The Problem of Pain

The Problem of Pain was published in 1940. Lewis wrote The Problem of Pain during the first autumn and winter of WWII. The book was read chapter by chapter to “The Inklings,” the literary group he met with weekly, which included Charles Williams and J.R.R. Tolkien. Lewis dedicated the book to the Inklings.

 

Rev. James Welch, Director of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC, read The Problem of Pain and was impressed such that he approached Lewis about doing a radio series that eventually became Mere Christianity.

 

In The Problem of Pain, Lewis first does a “ground-clearing operation” and lays a new foundation before building his main argument. Consequently, he doesn’t actually get to the purpose of suffering until chapter 6.

(Shepherd’s Notes Series, C. S. Lewis’s The Problem of Pain/A Grief Observed, Broadman & Holman, 1999, p. 10.)