Which C.S. Lewis book explores the problem of pain in a 1940 theological work?

The Problem of Pain is C.S. Lewis’s 1940 theological work about suffering.

Published in 1940, the book examines why a good and powerful God might permit pain, suffering, and human evil. Lewis discusses subjects including divine omnipotence, human freedom, the Fall, animal pain, and the possibility of hell. It is an apologetic work, meaning that it presents reasons for Christian belief rather than a personal diary of bereavement.

That distinction separates it from A Grief Observed, which Lewis wrote after Joy Davidman’s death and published in 1961. The Problem of Pain is more systematic and argumentative, while A Grief Observed is intimate, anguished, and shaped by immediate loss.

The book reflects Lewis’s intellectual response to a question that became especially urgent during the Second World War. It does not claim to solve every emotional difficulty caused by suffering. Instead, it develops a Christian framework for discussing the logical and moral questions surrounding pain.