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The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis

Love is arguably one of the greatest things in the world. From a social perspective, love
has been able to bring people together that share a common interest, passion, or
value. Furthermore, it has been a central force in unity and intimacy between people.
From a religious perspective, namely Christianity, love is one of the main pillars that
hold the world and brings salvation to humans. Through God’s grace and love, he sent
his only son Jesus to earth in order to die on the cross for our salvation. Because of
love, we were saved.
In the book The Four loves written by C.S. Lewis, he explores love in many different
aspects, situations and viewpoints. He illustrates love as a multi-facet concept that
extends below popular conception.
Need/Gift Love
In the first chapter, Lewis starts off by introducing the concept of Need-Love versus
Gift-Love, where Need-Love is the need for love and affection from someone else, such
as a single adult seeking a partner or companionship. Gift-Love on the other hand is
when someone gives love without expecting anything in return. The best example of
Gift-Love is God’s love for humanity. With these two fundamental concepts in mind,
Lewis then goes on to explore the different faces of love.
Pleasures
Since the consequence or result of love is pleasure, Lewis explores the nature of
pleasure by introducing Need-Pleasure and Pleasures of Appreciation. Need-Pleasure is
a necessity such as hunger for food or thirst for water, whereas Pleasures of
Appreciation is the appreciation for certain things that aren’t necessary yet bring
pleasure to a person, such as the love of nature. Stemming from Pleasures of
Appreciation, Lewis developed a new type of love called Appreciative Love, where it
isn’t yearned for or unconditional, but simply appreciative when we encounter it.
Love
In the remaining four chapters, Lewis breaks down love into four components, which
come from the four words for love in Greek: Storge, which is Affection; Philia, which is
Friendship; Eros, which is Romance; and Agape, which is Unconditional Love.
Affection
Affection is a type of love that is built upon familiarity with one another. It is the type
of love that family members have and is very prominent as it does not require any
traits or characteristics that need be qualified or worthy of being loved. However on
the contrary, affection can very often be corrupted such as when people can take each
other for granted and treat them badly while using affection as an excuse for such
behavior. People can also be jealous when there is change in the person of affection.
Another possibility is people becoming addictive or abusive to affective through
constantly giving affection (Gift-Love) while expecting the return of it (Need-Love).
When family members spend a majority of their time together, they become very
intimate through Affection. As a result, family members may believe they can treat
each other more rudely due to the intimacy they have built through affection.
However, this can often cause conflicts among family members and even potentially
destroy these relationships.
Friendship
Friendship is a type of love that is between friends, where they share a common
interest or passion for something. Lewis argues that friendship between opposite
genders is very difficult to achieve due to the educational or occupational differences.
Lewis describes it as the “least natural of loves” since friendship is not necessary and
not driven by and biological or emotions needs. As a result of being not necessary,
friendship is categorized by Lewis as being an Appreciative Love, where it is nice to
have, however not a necessity. Nevertheless, a crucial risk of friendship is the
possibility of cliqueyness and pride formed from a group of people with a strong
common bond for a certain thing. As a result, this group of people may separate
themselves from everyone else and claim they are of higher status, or elite. When a
group of people separates themselves for everyone else, people might despise their
pride and arrogance, which can lead to conflicts.
Romance
Romance is the love most commonly understood by people, the state of “being in
love” with someone. Lewis specifically points out and distinguishes Venus, or sexuality,
from Eros. Venus can be characterized as the desire for a women’s body and is
associated more with one’s animal or biological instincts. On the other hand, Eros is
characterized as the emotion desire to being with a women. It is said that Eros can lead
to Venus, however Venus could also lead to Eros. Lewis here discuss what some people
believe that the potential downfall of Eros from extensive sex. Indeed is a very possible
that in modern day society, people may because addicted to the biological desires to
the point where they forget the emotion side of a relationship, therefore using the
person only for such purpose. However Lewis opposes this idea and states that it is the
distractions of other things in that person’s context that will lead to the downfall of
Eros. The true danger of Eros is when the person who gives loves starts to picture
himself as transcended into God, or as a paradigm of Charity.
Charity
Charity is the unconditional love that exists regardless of the circumstance. Lewis
describes this type of love as the greatest of all loves, as it comes from God. All other
types of love may or may not try to mimic Charity in some way, however can never
reach that level. Lewis stated that our loves are “inordinate”, or out of proportion. If
we look as the God and love, we can see Charity as a combination of Gift-love for God
and others, Need-Love for God and others, and Appreciative Love. God unifies all our
natural loves towards an ideal. Our loves are broken, just as people sin. However,
Charity comes with forgiveness, and we should look to God for his grace so that we can
work towards transforming our loves to be more like God’s love.
Jesus as the Son of God gives such type of love when he was crucified on Calvary. Jesus
went through the sufferings as a human in order to bring salvation to the people of the
world. From the religious perspective, Jesus died on the cross so he could rise again
and make way between heaven and earth, leading those who believed in him to
eternal life.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this book introduces the different types of natural loves that we
experience as a human being. However, as described by Lewis, every type of natural
love that we experience comes with a certain degree of risk. A majority of our natural
love is rooted in our biological nature, therefore we are driven by our biological needs
when seeking or giving love. Also, love can have a close resemblance to the love of
God, yet some people tend to confuse the two and think resemblance is the way to
God. Thirdly, love can potentially be corrupted and may manifest itself into a demonic
form. As a result, we need a higher love that is the love of God, in order to fulfill and
order them and give them a reason for existence.