(Un)Reasonable Suffering, the Soul, and Salvation:The Problem of Love Part 3
It should be asked: must suffering precede salvation? It would seem that Lewis would say yes. He says, “Pain plants the flag of truth within a rebel fortress. We were then discussing pain which might still lead to repentance.”[1] Geisler and Brooks suggests that though this current world is not the best world, it is the best possible way to the best world where freedom is preserved and evil is defeated by permanently separating those who reject God and sealing those who choose God.[2] We are called in Scripture to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, and yet God works in us for his good pleasure (Phil. 12:12-13),[3] suggesting that there is human responsibility as well as God’s sovereignty working together.
Necessary Evil
There is no unnecessary, purposeless suffering, as unreasonable as that may seem to the natural man. Romans tells us that all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called to His purposes (Rom. 8:28).
Erik Wielenberg makes a case for Lewis viewing suffering as an intrinsic evil, pain being recognized immediately, since someone always knows something is wrong when he is hurt. But though pain is intrinsically evil, it could be “instrumentally good” to lead us back to God.[4] Wielenberg further notes in A Grief Observed, Lewis believes these evils must be necessary if we are to believe that God is in fact, good.[5] In his omniscience did God bring about the experience of His love through Christ. There is no unnecessary, purposeless suffering, as unreasonable as that may seem to the natural man. Romans tells us that all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called to His purposes (Rom. 8:28). God does not cause evil, but allows it, and if He is to sovereignly orchestrate for all things to come together for His purposes, it can reasonably be concluded, that suffering precipitates salvation.
Even so, it is hard for any human to accept this, that God can see the whole picture through the lens of eternity and directing all things for what God calls good. We finite humans can choose to trust Him or not in this regard, but we only see the small spec that on the timeline of forever. In meeting George MacDonald in The Great Divorce, the narrator learns that “good and evil, when they are full grown, become retrospective…Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory…damnation will spread back and back into their [those who reject God] past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin.”[6] What great mercy for God to save some, those who would choose Him, and dilute the great suffering of this life in the oceans of the many tomorrows. And in our glorified state, we would look back at present pain, too, as good because it led us back to Eden, where we walk in friendship with God once again with no sin to stain our state.
Choosing God’s Will or Evil
That God loves us so much He would let us go if that is what we truly desire is amazing, and terrible. For we see our free will has created Hell, and what is worse is those who are there have chosen it. There are those who are spiritually dead, deaf to any shouting, clanging, or sirens to warn of its numinous darkness.
There is comfort in God’s Word, “For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Cor. 4:17). But for those who continue to rebel against God, George MacDonald, quoting Milton to the traveler, says, “The choice of every lost soul can be expressed in the words ‘Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.’ There is always something they insist on keeping even at the price of misery. There is always something they prefer to joy—that is, to reality.”[7] Oh what a mercy for God to let us feel pain. Oh, what awesome an alarm to alert us back to what God has meant for us. All because He loves us. George MacDonald’s words are a haunting caution: “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘They will be done,’ and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice there could be no Hell.”[8] That God loves us so much He would let us go if that is what we truly desire is amazing, and terrible. For we see our free will has created Hell, and what is worse is those who are there have chosen it. There are those who are spiritually dead, deaf to any shouting, clanging, or sirens to warn of its numinous darkness.
Next time, let’s take a closer look at free will and human freedom.
[1] C.S Lewis, The Problem of Pain, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 122.
[2] Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook on Christian Evidences, (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2013), 67.
[3] Unless otherwise noted, all biblical passages referenced are in English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008).
[4] Erik J. Wielenberg, “In Defence of C.S. Lewis’ Soul-Making Theodicy: A Reply to Wolterstorff,” Journal of Inklings Studies, Vol. 9(2) (January 2019): 193.
[5] Ibid., 195.
[6] C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 69.
[7] Ibid., 71.
[8] Ibid., 75.