The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis
Copyright 1940
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From the front cover: “The point about reading C.S. Lewis is that he makes you sure, whatever you believe, that religion accepted or rejected means something extremely serious, demanding the entire energy of mind.”
Before starting this book, I was in the precarious position of thinking C.S. Lewis was one of my favorite authors without having ever read one of his books. I have many of his books on my list of to-one-day-read. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe is obviously on that list. In the Church of Jesus Christ we often hear that C.S. Lewis is one of the most quoted, nonmember of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ever. For good reason. I came to the conclusion C.S. Lewis was one of my favorite authors because all his quote ARE SO GOOD. He is brilliant.
The Problem of Pain was the first C.S. Lewis book I ever read.
I consider myself a semi-literate and intelligent individual. That all went out the window while reading this book.
This is how I felt reading this book:
My monkey brain couldn’t wrap itself around these eloquent and long sentences. Here’s another thing, I don’t like huge paragraphs, if you can’t tell. When a paragraph goes 3 pages long (in the paper-back I was reading) I’m likely to get lost before even starting it.
All that being said, my simplistic mind could still grasp that it was being stretched. I could still sense this learning taking place in my mind, even if much of it was going over my head. There were many quotes that made me stop and think. That was part of the problem. To truly appreciate this book, I would have had to stop and ponder what I was reading at least 3 times per page. That makes for a long reading of a 162-page book.
I will read this book again, mark my words. I may read it 10 more agains. It is good and I do desperately want to understand it. So, I won’t be giving up on it. I’ll just have to mix in some simple, relaxed reading alongside it. My mind can only take so much.
If you’re much smarter than me, please read it. If you have read it and understood greater than 20% of it, let’s sit down and talk, but only if you’re prepared to be extremely patient with me.
I will leave you with one of my favorite parts of this book so you can get a feel for the book, learn something, and see how brilliant C.S. Lewis’s writing is. It will not be the whole paragraph because I don’t want every reader to get lost midway through like I often did.
In speaking of hell, C.S. Lewis writes:
“I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside. I do not mean that the ghosts may not wish to come out of hell, in the vague fashion wherein an envious man ‘wishes’ to be happy: but they certainly do not will even the first preliminary stages of that self-abandonment through which alone the soul can reach any good. They enjoy forever the horrible freedom they have demanded, and are therefore self-enslaved: just as the blessed, forever submitting to obedience, become through all eternity more and more free.”
No Coincidences 