What They Said

"Troubled by the non-problem of pain, most people do not feel the real problem. The real difficulty is the problem of pleasure. While in a sinful world, pain is to be expected, and pleasure is not to be expected. We should be constantly amazed at the presence of pleasure in a world such as ours.

It is easy to understand why this confusion has come about. Pain is a painful subject. Pleasure is a pleasurable subject. People do not like pain. They do like pleasure. And people associate problems with what they do not like. Because they do not like pain, they call it a problem.

The fact is that pain is no problem, whereas pleasure is an excruciating problem; and if one ever begins to think about that it can become intolerable. How could there be pleasure in a sinful world? People do not like thinking about pleasure in such a light because then they must admit their own sinfulness."

John Gerstner