I wrote this book review a while ago, but the book is amazing, and my writing craves feedback. So, here it is:
My God, Why?
How can a loving God allow pain? Countless broken, relief-craving individuals have asked this question. “Why is God taking him away from me?” “Why am I made this way?” “Why must I live with this malady?” Others ask: “Why is he being like this?” “Why must she suffer?” “Why can I not help him?” This world is a world of pain: bones shatter, children starve, families face betrayal, friends lie, love goes unrequited, minds shrivel, fear of all types vanquishes whomever it can seize. Mankind has grappled with God’s consent to pain since the gates of Eden first sealed. In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis purposes to “solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering” (XII) in the profoundly simple style which belongs to him alone. He answers questions about affliction in regard to God’s omnipotence, God’s goodness, human wickedness, hell, heaven, animals, and humanity. He understands pain. Being mortal, He suffered much throughout his life, and this, for a great while, kept him an atheist.
Lewis begins his introductory chapter by presenting his own atheistic argument against God: in this world, which overflows with all manner of pain, where man anticipates his pain and therefore suffers the more, and where he develops technology that inflicts greater pain upon his fellow man, how can any rational person believe in the existence of a good, gracious Creator? Yet, Lewis states, in spite of humanity’s dreadful condition, all civilizations since prehistory have believed in a creator of some kind. People have always believed in the numinous: that which is outside the mortal realm. The numinous is a source of fear. Lewis illustrates this by suggesting that a person hears that a ghost resides in the next room. The person does not feel afraid because of what the ghost may do to him, but simply because it is a ghost. Also people have always, for the most part, been aware of a type of moral law. Some people groups, namely the Jews, came to combine the numinous with the keeper of morality. Eventually Jesus Christ, the Son of the One who is both the numinous and the giver of the moral law, was born into the Jewish race. The belief of this, Christianity, does not solve the problem of pain, but rather creates it. Pain would be acceptable if one had not “received what [he] think[s] a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving” (14).
Many argue that if God were good He would want to make them happy, and if He were the Almighty he could certainly do so if He pleased. Why then does God not halt all suffering before it incites? The reason is because God is the most loving of Fathers, not a “senile benevolence” (31). A truly loving father does not look upon his children with a smile as they happily make themselves drunk. He takes them over his knee and paddles their back-ends, because he loves them too much to let them destroy their lives. God loves mankind with a terrifying love. “The great spirit…so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present…the consuming fire Himself” (39). God does not allow man to suffer because He hates him, but because He loves him, and despises his wickedness.
What of the pious, blameless individual who undergoes anguish? None can stand blameless before God, and, as God is good, the suffering is necessary. Only the illegitimate children are spoiled, the heirs are raised under firm discipline.
C.S. Lewis communicates the ongoing story of life, his thesis as to why pain exists:
Man forgets God. He goes about his day with hardly a thought directed toward his Creator; he is occupied with little nothings that interest his mind or excite his vanity. Then a phone call, or a jab of physical pain, and he runs crying to God. Once the crisis ends He worships God for two or three days, then falls back into his old self. “And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless” (107).
C.S. Lewis has a strange aspect about him. He raises questions in his books that readers have never before struggled with, then answers the questions with such stunning logic that the same readers become half positive they wrestled with and answered those questions long ago. His words’ voice commands attention, and those who cannot hold still and stay focused will find him a bore. But to those who seek knowledge, who willingly sit and listen and think, he is enthralling.
To the anguished wailing out loud “Why?”, to the tormented timidly weeping “Why?”, to the terrified silently feeling the question “My God, Why?”, this book is dedicated. Lewis does not avoid difficult subjects; he says, “Pain hurts. That is what the word means” (105). He speaks dually with seriousness and humor, as the common man speaks. Any who suffer pain, or fear pain’s coming, or see pain in others, or simply cannot reconcile why God allows suffering, will find a companion in Lewis. He speaks with compassion and sympathy, but he speaks truth.
My God, Why?
