"The Four Loves: An Exploration of the Nature of Love" by CS Lewis

"We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves."


This quote was the first of MANY that I underlined for future reference.  For me, there were so many beautiful moments to this book.  CS Lewis has such a gift for articulating feeling into words.  I found this book to be very informative, and interesting.  However, it was definitely one of those books that I had to give my undivided attention if I wanted to get anything out of my reading for the day.  Sometimes it was like a textbook, where you have to read the same sentence six times before you internalize it.  And that is to say nothing against CS Lewis, as I think him to be a brilliant writer - his style is just so different from what we are used to today, that it took my full focus to really digest what I was reading.  But overall, I really enjoyed this book.

So now onto the more specific, breakdown...

In the introduction, Lewis says:

"I still think that if all we mean by our love is a craving to be loved, we are in a very deplorable state."

This comment stuck with me for several reasons.  First off - how true! It is not enough in life to want only for others to love us.  True joy in love comes from the ability and opportunity to love others.  But then, secondly, I thought about how very common it is for us to experience "a craving to be loved" over a natural love.  I would by lying if I said I had never been in this position.  The sad truth is that it happens every time I watch a chick-flick.  At the end of the movie when the heroine finally gets the guy and the camera does a slow zoom out of them kissing - my first thought is always "Ugh! I just want a man!"  There is honestly never a moment when I think about the love that I do have in my life or a second where I take the time to be grateful for that love.  In those moments, I always think of the love I do not have, and how much I wish I had it.  I crave that perfectly scripted romantic comedy and somehow label that as love.

I am glad that Lewis put this comment so early on it the book.  It was very beneficial to me to make that discovery about myself in enough time to consciously be thinking of what I can do to better love as I went through this book.

We have to keep in mind though, that this "craving to be loved" is not unusual and we cannot be blamed or feel guilty for experiencing it.

"...our whole being by its very nature is one vast need..."

We must remember that Need-love is normal and one of the natural loves.  It is, however, when Need-love becomes the main, or only, love, that we have a problem.  We must be able to find a balance between all the loves - always striving for that God like love of Charity.

I loved how Lewis discussed the way human love deems itself God-like.

"Every human love, at its height, has a tendency to claim for itself a divine authority.  Its voice tends to sound as if it were the will of God Himself.  It tells us not to count the cost, it demands of us a total commitment, it attempts to over-ride all other claims and insinuates that any action which is sincerely done 'for love's sake' is thereby lawful and even meritorious."

How many of us have not known someone whose human love was like this?  I think we see it all the time, especially when young kids and teenagers claim they are in love.  This obsession with the idea of love drives them to believe it is power above all else and therefore, their actions are justified - even when we, and they, know them to be wrong.  I can't help but think of The Little Mermaid..."But Daddy, I love him!"  Ariel justified her disobedience with her love for the prince - as if it needed no other explanation and was not deserving of punishment.  I love The Little Mermaid as much as the next girl, but this is a prime example.

Lewis follows up this idea by saying:

"We may give our human loves the unconditional allegiance which we owe only to God...Then they will destroy us, and also destroy themselves.  For natural loves that are allowed to become gods do not remain loves.  They are still called so, but can become in fact complicated forms of hatred."



In the first chapter, Lewis expounds more on the dangers of harboring only Need-loves.  He states:

"...the Need-love...will not last longer than the need.  ...where Need-love is left unaided we can hardly expect it not to 'die on us' once the need is no more."

It is, therefore, important for us to enjoy and employ the other forms of love. In fact, most of the loves, in a sense, are Need-loves - for they need other loves to exist.  Lewis says of Affection:

"It is a Gift-love but it needs to be needed."

The chapter on Affection was one of my favorites.  To me, Affection seemed like such a pure and God-like love on its own, because...

"This warm comfortableness, this satisfaction in being together, takes in all sorts of objects. ...It ignores the barriers of age, sex, class and education."

What a beautiful thing! And how many of us can claim never to have felt this?  I think it manifests itself daily in friendships, or endearments towards neighbors, coworkers and peers - and this because...

"The especial glory of Affection is that it can unite those who most emphatically, even comically, are not [made for one another]; people who, if they had not found themselves put down by fate in the same household or community, would have had nothing to do with each other."

