Über den Schmerz (1940)

Includes index

Out of all Lewis' books I have read this is the one I dislike and disagree with him the most. I will start out by saying that Lewis builds up to his points on this subject whereas in, say, "Miracle" he gets right to the point and then builds up his thesis. Also, with most of Lewis' books, this one will require another read through. Before I list my main contentions with this book, I am not aware if Lewis ever revised his thoughts on the subject or the particular claims which I take note with. I think he is dead wrong on certain principles of Christology - mainly the ability of God-knowledge to reside in Jesus. To say that God is incapable of this is to say that God is not all-powerful. I will say that Jesus gave up certain aspects of His Godhood to become human (for example, omnipresence). I also disagree with his assessment of where goodness comes from. With the statement of the Euthyphro dilemma, Lewis chooses to say that goodness is subjectively dictated by God, if there is a way God can be subjective - but I digress. I'm not sure why he doesn't make mention that the Euthyphro dilemma is a false dilemma and goodness arised out of God's character so God appeals to Himself. So what is good is of God and not just commanded by Him or He appeals to a status of goodness above God. The false dilemma answer has been around since Aquinas so I'm not sure why he doesn't comment on that. Another problem he spends too much time on because of the philisophical gymnastics he has to go through is the doctrine of Creation. Lewis comments on man existing before Genesis 1 and appealing to evolution to get to Adam. Adam arrises out of animalism. I'm not sure why Lewis doesn't take the Bible for what it says and it clearly leads to some murky backbending that Lewis isn't quite sure of himself what to do with it. This leads to my last negative point which is his theory on animal pain. He leaps way too far out from his main point and appeals to "mights" and "maybes" and "hopes" of God's character not stated in the Bible. Thus Lewis' basis for such claims are just as good as those wishes made on falling rocks from space. He agains lands in murky waters in stating that animals arrived not from Creation week but on the building upon death that evolution requires. Lewis reckognizes the problem with saying this and assumes a multitude of conclusions that have no biblical basis and are very, very weak - even in his own arguements.

I do not wish to say there is nothing good about this book, because his formation of his main thought is decent. I have no issues with it in general but he does make some really great points. Another reading might pull my grade down farther or it might build it up. However, I think Lewis is way off in many parts here. Final grade - D ( )

I cannot help but enjoy Lewis, even when he says things that annoy me. I think it is because I read a lot of him when I was younger, both fiction and non-fiction. This book has had one big annoyance and one minor one. The minor one was a slight misunderstanding of some Pauline stuff. Nothing big, so I am willing to move on (after having looked at the book funny of course). The other one was a discussion of the relationship of humans to God and saying it was like "patient to agent, woman to man, echo to voice, mirror to light". I don't think I need to go too far into why that bugged me. I just need to remember that this book was written in 1940, so I should not get too annoyed at it's view of gender.

Intellectual. Not good if you are looking for help through some current pain or suffering. He asks some weird questions a couple times, otherwise, solid. ( )

Published 1959