web viewa grief observed. lewis is recounting his observations of grief after the loss of his wife

C.S. Lewis: Theodicy


Intro to Humanities

Globe University

Jessica Boggs


The traditional problem of evil says that the presence of evil in the world is

inconsistent with the existence of an omnibenevolent, omnipotent God (Hernandez,

2013). This problem, coined Theodicy, has been debated by man for as long as God and

evil have existed; or so I presume. C.S. Lewis, a well-known author of the twentieth

century, was one of many to debate Theodicy; although I doubt he realized the impact his

examinations would have.

In order to try and understand the author, as well as get a grasp on why he so

passionately defends Christianity, I read the following books: Surprised by Joy, The

Problem of Pain, and A Grief Observed. After reading these three books for the first time

I realized I was at the wonderful beginning of a much longer journey. I could spend a

lifetime reading, researching and analyzing this author as well as this topic without ever

comprehending them in their entirety. Instead I will try my best to explain my barest

understanding of the man that is C.S. Lewis and his observations regarding good, evil,

pain and suffering.

Surprised by Joy is a wonderful examination by Lewis of his own life and his

eventual conversion from Atheism to Christianity. In Surprised by Joy, Lewis, briefly

touches on his dealings with pain and suffering but the central premise is about his

journey and excitement in accepting God as God. The title of the second book speaks for

itself because in The Problem of Pain Lewis discusses just that, the problem of

experiencing pain. In A Grief Observed Lewis is recounting his observations of grief after

the loss of his wife.

I felt the first book would give me an oversight into his life and the foundations

that Lewis built his faith on. I hoped The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed would


help me understand how Lewis explained the existence of omnipotence and evil. The

most basic thing I have to say about Lewis is that he, like us all, is a product of his

experiences. Therefore the only place to begin, for me at least, is to give you a piecemeal

version of his life story.

Lewis was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to parents Albert and Florence on

November 29th, 1898 (Benbow, 2014). He had one brother named Warnie and the family

had a dog as well, Tim (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). According to Lewis, who waits

until Chapter 10 to mention the dog, Tim never exactly obeyed you; he sometimes agreed

with you (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).

Lewis had two childhood homes both of which he considers major characters of

his life story (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). The new house, Little Lea, was erratically

planned, full of hidden crannies, empty passageways and piles of books (Benbow, 2014).

Lewis, it seems, sought knowledge throughout his life wherever he could find it. His

mother had tutored him in French and Latin before he was seven (Benbow, 2014).

Florence died in 1908; her death greatly affected Lewis although not, according to him, in

a religious sense (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).

Lewis, having a distaste for all that was public, eventually found himself under

the tutelage of his father’s former headmaster, W.T. Kirkpatrick (Lewis, Suprised by Joy,

1995). Lewis was then trained in logical discourse, languages and literature (Benbow,

2014). Kirkpatrick, referred to as Knock by Lewis, was a different kind of teacher than

Lewis had ever encountered and long years under his tutelage taught Lewis much about

life, learning, and respect.


Lewis went onto Oxford on scholarship and matriculated into University College

in April, 1917 (Benbow, 2014). There was a brief pause in his academic career when he

left school to fight for England during the First World War (Benbow, 2014). After the

war Lewis returned to Oxford and his career can only be characterized, of course, as

spectacular (Benbow, 2014). After placing first in his honors finals in 1920 &1922 as

well as winning the prestigious Chancellor’s Prize for an essay in English he was

eventually awarded a fellowship in English at Magdalen College in 1925 (Benbow,

2014). This appointment launched his career as we know it and the people he befriended

at Oxford helped shape both the man himself as well as his faith.

During the course of his life Lewis constantly found himself presented with the

idea of religion. Being a scholar Lewis required a keen understanding of religion to form

a solid argument and a belief in God. As children are, Lewis was taught the usual things

and made to say his prayers and in due time was taken to church (Lewis, Suprised by Joy,

1995). Therefore as a boy Lewis had approached God, or rather his idea of God, without

love, without awe, even without fear (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). To Lewis, God was,

in his mental picture, to appear neither as savior nor as judge, but merely as a magician

(Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).

