The Problem of Pain.

LEWIS, C.S.

$15,000.00

Item Number: 143183

London: The Centenary Pres, 1941.

Early printing of Lewis’s classic discussion of the nature of good and evil; inscribed by him with a quotation from Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel in the House which had a profound influence on the development of Lewis’s Christian beliefs. Octavo, original publisher’s cloth. Signed by C.S. Lewis with a quotation from Coventry Patmore’s poem The Angel in the House, “They live by law, not like the fool, But like the bard who freely sings in strictest bonds of rhyme and rule and finds in them not bonds but wings – Patmore C.S. Lewis April 1944.” First published in 1854, Coventry Patmore’s The Angel in the House was enormously popular throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It became a part of the curriculum of many English Literature courses following its inclusion by W. W. Norton & Company in The Norton Anthology of English Literature. An idealized account of Patmore’s courtship of his first wife, Emily Augusta Andrews whom he married in 1847 and believed to be the perfect woman, it was believed to be “culturally significant, not only for its definition of the sexual ideal, but also for the clarity with which it represents the male concerns that motivate fascination with that ideal” (Carol T. Christ). Very good in a very good supplied dust jacket. Housed in a custom half morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. Rare and desirable. 

In The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis, one of the most renowned Christian authors and thinkers, examines a universally applicable question within the human condition: “If God is good and all-powerful, why does he allow his creatures to suffer pain?” Lewis states that his writing is "not primarily arguing the truth of Christianity but describing its origin - a task ... necessary if we are to put the problem of pain in its right setting". He begins by addressing the flaws in common arguments against the belief in a just, loving, and all-powerful God such as: "If God were good, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able to do what he wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both." Topics include human suffering and sinfulness, animal suffering, and the problem of hell, and seeks to reconcile these with an omnipotent force beyond ourselves. Lewis' philosophical approach in Problem of Pain bears some similarity to his later, more personal, approach to the problem of evil in A Grief Observed, a reflection on his own experiences of grief and anguish after the death of his wife.