The Necessity of Pain for Disillusionment

In the chapter from The Problem of Pain called Human Pain, Lewis states that "...the proper good of a creature is to surrender itself to its Creator..." and that we as humans are not just imperfect, but that we are rebels against God because of our selfishness and self-sufficiency. He says that we must have pain so that we can realize that we need to rely on God for our strength, life, and existence. Pain is what breaks down our will, and is needed because we can be content in our sins, like sexual sin or slothfullness, but pain shakes us up and shows us the truth of our ways. "It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul."

Lewis also addresses Divine Humility - that God humbles Himself because we only call out to Him to save us when we feel we are in desperate need of Him and know no one and nothing else can save us. And even though He is our last resort, He still accepts us. And yet, when we do surrender to Him, he has our whole attention and will for a few hours or a few days, and then things start to get better and we leave off again for lesser truths and lesser gods.

I agree too, with Lewis's idea that God commands certain things because they are right, and not the other way around. Things like justice, peace, hope, love, faith, patience, are worth striving for, and even, as Lewis points out, if God for some impossible reason told us not to pursue such things, we should pursue them anyway because of their intrinsic goodness.

The thought that I found most interesting in this exerpt was the way Lewis explains why pain and suffering exist in the world, and why they happen to "good" people. I had been taught that bad things happen in this world simply because Sin and Evil exist and are rampant in this world. And certainly that does not go against what Lewis is saying; he simply takes the idea to a different level. His belief is that "bad" or painful things happen to people because people must learn how to rely on God, and simply will not do so when life is going well for them. Thus, our will must be broken so that we can have God. This is why many Christians talk about the importance of dying to ourselves daily. All of this definitely makes sense to me, but I'm going to have to think about it more before I'm ready to fully accept it all.