November 4, 2007 – The Problem of Pain, as C.S. Lewis observed in his wonderful essay, is that we have it. An omnipotent God could remove all pain from our lives if he wishes, so therefore he is not omnipotent or is not the God we thought he was. Apologists for God reply that we have to accept him, not question or understand him. That holds up well until you hurt.
   “If God were good, he would wish to make his creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, he would be able to do whatever he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.”
  This is the problem of pain its simplest form, says Lewis. The popular meanings attached to words like “good” and “almighty,” he says, are equivocal, thus the argument about pain unanswerable.
  Theologians have been chewing on this for centuries, and I was reminded of it talking to a friend who was disappointed in another person, in this case a man. Her disappointment, she said, was a matter of faith, because if she really believed in God, then she would accept his plan for her, regardless of whether it caused her pain or not. Still, her suffering was very real.
  This, I thought, is the problem with pain. We are human, and we suffer, and unlike the animals on the farm, we are self-aware, and we know that we suffer, and  it doesn’t hurt more or less if God caused it or could stop it, at least for me. I am definitely of the school that believes God has bigger stuff to worry about than me.
  I am no theologian, and do not have the answers to these questions, and one of the reasons I enjoy the animals on the farm so much is that they don’t think about their pain, or question it, they accept it and endure it, true stoics. I have never heard a donkey or cow whine (although I guess dogs do).
   I told my friend this: pain, like joy, is a gift. It challenges us, tests, defines us, causes us to grow, empathize, and also, to appreciate its absence. If nothing else, it sharpens the experience of joy. The minute something happens to me that causes pain, I start wondering how I can respond to it, what I can learn from it, what it has taught me or shown me about myself. This doesn’t make it hurt any less, but it puts it, for me, on a more manageable level. I don’t know if there is a God, or if he causes me or anybody else to hurt, or if he could stop pain. I try to accept it and live beyond it. I think the animals have taught me that.
  The Problem of Pain is that it exists, and is ubiquitous. The Challenge of Pain is how we respond to it.