During 1940 C. S. Lewis wrote \u201cThe Problem of Pain.\u201d Lewis\u2019s answer to why an all-good and all-powerful God would allow his creatures to suffer pain was a bit too neat and tidy. Among other things, he wrote, \u201cGod whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain: It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now flash forward two decades to the publication of \u201cA Grief Observed,\u201d which Lewis wrote after his wife\u2019s death. God\u2019s megaphone didn\u2019t just rouse Lewis, it nearly shattered him. In writing about his bereavement, Lewis described what it was like to go to God \u201cwhen your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.\u201d He added: \u201cNot that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not \u2018So there\u2019s no God after all,\u2019 but \u2018So this is what God\u2019s really like. Deceive yourself no longer.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Years ago I had lunch with a pastor and asked him about his impressions of \u201cA Grief Observed.\u201d His attitude bordered on disdain. He felt that Lewis allowed doubt to creep in when his faith should have sustained him.<\/p>\n
My response was the opposite. <\/p>\n