Name: The Problem of Pain
ISBN: 9780006245674

The Problem of Pain

Why must humanity suffer? In this elegant and thoughtful work, C. S. Lewis questions the pain and suffering that occur everyday and how this contrasts with the notion of a God that is both omnipotent and good. An answer to this critical theological problem is found within these pages. "If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?" And what about the suffering of animals, who neither deserve pain nor can be improved by it? The greatest Christian thinker of our time sets out to disentangle these knotty issues. With his signature wealth of compassion and insight, C. S. Lewis offers answers to these crucial questions and shares his hope and wisdom to help heal a world hungering for a true understanding of human nature. - Cover.

What Hacker News says

aliasxneoJan 2024

My fault for not reading the article fully. For the curious reader, C. S. Lewis wrote a great piece on this called, "The Problem of Pain."

"We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

Of course, there's hundreds of more writings on this, but Lewis is always an easy place to start.

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combatentropyNov 2020

I was never an atheist, but one of my favorite writers was until his 30s: C. S. Lewis. You might try some of his slim books: The Problem of Pain or Mere Christianity.

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v01dlightMar 2020

Not sure where you're at with philosophy, but "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis blew me away and changed a lot of my thinking about suffering and reality.

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combatentropyNov 2018

C. S. Lewis does a fine job in his book Mere Christianity. He talks about the conscience, where does it come from? It seems to hold us all to higher standard, including ourselves, but we fail to fulfill it. It's not just a matter of disliking another's actions because they are inconvenient. For example, say someone takes my shirt, and now I'm mad because I'm missing a shirt. Someone might argue that that is all conscience is. But it's not like that. It's a sense that it was objectively wrong, and so it would be wrong for me to take your shirt even though it improves my situation.

I also recommend his book The Problem of Pain, which talks about man's long history of belief in the supernatural, despite the outlandishness of the idea.

C. S. Lewis was an atheist until his early 30s. He taught at Oxford and then Cambridge, during the first half of the 20th century.

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combatentropySep 2018

Someone here recommended The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed, and I would add Mere Christianity and The Four Loves.

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combatentropySep 2018

The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E. B. White

The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker

The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis

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