C.S. Lewis: The Problem of Pain

The existence of suffering in a world created by a good and almighty God—“the problem of pain”—is a fundamental theological dilemma, and perhaps the most serious objection to the Christian religion.

by Jacek Bacz

Known to his readers as a philosopher, a Christian apologist, a science fiction writer, an author of children's stories and a literary critic, C. S. Lewis has also been introduced to the general public as a romantic sufferer. In Shadowlands, movie audiences around the world watch a refined, upper-middle aged Oxford fellow theorize on pain, fall in late love with a witty, slightly annoying American divorcee with two children, and go through the agony of grief after her death. Whatever it takes to speculate on pain, it takes a lot more, it seems, to live it. And it takes C. S. Lewis to write competently on both.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1898, of an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Clive Staples Lewis served as a Fellow and Tutor at Magdalen College, Oxford for more than thirty years. Yet, the Oxford establishment was slow to catch up with the fame of the author of "that Christian stuff", and, in 1954, Lewis accepted a Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge, where he worked until his death on 22nd November 1963.

Read the whole article.