What was the title of C.S. Lewis’s 1940 book defending Christianity against suffering?

C.S. Lewis’s 1940 book defending Christianity against suffering is The Problem of Pain.

The book examines why a benevolent and omnipotent God might permit pain, evil, and human suffering. Lewis discusses divine omnipotence, human freedom, sin, hell, and the Christian understanding of heaven.

The Problem of Pain is a theological and philosophical work, not a memoir. It is therefore different from Surprised by Joy, which recounts Lewis’s intellectual and spiritual development, and from Mere Christianity, which grew out of wartime broadcasts and talks.

Lewis later acknowledged that abstract arguments about suffering did not fully prepare him for personal grief. After the death of his wife Joy Davidman, he explored that experience in A Grief Observed, published in 1961 under a pseudonym.