Love In C. S. Lewis 'The Four Loves'

1575 Words4 Pages

The two greatest biblical commandments speak of love. Jesus said:
‘AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.’ The second is this, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ There is no other commandment greater than these (New American Standard Bible, Mark.30-31).
When self is cold, self gets a blanket. When self is hungry, self eats. And Jesus calls everyone to love their neighbor the same as themselves. Neighbors do not only reside next door; neighbors include the addict, the enemy. the entitled one, the selfish, the destitute, and the beggar. It is natural, and quite often easy, for one to love his or her own parents, children, and family because …show more content…

In The Four Loves, he describes love that humans often seek in romantic relationships and friendships called “need love,” which is often a void that desires to be filled in one’s life. In contrast, he describes “gift love,” in which he claims humans have an abundance of joy and goodness that is desired to be shared and given to others. He believed that the need love was a preparation for the gift love, and that the gift love was the ultimate purpose in life. He believed that need love gives humans the ability to love more generously and sacrificially in the charitable pursuit of others’ well-being, securing the good life God has designed. “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained” (quoted in Meilaender …show more content…

To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives (qtd. in Mackinnon 532).
Dr. King pointed out that the love he is referring to is not the sentimental or affectionate sort, “it would be nonsense to urge men to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense,” he recognized. Greeks called this type of love agape. King explained it this way:
[...] understanding, redeeming good will for all men. It is an overflowing love which is purely spontaneous, unmotivated, groundless, and creative. It is not set in motion by any quality or function of its object… Agape is disinterested love. It is a love in which the individual seeks not his own good, but the good of his neighbor. Agape does not begin by discriminating between worthy and unworthy people, or any qualities people possess. It begins by loving others for their sakes. It is an entirely “neighbor-regarding concern for others,” which discovers the neighbor in every man it meets. Therefore, agape makes no distinction between friends and enemy; it is directed toward both. If one loves an individual merely on account of his friendliness, he loves him for the sake of the benefits to be gained

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Paul's First Letter To The Corinthians

    1573 Words  | 4 Pages

    It is a lesson that Jesus reiterates during his ministry, and places great emphasis upon. When asked which is the greatest commandment in the law, Jesus replies, “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart… And a second is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.’” (Matthew 22:37,39-40) That loving one’s neighbor comes second to loving God Himself illustrates the importance of this fundamental doctrine. Jesus develops this principle further by explicitly expanding it to include enemies as well as neighbors. “You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. ' But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.” (1 Cor. 5:43-45) Jesus ties being a child of God to loving one’s neighbors as well as his enemies. This further emphasizes the significance of this act, and justifies why it is such a core element of Paul’s

    Read More

  • Tattoos On The Heart Of Boundless Compassion Analysis

    968 Words  | 2 Pages

    Drawing a distinction between being for someone and being with someone, Father Boyle writes: “Jesus was not a man for others. He was one with others. Jesus didn’t seek the rights of lepers. He touched the leper even before he got around to curing him. He didn’t champion the cause of the outcast. He was the outcast.” Such a distinction has significant implications for understanding ourselves in relation to others. While being for someone implies a separateness, a distinction between “them” and “us”, being with someone requires the recognition of a oneness with another, a unity that eradicates differences and binds people together. “’Be compassionate as God is compassionate’, means the dismantling of barriers that exclude,” writes Father Boyle. Accordingly, true compassion is not only recognizing the pain and suffering of others – it is not just advocating for those in need. It is being with others in their pain and suffering – and “bringing them in toward yourself.” Indeed, scripture scholars connect the word compassion to the “deepest part of the person,” showing that when Jesus was “moved with pity”, he was moved “from the entirety of his

    Read More

  • The Screwtape Letters - Types of Love

    1312 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis addresses a position on love that is seldom heard, yet universally felt. Screwtape makes a very clear distinction between his ideal of love and true love. If we take what Screwtape thinks love is, and reverse the teaching completely, all that is left is the love that God approves of. The purest and most sought after love is God’s. Love has been divided by C.S. Lewis into five ways. One way, taught in The Screwtape Letters is “being in love”. The other four ways is taught through The Four Loves: Affection, friendship (philia), romantic love (eros), and Agape love. Understanding the difference between the lo...

