THE RIDDLE OF PAIN

The following reflections are the outcome of reading the book The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis.

There are two fundamental human experiences in life: pleasure and pain.

An apt example for demonstrating this would be a conjugal union between a man and a woman. They do experience the pleasure of the sexual act (here one cannot but point out the working of lust in every physical sexual union), but in bringing forth the fruit of their union, she has to undergo the pangs of giving birth (procreation) – the purpose of marriage.

There is a kind of pain in knowing. Knowledge is suffering because the demand it makes on a life of seeking truth is great. The Greek philosophers would say that a life of wisdom is a practice of death. 

For example I know that it is good to be without ‘stomach ache’. This is being well. But when you are under pain, you know that you are not given the state of being not in pain. When my brother beat me, I cried. Upon hearing my cry my mother came and consoled me. I cried even more because I did not have her presence when my brother beat me. You know what you are deprived of that which you should have had. 

An example from a familial circle would also reveal the experiential, often untold sufferings of the voiceless and silent. It is enough to take the case of an abusive or a drunken husband. He can either subject his wife to physical or sexual abuse. A wife pinned in by the circumstances of her life sobs within without making any fuss about it. She does not sue him because she has a growing girl child, her future, her education, etc. A phenomenological look into most of the Indian families would reveal the silent sobs of many. This is a reality that goes on in many average Indian families (esp. in a patriarchal society). The husband is licensed to do anything to his wife as he likes. If the wives in Indian families behave like those in the west, I am sure that the number of divorces and broken families could be even more in India than anywhere else. In this situation many a woman silently suffer the injustices done to them with no fault of their own. Many of them show a sense of meaning, because they live for their children without giving into depression or meaninglessness. According to the recent census on depression conducted by WHO reveals that depression with suicidal tendencies is high among Indians especially more among women than in men (The Times of India, 10/10/2012). The girls especially in Kerala are raised in view of preparing her to be a good house-wife in another home. Once she is given in marriage, the house where she goes as a daughter-in-law might perhaps hear: you are only an added member to this family, never born in it (nee ivide kerivannavalanu) – a guest who does not belong to anywhere. Can you see the pain of being homeless, being objectified, being in a home where you do not belong? This is the feeling of the homelessness of the home. What a strange world! Yet with pain we must move on and this pain reveals a great lesson in life – if we do not belong to this world, we belong somewhere, we are beloveds of someone and that someone is the UNCEASING LOVE INCARNATED IN THE FLESH – JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH. He would not perhaps undergo the pain of being betrayed, misunderstood, rejected, disowned, and finally a death of a criminal, if not to make a declaration of love: I own you even at the cost of my death.

In understanding the riddle of pain, we must consider it as an existent reality that always insists upon being attended to. We can avoid pleasure but not pain. When you get a burn on your finger, the first natural reaction is to ease the pain of the burn by wetting it with saliva. Similarly when there is an accident, the very first thing is first aid, attending to the injured. This is with the aspect of physical pain. Now what about mental or emotional pain? They are intrinsically calling out to be attended to at the earliest. C. S. Lewis in his book, The Problem of Pain says “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” According to Lewis, this pain can give rise to two possible responses: one can rebel with the possibility of a deeper repentance at some later stage or else one can make some attempt at an adjustment, which if one follows, will eventually lead one to religion.

We also find the aspect of pain in the animal kingdom. It is mostly characterized by ‘preying upon another’ for the will to survive. But one might ask, how can animals feel pain since they have no consciousness like ours? The characteristic of ‘preying upon another’ is well depicted by Schopenhauer in his book the World as Will and Representation in the following manner:

He speaks of an European explorer. He sees an immense field entirely covered with skeletons, and took it to be a battlefield. However they were nothing but skeletons of large turtles, five feet long, three feet broad, and of equal height. These turtles come this way from the sea, in order to lay their eggs, and are then seized by wild dogs; with their united strength, these dogs lay them on their backs, tear open their lower armour, the small scales of the belly, and devour them alive. But then a tiger often pounces on the dogs. Now all this misery is repeated thousands of times, year in, year out. The explorer asks, for this then, are these turtles born? For what offence must they suffer this agony? [Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, trans., E. F. Payne, vol.2 (New York: Dover Publications, 1966), 354.]

If pain is a preying upon another in the animal kingdom with the will to survive, in the world of humans pain is caused by the unwilling will to surrender the self-will to its creator. The solution to pain lies in this fact. Lewis would say that the highest good of a creature is to surrender its self-will to the creator. God is great because He took great risk in creating a creature that would turn away from him.  

Finally to end: We must always understand two things: Man can be understood only in relation to God and animals in relation to man…