The Secret Suffering of C.S. Lewis
By: A.M. Cal
Tags: Academic, Writers Life, Cs Lewis, Writers On Medium, Writers On Writing

The Secret Suffering of C.S. Lewis

Coping with grief through story

Photo Courtesy of C.S. Lewis

In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis summarizes the paradox of good and evil. He argues that pain, suffering, and hell are not sufficient reasons to reject the belief in an all powerful, benevolent creator. The partial theodicy gives readers insight concerning the differing perspective of God and his creation, stating, “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 (p. 88).” It should be considered that Lewis does not claim to have a solution to this problem as humans cannot reach a full understanding of why God allows evil. A difficult childhood, Lewis was no stranger to grief and suffering throughout his life.

Lewis’ childhood trauma

As a child, Lewis faced the tragedy of his mother’s passing. Shortly after, his father admitted him to a boarding school he could only describe as “hell.” Lewis would struggle with boarding schools and their psychological effects throughout boyhood. Later on in his adolescent years, he dealt with loss and suffering in wartime. Given this history, there is no doubt that the author of a book on pain would have his own complex relationship with grief.

Due to the death of his mother when he was nine, much of Lewis’ work was shaped by tragic experiences. There is a noticeable shift out of the happy part of early childhood and then again when he enters boarding school which he referred to as “hell (Jacobs, 2008).” In an article in the Journal of Beliefs and Values, authors claim that references to the event in books such as The Magician’s Nephew “offer a mythopoeic version of the Christian interpretation of death (Gray, 1997).” This article also claims that the tension of myth and reality impact how Lewis writes from a Christian perspective about death. Another article in Rhetoric Society Quarterly examines how religious people who encounter crisis and tragedy often question the premises of their faith (Fehler, 2003). Scholars argue that in order to continue a life in faith, they must re-imagine their conceptions of God.

The suffering Christian

It was during the dark time of World War II that C.S. Lewis gave a lecture at Oxford acknowledging that Christian educators have an important place in a suffering world. He held the belief that Christ is the ultimate answer to suffering and that Christian universities are witnesses to this truth (Eaton, 2004). Lewis was extremely outspoken regarding the impact of tragedy on the Christian life and vice versa. We see this in the work, A Grief Observed, in which he uses his own experiences and theological analysis to help the reader understand why the Creator would allow unspeakable heartbreak to occur. It is perhaps the most personal publishing in which Lewis reflects on the stages of grief in the aftermath of his beloved wife’s death. It is also the closest parallel to The Problem of Pain.

What will be seen in the upcoming analysis of The Problem of Pain and A Grief Observed, is that there are a lot of hard contrasts. For example, one work argues for the need to cling to God in the midst of all things, especially suffering. The other “complains” about a lack of nearness from the Creator in a time of grief. If anything, Lewis’ analysis of the issue both in the midst of a depressing time and on the outside validates how necessary it is for believers to work through the complications of suffering. Of course, this is much easier said than done.

Just as Lewis argues a need to find solace in an omnipotent Creator, so does research suggest that attachment to God lowers depression and stress in grief. The article, Assessing the Role of Attachment to God, examines a study where researchers analyzed the religious coping of 93 individuals who experienced the death of a loved one within a year (Chan, 2012). They found that those with a secure attachment to God are more likely to reconcile and find meaning following a significant death. It was determined that a lower depression rate was the result of this attachment.

Coping through Narnia

Regarding the fantasy literature of Lewis in relation to Christian suffering, an article in English in Education examines his writing in relation to the author Philip Pullman. Researchers state that in both, “Christian allegory is used to encourage deeper readings of their work. Ultimately, Pullman’s criticism of Narnia draws attention to similarities between the two series and the power of both to provoke challenging questions rather than straightforward answers (Brittain, 2003).” This gives insight to the darker themes of suffering within Lewis’ fantasy, including The Last Battle, the final book in The Chronicles of Narnia series. In the final pages, the character, Aslan, turns to the children and says, “your father and mother and all of you are-as you call it in the Shadowlands-dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is morning (p. 210).” Earlier on, he tells them, “you do not look as happy as I mean you to be.” Though a somber statement from a talking lion, Lewis reminds us in this work that while there is darkness and suffering in the world, there is much more to discover and overcome. There is salvation once the suffering has passed and a new world is in order. Of course, he speaks more literally of these concepts in his more apologetic works.

