By: Tom Knoff | April 2, 2023
The Agonizing Application of Truth that Refined C. S. Lewis’s Perspective on Suffering
Lewis’s acute awareness of suffering initially emerged as a result of his painful personal experiences early in life, and his formidable theoretical comprehension of it developed during his desperate search to understand. However, it was during two extraordinarily dark periods later in life when his assertions about God and pain were put to the greatest test and his perspective was ultimately refined to the point of profundity.
When faced with adversity’s inescapable mandate to personally apply the claims he had so confidently declared, Lewis did not back down. However, the agonizing confrontations he had with misery and reality caused him to reassess his perspective. This primarily occurred as Lewis encountered two devastatingly painful events that forced him to refine his views, one of which was when his intellectual prowess underwent a withering attack, and the other was when his beloved wife died.
The Refinement that Occurred When Lewis’s Intellectual Prowess was Assaulted
In 1947, Lewis issued his Christian apologetic work Miracles, wherein he boldly argued for the reality of the divine and against a naturalistic worldview. In it, he contended that the presence of pain and frailty in the world does not disprove the reality of God,
But everything becomes different when we recognize that nature is a creature…It is not in her, but in Something far beyond her, that all lines meet and all contrasts are explained. It is no more baffling that the creature called Nature should be both fair and cruel than that the first man you meet in the train should be a dishonest grocer and a kind husband.[1]
However, the following year something devastating happened to Lewis which affected him for the rest of his life. In a debate with British philosopher Elizabeth (G. E. M.) Anscombe before the Oxford Socratic Club, Lewis’s Christian apologetic was dealt a sobering blow when he received a crushing analysis of a portion of his book Miracles. In the debate, Anscombe demonstrated significant logical weaknesses in one of his central claims against naturalism. Though he and his rationale would be exonerated at a subsequent debate, Lewis would never be the same again.
This very difficult event in his life forced him apply a claim he had been making since 1940 in his book The Problem of Pain. In it he wrote of how the pain a Christian receives in persecution, though not a good in itself, still yields good because it draws a heart toward God. Lewis wrote, “There is a paradox about tribulation in Christianity….Blessed are we when persecuted…. I answer that suffering is not good in itself. What is good in any painful experience is, for the sufferer, his submission to the will of God…”[2]
The pain of this experience refined his perspective on suffering by showing him that even a capable intellect such as his could be countered. It brought home the reality that even the logical arguments of a highly respected mind was open to harsh critique, and the admiration he had garnered in academic circles, though still in place, was not something he should place his hope and joy in. While he never ceased to affirm there is indeed a viable reasonable basis for believing in God and the supernatural, the attacks he underwent did force him to acknowledge that intellectual reasoning is only able to carry a person so far on the journey of understanding—the final leg of the trek to God is a chasm that can only be crossed by a leap of faith.
The Refinement that Occurred When Lewis’s Wife Died
Of all the lashes Lewis would receive from adversity’s whip during his lifetime, none was more deeply cutting than the death of his beloved wife. In 1956, the brilliant, fifty-eight year old Oxford scholar married Joy Davidman. When she died in 1960, it was more devastating than he could have imagined, and it forced him to come face to face with the anguish of overwhelming grief.
Just a few years prior to his wife’s death, Lewis had confidently written, “The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men…”[3], but in his most despairing moment of life, he found himself questioning that belief. As he tried to deal with his anguish, he penned A Grief Observed, an audaciously blunt work in which he laid bare his tormented soul. In it, the reader will find no effort by Lewis to logically explain God’s reasoning for his suffering. Instead, he dispenses uncomfortable truth about his feelings.
This incident would be the greatest test of his faith and of his beliefs about how God uses pain in life. It was a watershed moment which forced Lewis to reexamine his philosophy of suffering, and refine his understanding to an extraordinary degree. Noting his struggle, Lewis wrote, “Feelings….Let me try thinking instead. From the rational point of view, what new factor has [Joy’s] death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe?”[4]
Though he did not renounce his Christian faith, he did relinquish the claim that true anguish is comprehensible and can be logically explained. In this way, his perspective on suffering was refined to the point of authentic, bitter reality. Of his raw feelings, he wrote, “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms…go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.”[5]
This man who possessed such a titanic intellect, and had spent his Christian life relying on the potency of his logic to explain the problem of pain, was now forced to concede that he could not understand. Having experienced the anguish of dealing with attacks on his intellectual arguments, as well as the tragedy of his beloved wife’s death, Lewis was forced to reassess his philosophical position on suffering. In so doing, his understanding matured as his soul was exposed to the bitterly cold winds of sorrow.
Conclusion
Few people have comprehended human suffering like C. S. Lewis. The insight Lewis possessed was gained through great difficulty, and was the result of the difficult intellectual, emotional, and spiritual journey he traveled. His profound understanding of suffering emerged as a result of his painful personal experiences, was forged as a result of his desperate search for truth, and was refined as a result of having to apply his philosophy to the excruciating circumstances in his life.
To properly understand the development of Lewis’s philosophy of suffering, one must not neglect the timetable of his life and the progressive nature of his journey. By carefully tracing the chronology of his writing, one can follow how his acute awareness of pain initially surfaced, then see how his philosophy of suffering developed into a cogent theoretical position, and finally, how his perspective reached maturity in its rawest, most authentic form as he looked anguish square in the eye.
For Lewis, suffering would always serve a divine good, but in the end, the great lesson he discovered is there is no persuasive argument that can give complete solace to a truly grieving soul other than to simply trust God. Though the road he traveled left him with dreadful scars, he ultimately found the answer he had so desperately searched for. Having finally surrendered to the inscrutability of God’s ways, Lewis concluded, “When I lay these questions before God I get no answer….It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze. As though He shook His head not in refusal, but waiving the question. Like, ‘Peace, child; you don’t understand.’”[6]
About the Author
Tom Knoff is a Senior Class Teacher of Worldview Philosophy at Grapevine Faith Christian School in Grapevine, Texas. He is in the PhD in Theology and Apologetics program at Liberty University. Tom, his wife, Kim, and family are originally from Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Copyright 2023. Bellator Christi.
Notes
[1] C. S. Lewis, Miracles (1947), in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007), 358.
[2] Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 615.
[3] Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 125.
[4] C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed (1961), in The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007), 671.
[5] Lewis, A Grief Observed, 658.
[6] C. S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, 68.
