainly correct, not that I doubted her. I've read Lewis before, he's never the easiest read, and the whole "problem of pain" philosophical issue isn't exactly an easy subject to tackle. Add to that the fact that I'd been reading sports books for the last month prior to picking up The Problem of Pain, and I had a nice challenge before me on this on.

I just finished with the book today, and while I think my head spun around trying to stay with it on a number of occasions, it was definitely a worthwhile experience. I had a fairly good general sense of where Lewis fell on the larger parts of this subject, simply because my favorite contemporary Christian author, Philip Yancey, cites him quite often in dealing with similar subject matter in his books. And since I have a pretty good general agreement with Yancey's views on such matters, I expected to have a similar general agreement with Lewis.

While I certainly don't agree with every point of Lewis (and really, who ever does agree completely with another person on any matter of substance), I clearly do resonate with his overall message and the view of God that his take on the problem of pain illustrates. One of my favorite parts of the book came very early as he discussed God's omnipotence, as he is addressing supposed counterexamples to divine omnipotence, that are really simply intrinsic impossibilities: "... nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God." Creating creatures with free will and then not allowing for the possibility that those creatures would do evil is that kind of nonsense.

I also really appreciate his take on the issue of divine goodness, as it relates to the presence of pain. His assertion that in the normal course of this discussion, people have trivialized divine goodness to mean divine kindness, when what God really is is not kindness, but rather love, makes a ton of sense to me. Love (of the non-trivial form) allows for pain and hurt, in the interest of the greater good of the object of the love.

Definitely a worthwhile read, and I'll probably be adding some more of Lewis' apologetic works to my stack in the near future. For the immediate future, it's back to sports. I'll be starting Meat Market by Bruce Feldmen tomorrow. The book is an inside look at the world of major college football recruiting, as Feldmen shadowed recruiting efforts at Ole Miss for a season. You know if you've read this blog at all that I have some strong opinions on college athletics, so I'm very much looking forward to this one. I should also be wrapping up The Lord of the Rings within the week, and I have The Adventures of Tom Sawyer queued up and ready to go as my next fiction read.