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Example research essay topic: C S Lewis Des Nt - 2,764 words

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The Problem f Pain and the Existence f Gd May evil happens because Gd gave man free-will and thus part f being human is t have the click t d evil. Natural evil can be explained by the fact that natural evils are the very source f ur understanding f what is harmful and helps us better understand ur place in the world. Pain and suffering can exist alongside Gd fr terrible atr cities give us knowledge and we can perform acts f kindness that might nt ther wise have been possible. The existence f suffering in a world created by a gd and almighty Gd the problem f pain - is a fundamental theological dilemma, and perhaps the mst series bijection t the Christian religion. Frm the Christian perspective, anything that can reasonably be said abut suffering is nly a preamble t the Mystery f the Cross. Lewis solution t the problem f pain prepares the intellect fr a dive int the Mystery.

Known t his readers as a philosopher, a Christian apologist, a science fiction writer, an author f children's series and a literary critic, C. S. Lewis has recently been introduced t the general public as a romantic sufferer. In Show lands, more audiences and the world watch a refined, upper-middle aged xd full there n pain, fall in late love with a witty, slightly annoying American divorce with tw children, and g through the and f grief after her death. Whatever it takes t speculate n pain, it takes a lt mre, it seems, t live it. And it takes C.

S. Lewis t write competently n bth. Brn in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in 1898, f an Irish mother and a Welsh father, Clive Staples Lewis served as a Full and Turn at Magdalene College, xd fr mre than thirty years. Yet, the xd establishment was see t catch up with the fame f the author f that Christian stuff, and, in 1954, Lewis accepted a Chair f Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge, where he worked until his death n 22 nd November 1963. Yung Clive Staples was gifted with a lucid mind, a fact nt fully manifest until his adult years.

Still, at the age f fur he property discerned that people had names and declared he would rather be called Jack. As Jack grew lder, nt unnaturally, he began t lse his never-rest Christian faith, a press set in main by an early death f his mother and completed under the influence f his turn, W. T. Kirkpatrick, a brilliant and compelling atheist logician. All through his twenties Lewis remained an informed and committee atheist. Then, at the age f 31, as he explains in his autobiography, he converted t Christianity: In the Trinity Term f 1929 I gave in, and admitted that Gd was Gd, and knelt and prayed; that night a mst dejected and reluctant covers in all England.

The conversion experience helped him understand nt nly religious indifference but als bstinacy in disbelief. Wh can duly are that Love which will pen the high gates t a prodigal wh is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful, and darting his eyes in every direction fr a chance t escape? 'Inspired by the faith, armed with Kirkpatrick's login and his wn natural lucidity, Lewis went public with his Christianity, producing a series f masterpieces in Christian apologetics, remarkable in that normal people can understand them. The Problem f Pain, The Ablitin f Man, Miracles, Mere Christianity, The Screw tape Letters, The Great Divorce - written in the "spare time" between his xd tutorials - fully engage modernity and, fr that read, strike a crd with all the wh share modernist assumptions (that is, with also everybody). Through these wrk's Lewis came t be known as a formidable defender f Christianity, capable f grasping with impressive clarity the meaning f modern times that failed price f the Enlightenment. The Problem f Pain, the first f a series f popular wrk's n Christian doctrine, was written in 1940, twenty years before his beloved wife, Jy Davidman, died f cancer in the third year f their short-lived marriage.

In the bk Lewis consider the problem f suffering frm a purely there tical standing. Years later, struck with a daunting grief f a morning husband he will write anther classic n pain, a masterpiece f introspection: A Grief b served. It takes courage t live through suffering; and it takes honesty t berne it. C. S. Lewis had bth.

The existence f suffering in a world created by a gd and almighty Gd - the problem f pain - is a fundamental theological dilemma and perhaps the mst series bijection t the Christian religion. The issue is series enough already in Theism. Christianity aggravates the problem by insisting n Love as the essence f Gd; then, unexpectedly, it makes a half turn and pints t the Mystery f suffering - t Jesus, the tears f Gd. Lewis des nt price t penetrate the mystery. He is content enough with approaching pain as mere problem that demands a solution; he formulates it and ges abut saving it. If Gd were gd, He would make His creatures perfectly happy, and if He were almighty He would be able t d what he wished.

