The Four Loves

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 1 JOHN 4:7

In 1958 Lewis was invited to record a series of radio talks on love for an American audience. He used them as the basis for The Four Loves, published in 1960, the year Joy died. It is a mature book, the fruit of long reflection and of his own late and unexpected marriage, and it is one of the most searching things he wrote about the Christian life.

Need and gift

Lewis began with a distinction. There is the love that comes from need — the love of a child running to its mother, or of a lonely man for company, or of a sinner turning to God for mercy. And there is the love that gives — the love of a father working to provide for his family, or of anyone who spends himself for another’s good. We tend to think of gift-love as the higher, and in some ways it is; it is the love most like God’s. But Lewis insisted that need-love is not shameful. Our whole relationship with God begins with need. We come to Him because we are empty, and it is no part of humility to pretend otherwise.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled. MATTHEW 5:6

He also noticed a third element, the love that simply appreciates — that delights in something for its own sake, apart from any need it meets or any gift it can receive. This is the love that gazes at a mountain or listens to music and is glad that such a thing exists. In its highest form, it is the love that adores God simply because He is glorious.

Affection

The first of the four natural loves is affection, the love that grows between people who are familiar with one another: parents and children, brothers and sisters, old neighbours, even master and dog. The Greeks called it storge. It is the humblest and most widespread of the loves. It does not require the loved one to be admirable or attractive; it can grow between the most unlikely people, simply by sharing a life. It is the love behind most of the happiness in ordinary homes.

But affection has its dangers. Because it grows out of familiarity, it can take people for granted. Because it is so comfortable, it can turn into a kind of ownership, resentful of any change in the loved one. Lewis drew a memorable picture of a mother whose endless, unwanted service to her family was in truth a way of controlling them, and of people who were rude at home in a way they would never be to strangers, because affection had become an excuse for bad manners.

Friendship

The second is friendship, which the Greeks called philia. Lewis thought it had been badly neglected in modern times, partly because people mistook it for something else. Friendship, he said, arises when two or more people discover that they share some interest, insight or love — a subject, a question, a vision — that others around them do not share. Lovers are absorbed in each other. Friends are absorbed together in something else, and their friendship grows out of their common attention to it. That is why friendship, unlike romantic love, is not jealous; a third friend who shares the same interest adds to the circle rather than threatening it.

A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother. PROVERBS 18:24

Lewis knew friendship from the inside. His circle of friends, the Inklings, was one of the great joys of his life. But he also saw friendship’s danger. Because it is a love between a few who share something others do not, it can turn into a clique, proud and exclusive, looking down on outsiders. The very thing that makes friendship precious can make it a breeding ground of pride.

Eros

The third is eros, the love of being in love. Lewis was careful to distinguish it from mere sexual desire, which can exist without it. Eros is a love for a particular person, a longing to be united with the beloved, and in its first glow it can make a person forget himself entirely. It is one of God’s good gifts, and it is meant to find its fulfilment in marriage.

Lewis saw that eros, more than any other love, can present itself as a god. A person in love may feel that the love itself justifies anything — any betrayal, any broken vow, any cruelty to others. Eros speaks with the voice of eternity, and lovers vow that it will last for ever. But feeling alone cannot deliver on the vows it inspires. Left to itself, it fades. It must be governed and sustained by something greater than itself — by commitment, by faithfulness, and finally by charity — if it is to last.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death. SONG OF SOLOMON 8:6

Charity

The fourth love is charity, the love the New Testament calls agape. It is God’s own love, the love that gives without needing to receive, and it is not a natural human love at all. It is a gift of God, and it is meant to take up all the natural loves into itself, transforming them.

Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. 1 CORINTHIANS 13:4

Here Lewis made his central point. The natural loves are good, and they are images of the love of God. But when any one of them is made absolute — when we love family, friends or beloved as though they were God — the love turns destructive. A mother’s affection, a friend’s loyalty, a lover’s passion can all become idols, demanding everything and justifying anything. The cure is not to love less, but to love God first, so that all the natural loves take their proper place beneath Him. Only then can they become what they were meant to be.

Lewis was also clear that love always carries the risk of grief. A heart can be kept safe only by being kept to itself, and a heart kept to itself slowly hardens. The Christian does not avoid the risk. He accepts it, as Christ accepted it, and he finds that charity is strong enough to bear it.

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. JOHN 15:13

Weighing it

The Four Loves is a wise and humane book, and its teaching is consistent with Scripture. Its warnings against idolatrous love, its defence of friendship, and its insistence that all natural loves must be ordered under the love of God are of great value.

If anything is to be added, it is to bring the cross nearer the centre. Lewis described charity as the love that God gives and that we are to show; the New Testament defines it by pointing to the one place where it was fully shown.

Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down his life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 JOHN 3:16

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Think of the people you love with affection. Do you take any of them for granted, or try to control them? Ask God to show you.

2. Thank God for a friend who shares your deepest interests. Consider whether your friendships have become exclusive.

3. If you are married, ask whether your love is being sustained by faithfulness and charity, or only by feeling.

4. Is there a natural love in your life that has become an idol? Put it back beneath your love for God.

5. Read 1 Corinthians 13 slowly. Ask God to give you the love that it describes.

A PRAYER

Lord, You are love, and every love I know is a gift from You.

Thank You for the affection of family, the gift of friends, and the joy of human love. Forgive me where I have made any of them my god.

Fill me with Your own love, which suffers long and is kind, which gives without counting the cost.

Teach me to love You first, and to love others in You, as Christ loved us and gave Himself for us. Amen.