    Read More

  • How The Television Entices Me To Break The Ten Commandments

    785 Words  | 2 Pages

    The First Commandment. The first commandment is Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

    Read More

  • The Agape: The Four Types Of Love

    1434 Words  | 3 Pages

    Agape is the highest of the four types of love in the Bible. This term defines God’s immeasurable, incomparable love for humankind. It is the divine love that comes from God. Jesus Christ demonstrated this kind of love in its highest form (Zavada 2017). Many people may feel they show true Agape, but when it becomes terrifying they will stay away from this kind of love; however, it may come from meeting a stranger for the first time. Unfortunately, you don’t count your true friends until you find those who will show you Agape as it is believed Christ showed to his Father in Heaven. The true love between friends and family members usually ends at the level of Philia or Storge and only few will generate into Agape. For one to proclaim Agape without being misinterpreted, one needs to first show another love called Philautia, a Greek word for Self-love. Absolutely, you cannot share what you do not have. If you do not love yourself, you cannot love anyone else either. The only way to be content is to find that unconditional love within you. Only once you learn to love and understand yourself, will you be ready to search for the spiritual freedom of the Self (Sol

    Read More

  • Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble and Coming of Age in the Bronx

    875 Words  | 2 Pages

    middle of paper ... ... The Agape love style shows unselfish concern along with physical sacrifice and nurturing for others. Nowhere in either of these two relationships could it be said that there was an Agape love style shown. In truth, it appears that no relationships that occurred in Random Family, whether it be with a significant other or within a family unit itself, had the aspects of an Agape style love in them.

    Read More

  • John Steinbeck's East of Eden - The Character of Adam Trask

    1223 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Webster's Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language, the word love is defined as a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person. Love can bring two people together but it can also have a person be rejected by another because of love. In the novel East of Eden by John Steinbeck, the main character, Adam Trask, confronts a feeling of love throughout the whole book but he either rejects the love of people who care about him or has his love rejected by the people that he cares about. When Adam was a young man in the beginning of the novel, his father, Cyrus Trask loved him but Adam did not love him back and when Adam went into the army he did not come back home until his father's death. Later on in the story Adam really loved his wife, Cathy, but she didn't love him back and so when she tried to leave him and he would not let her, she shot him. Even though Adam survived he was demoralized for most of his life because he still loved her. Through Adam's experiences of love in the novel, John Steinbeck shows that Adam Trask has an inability to handle love.

    Read More

  • Kierkegaard: "Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself" as a Basis for Ethics

    2450 Words  | 5 Pages

    "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." [Matthew 22:37-40, AV]

    Read More

  • Gottfried's Discourse In Romeo And Juliet

    513 Words  | 2 Pages

    He also says earlier that he has “suffered the sweet torment” (202) little in his life, implying that he either recognizes the true nature of love or that he has not experienced much love at all. The former is more likely, as it emphasizes that he is somehow an expert on love because he has not felt great pain from it. He actually does very little to define how love should be practiced, which is both interesting and frustrating. He only says, although not directly, that two people often enter a relationship expecting it to be easy and all sunshine and roses (he uses an actual metaphor about roses to explain this), when it is actually hard work. To explain this point, he suggests that the couple expects to grow roses, when they actually grow “deadly nightshade” (202).

    Read More

  • The Role Of Erotic Love In Beverly Jenkins's Indigo

    582 Words  | 2 Pages

    Agape love is Greek concept that refers to a love that is "unconditional, self-sacrificing, and volitional" ("Agape"). Eros love is a Greek concept that refers to a love that is "passionate… [and includes] sensual desire and longing" ("Agape"). Eros can essentially be comprehended as erotic love. From the start of the novel, Jenkins uses the concept of agape love to counter "negative historiography by highlighting [Wyatt's] meaningful agape efforts" (151 Dandridge).

