Cs Lewis 4 Loves

Introduction:

C.S. Lewis writes about God-love and Gift-love and the differences between both. He starts off describing Need-love. The best I can describe Need-love is in this passage on page 2: "We are born helpless. As soon as we are fully conscious we discover loneliness. We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves." We can perceive Need-love to be selfish but as C.S. Lewis uses an example to describe how Need-love is not always selfish, "Need-love in consciousness- in other words, the illusory feeling that it is good for us to be alone- is a bad spiritual symptom; just as lack of appetite is a bad medical symptom because men do really need food." After this Lewis goes on to say that man's love for God is only and completely Need-love where as God's love for mankind is only and completely Gift-love. Lewis describes Gift-love as the Devine love. He also describes when man and God are the most alike, or when man gets nearer to God or is more like God. C.S. Lewis writes, "Man approaches God most nearly when he is in one sense least like God. For what can be more unlike than fullness and need, sovereignty and humility, righteousness and penitence, limitless power and a cry for help?" Then C.S. Lewis goes into describing love itself: "love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god" or "begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god." Lewis finishes his introduction saying, "Our Gift-loves are really God-like; and among our Gift-loves those are most God-like which are most boundless and unwearied in giving."

Likings and Loves for the Sub-human:

First C.S. Lewis starts talking about pleasures and relates them to the two loves we heard of in the introduction. One pleasure is one that is preceded by desire, or Need-pleasures. The other pleasure is one that pleasures on it's own right and don't need any preparation, Pleasures of Appreciation. Need-pleasure is described as, "the stat in which Appreciative pleasures end up when they go bad (by addiction)." Lewis also describes Need-pleasures as, "not hated once we have had them, but they certainly Ð''die on us' with extraordinary abruptness, and completely." Pleasures of Appreciation has not just pleased our senses but have gained our enjoyment without desire. Need-pleasures are like our Need-loves where as they run in relation to our own needs, but like Need-pleasures Need-love will not last longer than it is needed. C.S. Lewis describes Appreciative pleasure; "It is the starting point for our whole experience of beauty. It is impossible to draw a line below which such pleasures are Ð''sensual' and above which they are Ð''aesthetic'." Since this pleasure is not needed there is some room for disinterest in the pleasure in the beginning, but: "in the Appreciative pleasuresÐ'... we get something that we can hardly help calling love and hardly help calling disinterested, towards the object itselfÐ'.... We don not merely like the things; we pronounce them." Earlier there were two kinds of loves, Gift and Need, but there is a third part, Appreciative. C.S. Lewis describes Appreciative love, "When it is offered to a woman we call it admiration; when to a man, hero-worship; when to God, worship simply." None of these loves can exist with one another; in other words none of these loves can exist alone.

C.S. Lewis begins to talk about the love for nature, and touches on the fact that nature does not teach. Nature gives meaning. C.S. Lewis writes, "Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majestyÐ'... But nature gave the word glory a meaning for me." Nature gives us meaning in our speech. Gives us an understanding. Gives us something to compare with. C.S. Lewis says, "A true philosophy may sometimes validate an experience of nature; an experience of nature cannot validate a philosophy. Nature will not verify any theological or metaphysical propositionÐ'... she will help to show what it means." Many people make a mistake as C.S. Lewis explains here, "This love, when it sets up as a religion, is beginning to be a god- therefore to be a demon. And demons never keep their promises. Nature "dies" on those who try to live for a love of nature."

The love of nature is not the only kind of love that can turn demonic; love for one's country, patriotism, can turn demonic and can bring on wicked acts between countries; "Demonic patriotism in their subjectsÐ'... will make it easier for them to act wickedly; healthy patriotism may make it harder." There are three factors to whichever type of patriotism:

1. The love of home and of old acquaintance is the love for the place and the way of life at this place.

This love does not lead to any violent acts upon foreigners and does not promote xenophobia, but instead it, as C.S. Lewis states, "becomes militant only to protect what it lovesÐ'.... It produces a good attitude towards foreigners." C.S. Lewis also lands on other key points; "The last thing we want is to make everywhere else just like our own home. It would not be home unless it were different."

2. Attitude to our country's past (the great deeds of our ancestors) does not have as good credentials as the love of one's country.

3. C.S. Lewis writes, "A firm belief that our own nationÐ'... has long been, and still is markedly superior to all others."

4. C.S. Lewis writes, "If our nations is really so much better than others it may be held to have either the duties or the rights of a superior being towards them."

Once we end up with this idea we "reach the stage where patriotism in its demoniac form unconsciously denies itself." This is not a good form of patriotism. Patriotism is best described, as "A man who really loves his country will love her in her ruin and degeneration." C.S. Lewis goes on to say that these three do not only apply to one's country but to other things as well.

Affection:

Affection is, as C.S. Lewis describes it, "Love in which our experience seems to differ least form that of the animals" (p. 31). The Greeks call affection love storge. C.S. Lewis gives us an example of storge, which involves a women and her child. C.S. Lewis explains "The Need and Need-love of the young is obvious; so is the Gift-love of the motherÐ'....