I just finished reading the article Aslan the Terrible for class on Monday and am left with some questions. The author of the article outlines Lewis’ beliefs and solutions to the “problem of pain” that many people have struggled with. As I was reading the article, I was not really disagreeing with anything that the author had to say (some of it was rather interesting) but, started to wonder why we focus so much on understanding the problem of pain. I suppose it is human nature to try and figure things out but, why so much focus on the negative. Then, the author said something that, unless I am wrong in my understanding, I do not agree with:
“We can attain real happiness only by becoming worthy of God's love, and we can only do that by becoming better people.”
Here is my main qualm with this statement; when will we ever become worthy of God’s love? Never. Does that mean we will never attain real happiness? I don’t think I will ever become worthy of God’s love but do hope to someday know real happiness. This, to me, sounds somewhat like one must become worthy of heaven which, then seems to take away the power of the cross and the grace of God.
I’ll move away from that tangent now and back to my original thought: why must we focus so much on the negative problem of pain? I believe I am stealing from N.T. Wright here but, if we must learn to understand the problem of pain shouldn’t we also focus on the problem of good? That being, how can the world be a complete accident, a random thing, and yet still hold such a thing as beauty and value. There seems to be much intrinsic evil that we try to account for but, what about accounting for the intrinsic good? There is a problem of pain in the world but, there is also a problem of good. I think by focusing so much on the pain aspect of life we neglect a vital part of creation.
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Thank you so much for commenting on the issue of "becoming worthy of God's love" i was thinking the exact same thing when I read it. We will never be worthy of God's love. I think i better way of putting it would be to say that we can attain true happiness by living in accordance with God's will (worshiping, obey his commands, loving others)
I am a little confused by the "problem of good" as you put it. How is good a problem? Wouldnt you say that good exists in the world because God created the world and God is good?
The "problem of pain" is that we cannot account for some of the natural disasters of this world, the events that happen outside of the consequence of human sin. These painful occurances are then apparantly the doings of a God that is supposedly "good" and it just doesnt make sense. I see that as a problem.
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