    Read More

  • Love in Desire's Baby, The Passionate Shepherd to His Love, and The Nymph's Reply to the Shepherd

    1063 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...gh love is a personal feeling it still needs, most of the time, society’s acceptance to become concrete. If society and its norms judge that a love shouldn’t happen and that it isn’t real (even if it is) it usually will not work out, it will be destined to fail. It is said that “all you need is love”, but that is rarely the case. Most people feel like they need acceptance and that will not happen if they break society’s norms, even love is subordinate to those norms.

    Read More

  • Language In Lauren Oliver's 'Delerium'

    1601 Words  | 4 Pages

    This is just another way that the leaders of this society try to make people believe that love is a disease and is reminiscent of the ‘Newspeak dictionary’ in Nineteen Eighty-Four (which is in its eleventh edition like ‘The Book of Shhh’ which is in its ‘twelfth edition’, perhaps indicating that the various ‘symptoms’ of love have been ever increasingly over dramatised in each new

    Read More

  • Interpretation of Love in Plato’s Symposium

    1776 Words  | 4 Pages

    The meaning of love is as intricate and unique as the purpose that it serves. It seems that the nature of love is found in the mind, the body and the soul. In Plato’s Symposium each member of the drinking party gives their own interpretation of love. As each speaker engages in their discourse, the concept of love is evaluated from different angles. According to Phaedrus, homoerotic love is the highest form of love and that sacrificing oneself for love will result in a multitude of rewards from the gods, while Pausanias believes that there are two forms of love: Commonly and Heavenly. As a physician, Eryximachus claims that love appears in every part of the universe, including plants and animals and that protection results from love. Before starting his speech, Aristophanes tells the group that his discussion about love may seem completely absurd, as he explains that in the beginning one body had two people who were eventually split in half by Zeus. This is meant to explain why people are constantly looking for their “other half”. Moreover Agathon, the poet the symposium is celebrating, critiques the previous speakers by stating that they failed to praise the god of love. He claims that love rejects feebleness and embraces youthfulness while also implying that love creates justice, courage and wisdom.

    Read More

  • Emotional Intelligence and Empathy in Leadership

    1708 Words  | 4 Pages

    ... love your neighbor as yourself,” (www.biblegateway.com/NIV, 2011). The only command higher than this is that you love the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. God values the feelings and emotions of all humanity, likewise, we should as well.

    Read More

  • Agape Love

    1719 Words  | 4 Pages

    What is love? I remember a time when “I love you” was the hardest phrase to say to the person you really had feelings for because you knew when you said those words it would change the course of your relationship forever. But what is the true meaning of love? “The dictionary defines love as a feeling of strong personal attach-ment induced by sympathetic understanding or by ties of kindred; ardent affection for one’s children; man’s adoration for God; strong liking; fondness; good will, al love of learning; love of country.” (Bell, pg. 10) According to Bell all of these definitions convey the outward appearance of love. He says that when looking at love that we need to take an inventory of our feeling to find out if we are truly displaying the type of love that God calls agape love. Bell says we need to ask ourselves the following questions: Do I return love? In any relationship love is a two way street. A marriage or relationship will not last very long if only one person is showing love and the other is not responding in kind. As a matter of fact, a spiritual relationship works in pretty much the same way. The bible says that God first loved us, but if we do not return that love to Him the relationship may diminish. As a Christian we must first love the unsaved person just enough to go to them and share the good news of the gospel. Then after that person has received the gospel of Jesus it is then up to them to accept it and return the love by giving their life to Christ. “Ministry is the first stage of this exchange of love.” (Bell, Pg 11)

    Read More

More about Love In C. S. Lewis 'The Four Loves'

Open Document