The first conversion of faith, Lewis mentions, occurs during his time at Wynyard

under a headmaster he calls Oldie (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). At Oldie’s he, for the

first time, became an effective believer (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). Looking back

what really mattered to him was being taught the doctrines of Christianity by men who so

obviously believed in them (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). In this experience he

experienced a great deal of fear; fear for his soul (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).


Although he was afraid Lewis considers this experience an entirely good one because he

began to seriously pray, read his Bible, and attempt to obey his conscience (Lewis,

Suprised by Joy, 1995).

Sometime after leaving Wynyard he went onto school at Chartres. Lewis believes

Chartres to be the place where he ceased to be a Christian (Lewis, Suprised by Joy,

1995). It was here that Lewis began to realize a passion for the occult; the desire for the

preternatural (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). Lewis had, in fact, rendered his private

practice of religion intolerable (Lewis, Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life,

1995). He had been told as a child that one must not only say one’s prayers but think

about one was saying (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). No clause of his prayer was to be

allowed to pass muster unless it was accompanied by what he called a “realization,” by

which he meant a certain vividness of the imagination and the affections (Lewis, Suprised

by Joy, 1995). Therefore, Lewis was already desperate to get rid of his religion when his

new desires came about.

He came to believe that religion, though utterly false, was a natural growth, a kind

of endemic nonsense into which humanity tended to blunder (Lewis, Suprised by Joy,

1995). In addition to this he also had a deeply ingrained sense of pessimism; much more

of intellect than of temper (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). He began to live his life, like

many Atheists or Antitheists, in a whirl of contradictions where he maintained that God

did not exist (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). Lewis may have maintained that there was

no God but he also maintained anger towards God for not existing and equally angry at

him for creating the world in the first place (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).


Lewis, in his crisis of faith, came to believe that all that he loved to be imaginary;

and nearly all that he believed to be real he thought grim and meaningless (Lewis,

Suprised by Joy, 1995). He admits he was far more eager to escape pain than to achieve

happiness (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). For Lewis the horror of the Christian universe

was that it had no door marked Exit. He also believed that what really separated him from

his belief in God was his deep-seated hatred of authority, monstrous individualism and

lawlessness (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).

Lewis lived many years as an Atheist. It was during his time at University that he

developed his belief in Christianity. Both experience and friendship combined brought

Lewis back to God. According to Lewis the best thing about experience is that it is such

an honest thing (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). “You may take any number of wrong

turnings; but keep your eyes open and you will not be allowed to go very far before the

warning signs appear. You may have deceived yourself, but experience is not trying to

deceive you. The universe rings true where you fairly test it” (Lewis, Suprised by Joy,

1995).

According to Lewis the things he asserted most vigorously are those that he

resisted long and accepted late (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). Lewis’ conversion, by his

own admission, was a tedious process fraught with defiance at every turn. It was almost

as if one day he realized he was holding something at bay, or shutting something out

(Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995). As he opened the door to faith his acts, desires, and

thoughts were brought into harmony with the universal Spirit (Lewis, Suprised by Joy,

1995). That which Lewis had feared most had been realized. It was in the Trinity Term of

1929 that he gave in and admitted that God was God (Lewis, Suprised by Joy, 1995).


With the realization of an Omnipotent God it is impossible to ignore the existence

of evil, pain, and suffering. Lewis chose to believe that not even Omnipotence could

create a society of free souls without at the same time creating a relatively independent

and ‘inexorable’ nature (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). The freedom of a creature

must mean freedom to choose: and choice implies the existence of things to choose

between (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in

which God corrected the results of the abuse of free will by His creatures at every

moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon

(Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). But such a world would be one in which wrong

actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void

(Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). If we try to exclude the possibility of suffering

which the order of nature and the existence of free wills involve, you will find that you

have excluded life itself (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009).