How can a loving God allow pain? Countless broken, relief-craving individuals have asked this question. “Why is God taking him away from me?” “Why am I made this way?” “Why must I live with this malady?” Others ask: “Why is he being like this?” “Why must she suffer?” “Why can I not help him?” This world is a world of pain: bones shatter, children starve, families face betrayal, friends lie, love goes unrequited, minds shrivel, fear of all types vanquishes whomever it can seize. Mankind has grappled with God’s consent to pain since the gates of Eden first sealed. In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis purposes to “solve the intellectual problem raised by suffering” (XII) in the profoundly simple style which belongs to him alone. He answers questions about affliction in regard to God’s omnipotence, God’s goodness, human wickedness, hell, heaven, animals, and humanity. He understands pain. Being mortal, He suffered much throughout his life, and this, for a great while, kept him an atheist.
Lewis begins his introductory chapter by presenting his own atheistic argument against God: in this world, which overflows with all manner of pain, where man anticipates his pain and therefore suffers the more, and where he develops technology that inflicts greater pain upon his fellow man, how can any rational person believe in the existence of a good, gracious Creator? Yet, Lewis states, in spite of humanity’s dreadful condition, all civilizations since prehistory have believed in a creator of some kind. People have always believed in the numinous: that which is outside the mortal realm. The numinous is a source of fear. Lewis illustrates this by suggesting that a person hears that a ghost resides in the next room. The person does not feel afraid because of what the ghost may do to him, but simply because it is a ghost. Also people have always, for the most part, been aware of a type of moral law. Some people groups, namely the Jews, came to combine the numinous with the keeper of morality. Eventually Jesus Christ, the Son of the One who is both the numinous and the giver of the moral law, was born into the Jewish race. The belief of this, Christianity, does not solve the problem of pain, but rather creates it. Pain would be acceptable if one had not “received what [he] think[s] a good assurance that ultimate reality is righteous and loving” (14).
Many argue that if God were good He would want to make them happy, and if He were the Almighty he could certainly do so if He pleased. Why then does God not halt all suffering before it incites? The reason is because God is the most loving of Fathers, not a “senile benevolence” (31). A truly loving father does not look upon his children with a smile as they happily make themselves drunk. He takes them over his knee and paddles their back-ends, because he loves them too much to let them destroy their lives. God loves mankind with a terrifying love. “The great spirit…so lightly invoked, the ‘lord of terrible aspect’, is present…the consuming fire Himself” (39). God does not allow man to suffer because He hates him, but because He loves him, and despises his wickedness.
What of the pious, blameless individual who undergoes anguish? None can stand blameless before God, and, as God is good, the suffering is necessary. Only the illegitimate children are spoiled, the heirs are raised under firm discipline.
C.S. Lewis communicates the ongoing story of life, his thesis as to why pain exists:
Man forgets God. He goes about his day with hardly a thought directed toward his Creator; he is occupied with little nothings that interest his mind or excite his vanity. Then a phone call, or a jab of physical pain, and he runs crying to God. Once the crisis ends He worships God for two or three days, then falls back into his old self. “And that is why tribulations cannot cease until God either sees us remade or sees that our remaking is now hopeless” (107).
C.S. Lewis has a strange aspect about him. He raises questions in his books that readers have never before struggled with, then answers the questions with such stunning logic that the same readers become half positive they wrestled with and answered those questions long ago. His words’ voice commands attention, and those who cannot hold still and stay focused will find him a bore. But to those who seek knowledge, who willingly sit and listen and think, he is enthralling.
To the anguished wailing out loud “Why?”, to the tormented timidly weeping “Why?”, to the terrified silently feeling the question “My God, Why?”, this book is dedicated. Lewis does not avoid difficult subjects; he says, “Pain hurts. That is what the word means” (105). He speaks dually with seriousness and humor, as the common man speaks. Any who suffer pain, or fear pain’s coming, or see pain in others, or simply cannot reconcile why God allows suffering, will find a companion in Lewis. He speaks with compassion and sympathy, but he speaks truth.
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