Which 1943 C.S. Lewis book argues that pain can awaken people to spiritual reality?

The Problem of Pain is C.S. Lewis’s 1943 book arguing that suffering can awaken people to spiritual reality.

Published during the Second World War, The Problem of Pain examines the philosophical and theological challenge posed by suffering. Lewis discusses divine omnipotence, human freedom, animal pain, hell, and the possibility that pain can disrupt complacency and direct attention toward God.

The book is an apologetic work written before Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman and before his own experience of her terminal illness. It is therefore distinct from A Grief Observed, which records the personal anguish following Davidman’s death and takes a more emotionally immediate form.

Lewis did not claim that every instance of suffering is easy to explain or emotionally acceptable. His argument addresses suffering as a theological problem, whereas A Grief Observed is a personal response to bereavement.