But the creatures are nt happy. Therefore Gd lacks either guess, r power, r bth. With a characteristic conciseness and clarity Lewis sets the stage fr the entire bk in the first paragraph f Chapter 2. The possibility f saving [the problem] depends n showing that the terms gd and almighty, and perhaps als the term happy, are equivocal: fr it must be admitted frm the use that if the popular meanings attached t these wrd's are the best, r the nly possible, meaning, then the argument is unanswerable. In the remaining nine chapters, Lewis will develop this basic statement through an in-depth reflection n divine mniptence, divine guess, human condition, human and animal pain, and last, but nt least, hell and heaven. The main argument f The Problem f Pain is preceded by a presentation f an atheist bijection t the existence f Gd based n the bservable futility f the universe.

The bk starts n a personal nte: Nt many years ag when I was an atheist There files a compelling picture f a universe filled with futility and chance, darkness and cld, misery and suffering; a spectacle f civilizations passing away, f human race scientifically condemned t a final dm and f a universe bund t die. Thus, either there is n spirit behind the universe, r else a spirit indifferent t gd and evil, r else an evil spirit. n the ther hand, if the universe is s bad, r even half s bad, hw n earth did human beings ever cme t attribute it t the activity f a wise and gd Create? [] The spectacle f the universe as revealed by experience can never have been grund fr religion: it must always have been something in spite f which religion, acquired frm a different source, was held. But, where should we lk fr the surce's?

The experience f the Numinus, a special kind f fear which excites awe, exemplified by, but nt limited t, fear f the dead, yet ging been mere dread r danger, is the first source; the ther is the may experience; and bth can be the result f inference frm the visible universe fr nothing in the visible universe suggests them. Likewise, the identification f the Numinus with the May, when the Numinus Power t which [men] feel awe is made the guardian f the morality t which they feel blighting - a click made by the Jews - must be viewed as utterly unnatural and very much unlike mere wish fulfillment, fr we desire nothing less than t see that Law whse naked authority is already insupportable armed with the incalculable claims f the Numinus. In Christianity, a historical component is added: an extraordinary man walking abut in Palestine, claiming t be ne with the Numinus and the May. Lewis develop a theme frm Chesterton, the stupefying argument fr the divinity f Jesus. Either He was a raving lunatic f an unusually abominable type, r else He was, and is, precisely what He said. Many regard Jesus as a has man, a wise teacher: a thoroughly gd man.

Yet, this is precisely what can be held abut him: see a lunatic r a deceiver than a mere gd man - r else Gd himself. Aut Deus, aut hm malus. After this accelerated tur frm atheism t Christianity, Lewis is ready fr his main argument. He starts with Gd Almighty.

What is the meaning f Gds mniptence? Can he d whatever he pleases? Yes, except the intrinsically impossible. Yu may attribute miracles t him but nt nn sense: Nn sense remains nn sense even if we talk it abut Gd.

Print further int Divine mniptence, Lewis builds up a universe f his wn: a universe in which free sul's, r perhaps, as we might say that, persons, can communicate. In the press, he discover that nt even mniptence could create a society f free sul's with at the same time creating a relatively independent and inexorable Nature; that a fixed nature f matter implies a possibility, though nt a necessity, f evil and suffering, fr nt all states f matter will be equally agreeable t the wishes f a given sul; that sul's, if they are free, may take advantage f the fixed laws f nature t hurt ne anther; that a creative intervention by Gd in the laws f nature, which would remove the possibility - r the effect - f such abuse, while clearly imaginable, would eventually lead t a will meaningless universe, in which nothing important depended n mans chice's. Try t exclude the possibility f suffering which the re f nature and the existence f free-wills involve, and yu will find that yu have excluded life itself. Thus, the universe as we know it might as well be a product f a wise and mniptent Create; it remains t be she hw, perceiving a suffering world, and being assured, n quite different grund's, that Gd is gd, we are t conceive that guess and that suffering with a contradiction. An explain f Gds guess might provide an answer.

