{"product_id":"the-problem-of-pain","title":"The Problem of Pain","description":"\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLewis wrote this one first, in 1940, and it is the harder book. \u003cem\u003eMere Christianity\u003c\/em\u003e argues a case; \u003cem\u003eThe Problem of Pain\u003c\/em\u003e takes the strongest objection to that case and refuses to soften it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe states the difficulty plainly at the outset, in the voice of the atheist he had been for most of his adult life: if God were good he would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty he would be able to do what he wished; creatures are not happy; therefore God lacks either goodness or power, or both. Lewis does not answer this by adjusting the terms until the problem dissolves. He grants it its full weight and then spends the book examining what the words \u003cem\u003egood\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003ealmighty\u003c\/em\u003e, and \u003cem\u003ehappy\u003c\/em\u003e can actually mean.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlong the way he takes up free will, the fall, animal suffering, hell, and heaven — the last of which he says most people leave out of the ledger entirely, which is why the arithmetic never balances. He is also honest about the limits of the exercise. He opens by saying he is no more brave than average and would go a long way to avoid a bad toothache, and he closes an argument about grief with the admission that it is easier to write about pain than to bear it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNineteen years later he lost his wife and wrote \u003cem\u003eA Grief Observed\u003c\/em\u003e, which reads like the same man discovering how little the argument helps at three in the morning. Both books are true. Read this one for the reasoning and know that its author later tested it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Amazon","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43761325572163,"sku":"The-Problem-of-Pain-7823611461699","price":16.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0635\/4737\/5683\/files\/71VZ9Yee50L._SL1500.jpg?v=1788646747","url":"https:\/\/cafe.tollbooth-dpyc.com\/products\/the-problem-of-pain","provider":"Good Brew","version":"1.0","type":"link"}