Page 32 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 24

Alan G. Palmer (UK) is a Canadian/Bri�sh citzen. He has worked in the
UK, Belgium and Canada as a Pastor. He was Member of the Senior
Management Team at a Theological College in London. He has more
recently been a Wellbeing Advisor, Faculty Member of our Hospital's
Postgraduate Medical
Educa�on Program, Lecturer in Psychology and Mental Health; Ad-
junct Professor at Ambrose University in Calgary, Associate Lecturer in
Advanced Ethics for ERMC based at Westminster College, Cambridge.
He was also a Lead Chaplain for the NHS for eight years. He is now se-
miretred. With his wife Val he live on the East Coast in the UK.
Educated:
London School of Theology, Regent College Graduate School, Vancou-
ver; Oxford University, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, Wesley
House, Cambridge and the University of Greenwich.

Former contribu�ons:
h�ps://emcapp.ignis.de/21/#p=59

The Mystery of Pain: An A�empted Interface between Psychology,

Theology, Literary and Biblical Studies

∑∑
“Yet Man is born is born to trouble as the familiar takes on an uncanny strangeness’. 2
surely as sparks fly upward.” Job 5:7 As Lewis notes, whatever our a�tude toward
3
pain, ignoring it is not a viable op�on . Morris’
“Seventy years are given to us! Some even words resonate with Lewis’ idea here when he
live to eighty. But even the best years will says that ‘Pain is part of life. Pain is as elemen-
4
be filled with pain and trouble...” Psalm 90 tal as fire and ice.’ In reviewing the imperfec-
�on of evolu�on, Hurst recognizes that evolu-
“Vita vacuous morsus est non vita.” – “Life �on and adapta�on works by things going
without pain is not life.” wrong, causing pain etc. He notes that things
must fall apart before adapta�on can be
achieved. Failure and the resul�ng pain and
1
As C. S Lewis wrote in 1949 , there is a problem suffering seem to be hardwired into life itself.
with pain. It is a mystery, it comes in many Hurst summarizes, ‘imperfec�on seems to be
forms, the causes are innumerable, it can seem hard-wired into evolu�on. If it were not so
to be beyond human control, and it can impact there would be no space for adapta�on and
the whole of life and every conceivable rela- development, improvement and progress’. 5
�onship. Yet this pan-human experience is not
easy even to define. It seems to hide behind a And one more unse�ling thought needs to
curtain of mystery. As David Morris writes in be understood. In this life pain and suffering
The Culture of Pain, ‘Pain is necessarily veiled will never be fully vanquished. In a podcast
– because to a physician, pain is a puzzle, but
to a pa�ent it is a mystery, a landscape where
nothing looks en�rely familiar and where even 2 David Morris cited in Melanie Thernstrom, The Pain Chronicles.
3 C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
4 David Morris cited in Thernstrom
1 C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain. 5 Laurence D Hurst, The Evolu�on of Imperfec�on.

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