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…