Secret melancholy romance

In the Problem of Pain, Lewis writes, “mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “my tooth is aching” than “my heart is broken.” It is no surprise that a man with such a familiar relationship with tragedy would be candid in writing about pain. It is interesting to note that as realistic as he was with human (and even animal) suffering in his book, he was also enthusiastic about Christianity as a light to the darkness of the world. This is referring back to the previous Oxford speech Lewis gave during the second World War. But just as open as he was regarding both of these topics, the author was an extremely private individual.

In the book, Planet Narnia, researcher Michael Ward discusses the man’s secretive nature (who he refers to as ‘Jack,’ the name Lewis gave himself during childhood). Ward states, “Jack never ceased to be secretive. The various omissions from Surprised by Joy (for example, Mrs. Moore, his adopted mother is never acknowledged) led one of his circle, Humphrey Havard, to joke that it would have been better entitled Suppressed by Jack (Ward, 2010, p. 12).” But what was it that made the apologist keep to himself? It is said that Lewis was a friendly man who joked and enjoyed the company of his closest friends. He also met with an intimate literary group for several years known as the Inklings, which included other influential writers such as Tolkien.

On the other hand, he had a somewhat melancholy personality and kept certain parts of his life concealed. For instance, when he burned letters between himself and Mrs. Moore, (whom he lived with for a time during his early Oxford years and again after he married his wife, Joy). There was certainly speculation about the type of relationship Jack and Mrs. Moore had during those early years. The fact that he burned letters perhaps alludes to a very real guilt, and possibly a very real circumstance. If this were true, this could be an example of Lewis attempting to hide something as a result of shame. This would have also been during the same period that he claimed his imagination was at its lowest point. Perhaps he was suffering from depression, guilt, and shame as he had been in war a few years prior and had said at one point that philosophy did not do much to help his “inner life (Jacobs, 2008).”

Losing Joy

In the first chapter concerning human pain in The Problem of Pain, Lewis begins to explain suffering on a more intimately spiritual level. He writes, “the possibility of pain is inherent in the very existence of a world where souls can meet (p. 86).” It appears as though when souls are open to spiritual “collision,” they are vulnerable to both good and evil. In order to be open to divine goodness, one must also accept the possibility of divine pain. However, humans will not surrender to the Creator when all seems to be well; “the human spirit will not even begin to try to surrender self-will as long as all seems to be well with it.

Still, with its powerful way of being, pain and suffering proved to hold tightly to Lewis in the death of his beloved wife, Joy. It is truly a testimony that a man who would write so candidly about the evil nature of pain and the need to submit to a Divine Creator would publish a work of his struggle with this very thing! In his very personal work, A Grief Observed, Lewis writes of the overwhelming fear and depression that manifests after the loss of a loved one. However, he rephrases a similar principal from The Problem of Pain in the first chapter. He writes, “meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be-or so it feels-welcomed with open arms (p. 6).” This is quite a complex, yet telling statement of the author’s state of mind. At first, it appears as if he refutes his own question of “where is God.” He recognizes this feeling as a symptom of grief and suffering and not reality.

He still acknowledges in his own sadness that while one may be tempted to turn from God in the midst of unspeakable tragedy, it is but a symptom of the emotional response to pain and not necessarily true. The last part of the statement is interesting as Lewis appears somewhat hesitant to fully acknowledge that God is actually there. In the sentence, “you will be-or so it feels-welcomed with opened arms,” “or so it feels” seems to be an emotional response interrupting his intellectual thought. The scholar and the suffering man are at war with each other as Lewis fights to suppress grief while writing a personal work on the subject! At least in the beginning of A Grief Observed, he goes back and forth between writing about his physical reactions to depression (“why does it matter if I shave”) and trying to keep a need for God in grief at the forefront.

