The problem of reconciling human suffering with the existence of a God who loves is only insoluble so long as we attach a trivial meaning to the word 'love', and look on things as a man were the centre of them. Man is not the centre. God does not exist for the sake of man. Man does not exist for his own sake. 'Thou hast created all things, and for they pleasure they are and were created.' (Rev. 4:11) We were made not primarily that we may love God (though we were made for that too) but that God may love us, that we may become objects in which the Divine love may rest 'well pleased.' To ask that God's love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: ...What we would here and now call our 'happiness' is not the end God chiefly has in view: but when we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall, in fact, be happy.

About This Quote

About C.S. Lewis

C.S. Lewis was a 19th-century British writer, lay theologian, and scholar. Clive Staples Lewis was a British author, literary scholar and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Magdalen College, Oxford (1925–1954), and Magdalene College, Cambridge (1954–1963). Read more on Wikipedia →

More quotes by C.S. Lewis

Related Quotes