Gd's idea f guess is also certainly unlike urs; yet, Gds may judgment must differ frm urs nt as white frm black but as a perfect circle frm a childs first attempt t draw a wheel - r we could mean nothing by calling him gd. Thus, where Gd means Love, we nly mean Kindness, the desire t see ther's than self happy; nt happy in this way r in that, but just happy. We want nt s much a Father but a grandfather in heaven, a Gd wh said f anything we happened t like ding, What des it matter s lng as they are contented? (Let us nte in passing hw much this confusion between Love and Kindness is akin t ur modern thinking: it sheds light n many present controversies, frm assisted suicide t austin t contraception. ) But Love is nt mere Kindness. Kindness cares nt whether its best becomes gd r bad, provided nly that it escapes suffering, while Love would rather see [the led nes] suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging mde's. The guess f Gd means that we are true bject's f his love, nt f his disinterested concern fr ur welfare. This aspect f Gds love fr man is greatly illuminated by the use f parallels frm the Scripture.

The reader is ver whelmed with the seducing beauty and grandeur f Lewis imagery, as he develop the fur scriptural analogies t explain the related between the Create and his creature: love f an artist fr his artifact, love f a man fr a beast, a fathers love fr a sn, and a mans love fr a was. Every time an anal is expired we stand in awe before the love s intense and deep; and we water why any creatures, nt t say creatures such as we, should have a value s prodigious in their Creatr's eyes; and we wish Gd led us less. Yu asked fr a living Gd: yu have ne. [] The consuming fire that made the wrld's, persistent as the artists love fr his wrk and despotic as a man's love fr a dg, president and venerable as a fathers love fr a child, jesus, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. We may wish fr less love; but then we would dream an impossible dream. Gd is ur nly gd. He gives what he has, nt what he has nt; the happiness that there is, nt the happiness that is nt.

If we will nt learn t eat the nly fd that the universe girls - the nly fd that any possible universe ever can get - then we must starve eternally. The awareness f a distinction between Love and Kindness and the recognition f what it means t be the best f Gds love make it easier t comprehend why Love is nt incompatible with suffering. Because Gd lve's us he will nt rest until he sees us will liable. Frm that perspective, the suffering f a creature in need f alteration is a mere collar t Gds guess.

Yet, the problem is that the perception f mans sinful condition, and hence f a real need fr alteration - a thing bus even t ancient pagans - has largely disappeared frm the modern horizon, rendering the Christian call t repentance and conversion unintelligible. T talk t the modern man, Lewis insists, Christianity nw has t preach the diagnosis - in itself a very bad news - before it can win the hearing fr the cure. He consider tw modern development that contributed t the rise f a belief in the regional innocence: the reduction f all virtues t kindness (nothing except kindness is really gd), and the effect f psychanalysis n the public mind (shame is dangerous and must be dne away with). Kindness, he says, is a quality fatally easy t attribute t ur selves n quite inadequate grund's, fr we can feel comfortably benevolent towards full men, as lng as their gd des nt conflict with urs. He then consider in sme detail the symptoms f mans wretchedness and brings us, step by step, t an inescapable conclusion: We are, at present, creatures whse character must be, in sme respects, a here t Gd, as it is, when we really see it, a here t ur selves. And at nce we perceive a contradiction.

In his usual way, C. S. Lewis deals clearly, effectively and interestingly with the age ld problem f human suffering. Why des it happen, and hw can it be reconciled with the existence f Gd at all - let and a gd, living and merciful Gd wh is all-powerful? Lewis establishes his argument n the clearly worked-ut basis f Gds mniptence and guess, and human depravity and sinfulness. His central thesis n the subject f pain is well summed up in these wrd's: Pain insists n being attended t.

Gd whispers t us in ur pleasures, speaks in ur cn science, but shuts in ur pains: it is his megaphone t ruse a deaf world. Pain, Lewis shw's, is Gds way f showing us that all is nt well with the world, and that if we d nt attend t the matter, much was will full. Putting it n a personal level, he says, My wn experience is something like this. I am processing and the path f life in an rdi nary contentedly fallen and glass condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends fr the more r a bit f wrk that tickles my vanity t-day, a holiday r a new bk, when suddenly a stab f abdominal pain that threatens series disease, r a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this we pack f cards tumbling do. At first I am ver whelmed, and all my little happiness lk like been tys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try t bring myself int the frame f mind that I should be in at all times.

I remind myself that all these tys were never intended t press my heart, that my true gd is...


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