According to doctrine, man is now a horror to God and to himself and a creature

ill adapted to the universe not because God made him so but because he has made himself

so by the abuse of his free will (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). The world is a dance

in which good, descending from God, is disturbed by evil arising from the creatures, and

the resulting conflict is resolved by God’s own assumption of the suffering nature which

evil produces (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). The possibility of pain is inherent in

the very existence of a world where souls can meet (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009).

When souls become wicked they will certainly use this possibility to hurt one another

(Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009).


Pain is unmasked, unmistakable evil; every man knows that something is wrong

when he is being hurt (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). And pain is not only

immediately recognizable evil, but evil impossible to ignore (Lewis, The Problem of

Pain, 2009). God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in

our pain: it is His megaphone to the world (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009). Pain

removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul (Lewis, The

Problem of Pain, 2009). Lewis is not arguing that pain is not painful (Lewis, The Problem

of Pain, 2009). Pain hurts: That is the very definition of the word (Lewis, The Problem of

Pain, 2009). His point is that the old Christian doctrine of being made ‘perfect through

suffering’ is not incredible but he also states that to prove it palatable is beyond his

design (Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 2009).

Pain, suffering and evil itself, challenge us in our faith; they challenge our belief

in goodness, love, and God. Whether this is by design or not is not our question to ask.

C.S. Lewis met his soul mate, H., late in life and lost her shortly after finding her; as

seems to happen to truly extraordinary people. It was this loss of H. (his wife) that made

Lewis reflect on Theodicy. It’s easy to postulate on pain and suffering when you are

outside of them, however, it is another thing to formulate opinions when they have you in

their grasp. Lewis felt that you never know how much you really believe in anything until

its truth or falsehood becomes a matter of life and death to you; only a real risk tests the

reality of a belief (Lewis, A Grief Observed, 2009).

Looking back on his marriage to H. Lewis was tempted to say it was too perfect

to last (Lewis, A Grief Observed, 2009). His statement can be meant in two ways: It may

be grimly pessimistic – as if God no sooner saw two of His creatures happy than He


stopped it (Lewis, A Grief Observed, 2009). But it could also mean ‘This had reached its

proper perfection. This had become what it had in it to be. Therefore of course it would

not be prolonged.’ As if God said, ‘Good; you have mastered that exercise, I am very

pleased with it. And now you are ready to go on to the next (Lewis, A Grief Observed,

2009).’ All human relationships end in pain – it is the price that our imperfection has

allowed Satan to exact from us for the privilege of Love (Lewis, A Grief Observed,

2009).

I have lost a great many things in my life that have forced me to question my

faith; in this I am not alone. As a matter of fact an old boss and friend just lost her

twenty-five year old son (12/17/14) to cancer. We were one year apart in age. The death

of a child can force even the most devout to question the goodness that is God. “God has

not been trying an experiment on our faith or love in order to find out their quality. He

knew it already. It is us who are in the dark. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock,

the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that our temple was a house

of cards. His only way of making us realize it was to knock it down (Lewis, A Grief

Observed, 2009).” As Lewis would say, “Talk to me about the truth of religion and I’ll

listen gladly. Talk to me about the duty of religion and I’ll listen submissively. But don’t

come talking to me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don’t

understand (Lewis, A Grief Observed, 2009).”


References:

Benbow, P. K. (2014). C. S. Lewis. Salem Press Biographical Encyclopedia,

Hernandez, J. (2013). The anxious believer: Macaulay's prescient theodicy. International

Journal For Philosophy Of Religion, 73(3), 175-187. doi:10.1007/s11153-012-

9365-2

Lewis, C. (1995). Suprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life. New York: Harcourt

Brace.

Lewis, C. (2009). A Grief Observed. New York: Harper Collins.

Lewis, C. (2009). The Problem of Pain. New York: Harper Collins.

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