by Bernard Unti, Ph.D.
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| Arthur Strong/1947 |
| C.S. Lewis |
C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), the Irish theologian and author of "The Chronicles of Narnia" (1949-1954), was a strong advocate for animals. He wrote of his concern about cruelty in "The Problem of Pain" (1940), an attempt to address the issue of suffering from a theological perspective.
"The Problem of Pain" was Lewis's contribution to theodicy—the branch of theology and philosophy that seeks to show that the presence of evil or suffering in the world does not conflict with the belief in a benevolent and omnipotent God.
Pain was an evil, Lewis concluded from his perspective as a Christian rationalist, but in the case of human experience it served a purpose. God allows bad things to happen because the world is fallen and because humans often make wrong choices. Through pain and misfortune, Lewis asserted, human beings are molded by God, and made more willing to give more to God of their own free will. Through pain, Lewis argues, humans can enter Heaven.
Of course, this line of thought doesn't work for a discussion of animal pain, as Lewis understood.
"The problem of animal suffering is appalling; not because the animals are so numerous," he observed, "but because the Christian explanation of human pain cannot be extended to animal pain. So far as we know beasts are incapable either of sin or virtue; therefore they can neither deserve pain nor be improved by it."
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| The Problem of Pain, 1940 |
Understanding the challenge posed by the existence of animal pain to his philosophy, Lewis ventured theological speculations that to the contemporary reader are, alas, unsatisfying. He rests his thinking about the abuse and mistreatment that animals suffer in the world on a notion of satanic corruption, and his ideas about their futurity on a conjecture that animals gain their immortality, if they gain it, through their relationship to humans.
What's truly important, though, is that Lewis did not resign himself to accept or to approve a world in which animal misery and cruelty occurs, or a theology that assigned no weight or concern to their suffering. Lewis's comments about animal awareness and consciousness place him well ahead of his time, and he was, moreover, a straight-on critic of utilitarian rationalizations for cruelty.
In "The Problem of Pain," and elsewhere, Lewis was a staunch defender of the proposition that those who felt sympathy for animals personified Christianity's highest ideals. There is no doubt that he viewed animal suffering as a matter of deep import for modern religion.
In the "Narnia" novels and the popular films that followed, including the recently released "Prince Caspian," animals are significant as symbolic figures, and to some extent they take the place of humans in the creation story.
Animals were also an important presence in Lewis's own life. Those who visited him at home in England entered a realm where cats and dogs reigned. And in correspondence with a woman who admitted her thrill at the feel of animal fur, he declared, "I feel just the same. I like them on the beasts of course."
Because he died in the early 1960s, Lewis did not live to see the surge of religious concern for animals that has characterized the last few decades. There can be no doubt, though, that he would have been pleased by a Vatican led by Pope Benedict, who has condemned the cruelties of factory farming, and a Church of England that has raised animal welfare issues to matters of serious inquiry.
With his earnest exploration of the question, Lewis moved the religious community forward toward a deeper understanding of animal suffering and its theological dimensions.
Bernard Unti, senior policy advisor and special assistant to the president, received his doctorate in U.S. history in 2002 from American University. His book, Protecting All Animals: A Fifty-Year History of The Humane Society of the United States, is available from Humane Society Press.
