I am way behind on my book reports… i.e., thoughts about the most recent C.S. Lewis book I finished. We actually finished this one in the middle of August, then read another book by someone else, and now we’re reading the next book by C.S. Lewis. So, time to catch you up!!
At first glance, The Four Loves seems like it would be somewhat obvious. We know what love is, right? But, true to his form, C.S. Lewis digs deeper, gives more context, and really makes you think about how these different kinds of love play out in real life.
He identifies the four kinds of human love as affection, friendship, eros, and charity. He then unpacks the difference between Gift-love and Need-love, which I found especially interesting.
Page 21 — “When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply. Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve or even to suffer for, God; Appreciative love says: ‘We give thanks to thee for thy great glory.’”
Affection has its own criteria in that the object of our affection has to be familiar. Think of a mother and her child. Lewis points out that affection is the love that loves the unattractive, the stupid, and the exasperating. And honestly, I think most of us can probably relate to that!
Page 49 — “Affection opens our eyes to goodness we could not have seen, or should not have appreciated without it.”
He also claims that the modern world comparatively ignores the love of friendship. He says this kind of love is the least instinctual and is considered by some to not even be necessary. Friendship love may not be necessary for survival, but it is necessary for the matrix of community and connection.
Then there is Eros. This love isn’t just about sexual love, but is more aptly described by C.S. Lewis as desire. Sexuality may operate without Eros or as a part of Eros. A man who is falling in love with his beloved isn’t necessarily thinking about sex. He is just thinking about her. She herself is the object of his desire.
Page 120 — “Sexual desire without Eros, wants it, the thing in itself; Eros wants the Beloved.”
And then there is the fourth love: Charity, the love of God.
I felt like Lewis said this part best, so rather than try to explain what impacted me, I’ll share the words that stood out to me.
Page 156 — “We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.”
And then this one on page 180:
“Perhaps, for many of us, all experience merely defines, so to speak, the shape of that gap where our love of God ought to be. It is not enough. It is something.”
That last thought really stayed with me. Maybe that’s part of what I appreciate about reading C.S. Lewis. He takes something we think we already understand and turns it around just enough that we see it differently.
Have you read The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis? What do you remember? What impacted you?