Problem of Pain »

C. S. Lewis was famous both as a fiction writer and as a Christian thinker, and scholars sometimes divide his personality in two. Yet a large part of Lewis's appeal, for both his audiences, lay in his ability to fuse imagination with instruction. "Let the pictures tell you their own moral," he once advised writers of children's stories. "But if they don't show you any moral, don't put one in."

Why must humanity suffer? In this elegant and thoughtful work, C. S. Lewis questions the pain and suffering that occur everyday and how they contrast with the notion of a God that is both omnipotent and good—the answer to this critical theological problem is within these pages.

John Updike

I read Lewis for comfort and pleasure many years ago, and a glance into the books revives my old admiration.