Which C.S. Lewis book was published in 1940 as an examination of suffering and divine goodness?

The Problem of Pain was published by C.S. Lewis in 1940 as an examination of suffering and divine goodness. The book asks how pain can exist if God is loving, powerful, and good.

Lewis approaches the subject through Christian theology and philosophy rather than through a personal memoir. He discusses divine omnipotence, human freedom, punishment, animal pain, and the meaning of heaven. The book became one of his best-known works of Christian apologetics and helped establish his reputation as a public religious thinker.

The Problem of Pain is often confused with A Grief Observed. They address related emotional territory but have different origins and tones. The former is a systematic discussion written before Lewis’s marriage to Joy Davidman; the latter is a raw, personal response to her death. Lewis later acknowledged that abstract arguments about suffering did not remove the emotional force of bereavement.