What is the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1942 book defending Christian belief through the problem of suffering?

The Problem of Pain is C.S. Lewis’s 1942 book addressing Christian belief and the challenge posed by suffering. Lewis examines why a good and powerful God might permit pain, evil, and human suffering.

The book was written as a work of Christian apologetics, meaning it presents reasons and arguments intended to explain or defend Christian faith. Lewis discusses divine omnipotence, human freedom, sin, heaven, hell, and animal pain. It is a systematic theological argument rather than a personal diary.

Readers often confuse The Problem of Pain with A Grief Observed. The former was published in 1942, before Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman and before her illness. A Grief Observed appeared in 1961 under a pseudonym and reflects Lewis’s personal experience after Davidman’s death. The two books therefore approach suffering from very different perspectives.