Lewis Purpose Of Pain

The Problem and Purpose of Pain

Identifying the problem with pain is fairly simple according to Lewis, explaining the purpose of pain not so much. In chapter one Lewis tells us that the problem with pain is the fact that we as Christians have to try to make it fit into our belief system and that fact “creates, rather than solves, the problem of pain.” (C. Lewis) It also means that as Christians, we are left facing the dilemma of trying to explain how we serve an all-loving, all- powerful, benevolent God who despite His benevolence allows us to suffer. How can I do this? How can I possibly convince an unbeliever not only of the existence of a God, but of a God that allows pain, when I as believer struggle with the question? For the past

“ (C. Lewis) That her health problems are due to nature since the majority of her issues were genetically passed down from Dad, and while we both get that it still does not explain why the God who created nature would allow that pain to be passed down. I told her that Lewis presented it this way, that we as humans have attributed to God the qualities of good, and loving and all-powerful as we know them, and then I posed the question to her that I felt Lewis was pointing out. What if our idea, our concept of good, loving and all- powerful was not the same as His idea of good, loving and all-powerful? We already know that “His ways are not our ways, His thoughts not like our thoughts “ (Isaiah 55:8) I told her about the analogy Lewis used in chapter three, how that we as parents use our authority to try and shape our children into being good people and that how at times our children questioned our methods because to them those methods were not what the child considered loving, how that even though the child may not be able to comprehend that we were doing came from a place of love, we, the parent knew it did. I told her that I thought Lewis was telling us that we have to sometimes view pain as one of the tools God uses to shape us into being the person he knows we are capable of