Affection can be given by anyone to anyone else.  It is the basis for all love....

"But Affection is often assumed to be provided, ready made, by nature; 'built-in,' 'laid-on,' 'on the house.'  We have a right to expect it.  If the others do not give it, they are 'unnatural.'"

We cannot force people to love us, and the unfortunate truth is that not everyone will.  We cannot expect them to.  Do you love everyone you come in contact with? Ideally, we would - in a perfect Christlike manner, but I will be the first to admit that I have fallen short in that area.  I do not have Affection for everyone I meet.

"For the very same conditions of intimacy which make Affection possible also - and no less naturally - make possible a peculiarly incurable distaste; a hatred as immemorial, constant, unemphatic, almost at times unconscious, as the corresponding form of love. ...The 'built-in' or unmerited character of Affection thus invites a hideous misinterpretation.  So does its ease and informality." 

We cannot allow this however to taint our desire or appreciation for Affection, as...

"Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our natural lives."

But...

"Affection produces happiness if - and only if - there is common sense and give and take and 'decency.' In other words, only if something more, and other, than Affection is added. ..If we try to live by Affection alone, Affection will 'go bad on us.'"



The next chapter was Friendship.  There were a lot of very interesting things I found in this particular chapter as well, the first being Lewis' idea that...

"...very few modern people think Friendship a love of comparable value or even a love at all."

This surprised me.  I have had the blessing in my life to experience friendships that can be described as no less than Love itself.  It seems odd to me that people would not consider Friendship to be love at all.  I identify more with "the Ancients," about whom Lewis said:

"To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue.  The modern world in comparison ignores it."

I still find the accusation of the modern world shocking.  For anyone who has experienced the true love of Friendship, you know that it cannot be ignored.  Though, I think Lewis has a point.  He lived in different times than we do now, but if you look at our own era - what real friendships still exist?  We do everything via technology.  Even this book club is online where we don't actually have to interact with one another. Today, the definition of Friendship seems to be whether or not someone follows you on online social networks.  And what a shame!  Because true, human, interactive friendships are some of the most powerful things I have ever experienced.  And, Lewis agrees when he states:

"...few value it because few experience it."

It is no less true today than when this book was written.  If anything, it is more true. Friendship is something we should all have the opportunity to experience, for, as Lewis put it...

"It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival."

Lewis labels Friendship as the most spiritual of the loves - calling it almost angelic - and I am inclined to agree.



The next chapter, Eros, I found less appealing than the others, and perhaps that is because I don't think I have ever personally experienced this kind of love.  I did however, find many part of Eros to be beautiful.  I loved when Lewis quoted Charles Williams who said:

"Love you? I am you."

That particular quote reminded me of my favorite novel "Wuthering Heights" by Emily Bronte, in which the character Cathy gives a stunning speech about her love for Heathcliff stating "I am Heathcliff!"

I loved when Lewis called Eros...

"...both pathetically and absurdly beautiful."

I find this to be true, especially in regards to some of his other musings.  For instance:

"...it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on any other terms."

"To meet the Beloved is to realize, 'We loved before we were born.'"

To me these things are simultaneously ridiculously pathetic and "absurdly beautiful."



The final chapter, Charity, was one that I am not sure I can do justice to.  So let me just share some of my favorite gems...

"Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. ...There is no safe investment.  To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. ...[however] Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. ...If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it."

"It is probably impossible to love any human being simply 'too much.'"

"There is of course a sense in which no one can give to God anything which is not already His; and if it is already His what have you given? But since it is only too obvious that we can withhold ourselves, our wills and hearts, from God, we can, in that sense, also give them."

"There is something in each of us that cannot be naturally loved. ...We can be forgiven, and pitied, and loved in spite of it, with Charity; no other way."

"By loving Him more than them we shall love them more than we now do."



I really thought this book was an excellent exploration of the human nature towards love and I hope that each of you have gained from it as much as I have.  Please add to the discussion by commenting below.  I look forward to reading what you took out of this book!

To end, I will quote once again, the brilliant CS Lewis...

"If anything in it is useful to you, use it; if anything is not, never give it a second thought."