A theological response

In the chapter concerning Divine Omnipotence, Lewis acknowledges our perception of God as contradictory in nature. In the later chapters on human pain, he discuss the need to fully surrender to the Creator in order to be good and happy. For now, he addresses a noticeable problem by stating, “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. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore, God lacks either goodness, or power, or both (p. 17).” He then references Scripture to remind us that all things are possible with the Creator, nothing about his nature is ever inconsistent. “His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. This is no limit to His power (p. 20).”

Lewis has a response to this very issue in his chapter on divine goodness, stating, “the problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves is that we attach a trivial meaning to the word ‘love’ and look on things as if Man were the center of the [universe]. Man is not the center. God does not exist for the sake of man (p. 40).” This comes back to the creator/creature distinction as analyzed in Dr. Lister’s work. The problem in arguing within the framework, “God is not consistently good because there is pain,” is that this phrase itself disregards His divine omnipotence. Just as humans cannot call the Creator into action when they so desire (such as through prayer and emotional pleading), they cannot work him into this box simply because there may be little to no explanation to pain. If God is truly omnipotent, then pain cannot cause him to be inconsistent either. Therefore, there must be another explanation, one that is outside of human comprehension but fully in line with God’s being.

Aslan’s shadowlands

The last chapter of both A Grief Observed and The Problem of Pain discuss the ultimate conclusion of Heaven and peace with God. Lewis speculates that Heaven will be the fulfillment of our secret longings. But until then, we will not be able to take in the bigger picture. “The door into life generally opens behind and the only wisdom for the one haunted by unseen roses, is work (p. 153).” Just as Aslan alluded in The Last Battle, there is still much that has to happen before our final day. Once it arrives, we will see much more clearly. We will have reached our full potential and obtained the ultimate joy. In the last pages of The Problem of Pain, Lewis describes the world as specifically a ‘golden picture’ in which humans are the figures. He states, “until you step off the plane of the picture into the large dimensions of death you cannot see gold. But we have reminders of it. To change our metaphor, the blackout is not quite complete (153).” Again, this is parallel to the character Aslan’s description of the Shadowlands. It will not be until “morning comes” when we finally obtain full glory.

It is by the ending of A Grief Observed that Lewis no longer feels as though he has reached a “bolted door.” He describes how he finds himself at peace despite the absence of H: “there are two enormous gains-I know myself too well to call them ‘lasting.’ Turned to God, my mind no longer meets that locked door; turned to H., it no longer meets that vacuum-nor all that fuss about my mental image of her (p.65).” Lewis now imagines his wife as “a sword in God’s hand” instead of agonizing over the fading memories of her. The partial theodicy that is The Problem of Pain as well as the more personal work are both in line with the current research that submitting to God in crisis leads to peace. By writing A Grief Observed, Lewis has validated his previous arguments of the necessity of seeking God in pain. Examining his theological analysis and own personal dealings with suffering supports the assumption that humans are truly happiest when they seek refuge in an omnipotent Creator.

It’s no doubt that C.S. Lewis had an unbelievably complex relationship with his personal grief and mortality. In a way, his fantasy stories were part of the continual grieving process he experienced throughout his life. Losing his mother, finding refuge with a much older woman (possibly romantic), losing his wife, and becoming an intellectual giant all proved to weigh on him. Despite all his rationale and theological mindset, Lewis was a privately emotional man. In the end, he chose to accept his suffering, putting the mysteries of life and death onto a believed creator (God). In the process, Lewis wrote down his thoughts, working through them and using words to cope with the pain. This goes to show how healing writing can be, even in the midst of suffering we sometimes fail to understand.