The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

Book Summary

This is a comprehensive summary of “The Four Loves” by C.S. Lewis. The book explores contemplations on affection, friendship, eros & charity.

what’s in it for me? understand the nature of love so you can grow closer to god#

Introduction

love.

it's a word we throw around a lot.

we might say we love pizza or swimming, when what we really mean is that we like pizza or swimming.

and in some languages, like french, the word for like and love is the same.

so what do we actually mean by love?

and is the love we feel for others the same as the love god has for us?

these are the questions author and theologian c.s. lewis set out to answer by sliding love under the microscope and teasing out its various forms, and then exploring them in the context of divine love.

i'm marston york from summarybook.org, and together we're going to look at the distinct types of love that lewis identified and how they can help us foster our relationship with god.

but even if you're not especially religious, unpacking the different types of love in your life can still help you to gain a deeper understanding of them.

c.s. lewis is probably most famous for his children's book the lion, the witch and the wardrobe.

different types of love can be categorized into two distinct groups, according to what motivates them#

lewis was a close friend of the author j.r.r. tolkien, who wrote lord of the rings.

they met while they were working in the english faculty at oxford university and were two of the founding members of inklings, a renowned literary discussion group.

tolkien was deeply religious, and his faith inspired lewis to renew his relationship with god after he'd abandoned christianity in his teens.

this return to the church had a huge impact on lewis's writing.

if you've read the lion, the witch and the wardrobe and you're familiar with christianity, you won't need anyone to point out how allegorical the story is.

but lewis didn't just explore his faith through novels about magical wardrobes and lions that rise from the dead.

he used writing as a way to meditate on and explore different aspects of christianity.

one subject that fascinated him was love.

when lewis set out to explore love in his work, he figured it to be fairly straightforward.

after all, the gospel according to john says that god is love.

simple, right?

well, not really.

as soon as lewis started unpacking that three-word explanation of love, he realised that love in its different forms could be categorised into two groups, depending on what was motivating it.

lewis called the first of these groups gift love.

gift loves are generous, boundless, and self-renewing.

they're what inspire you to care for the people who are important to you without expecting anything in return.

you see gift love in action when a parent tends to their child every single day.

when a partner comforts or supports the iir beloved.

or when a stranger reaches out to help someone in need.

gift loves also help you forgive someone who's hurt you.

this category of love reflects divine love, the love god has for us.

god is complete and abundant.

he gives his love to us endlessly.

even when we turn our backs on him, his love is still there, waiting for us to receive it if we open our hearts to him.

but while we can emulate god by practising gift love in different ways, we're far from complete and abundant.

we're riddled with yearnings that span all aspects of our being, from our minds and bodies to our emotions.

and this leads to the second classification group, which lewis called need love.

need loves arise from a place of lack or longing.

they can be greedy, desperate and demanding, or motivated by fear.

for instance, when a child is scared, they'll rush into the arms of their parent.

the need for comfort motivates them to seek out someone who makes them feel safe.

now, you're probably thinking that this category of love sounds pretty substandard compared to god-like gift love.

and yeah, that's totally reasonable.

but need loves play an important role not only in our relationships with others, but in our relationship with god.

we're going to explore that in more detail, but for now, let's focus on why need loves are so important.

think about a time when you've been hungry.

what have you done?

headed to the kitchen and made yourself a sandwich or grabbed a bite in a local cafe?

you eat your meal, your hunger goes away.

you have satisfied your need.

need loves operate in the same way, by motivating us to seek each other out when we're in need of comfort or advice.

the frightened child runs to its father.

or, in a moment of crisis, we ask god for his help.

or even if there isn't a crisis, we seek out god's wisdom and guidance so that we can better understand how we should live.

need loves stop us from drifting through the world, disconnected from each other and any source of knowledge.

in that way, they create a foundation that gift loves can then sit on, a bit like the way the roots of a tree support its trunk.

and when we meditate on how different types of love evolve, we can start to trace how need loves often grow into gift loves, ultimately inviting divine love into our hearts.

familiarity creates affection – the first type of love#

if you take a moment to think about the people in your life, you'll notice that you don't feel the same way about each of them.

some of them you may not like at all, but let's stick to people you feel positive about so that we can untangle the nature of love.

if you're lucky, there'll be a few core people you feel really deep love for.

your partner or your lover, perhaps.

your immediate family members, the children in your life.

then there'll be other people who are dear to you, like your friends.

but it might not end there.

you could have colleagues or mentors that are important to you, and a swag of other people who may not play a huge role in your life, but who you appreciate for the small moments of joy they bring.

so at this point, it's probably pretty obvious that not all the iterations of love you feel are the same, and distinguishing one from the other was exactly what lewis set out to do.

lewis decided that there were four distinct types of love, and we're going to take a look at each one step by step.

so let's begin with the first type, which lewis called affection.

it's often the earliest form of love we know when we're babies and we're relying on our parents for survival.

because of this, affection falls firmly in the category of need love, that classification we explored earlier.

affection is the most common type of love you'll experience, because it doesn't discriminate in the way that other loves do.

you can feel it for people you don't have much in common with at all, like the neighbour in your apartment building that you never socialise with but still like to chat to when you bump into each other in the hallway.

or you can feel affection towards someone who's completely different to you, the kind of person who'd drive you up the wall if you were in a close relationship, but who you have a fondness for anyway, maybe even because they're so different to you.

you can feel affection towards animals, too, and animals of different species can feel it for each other.

most of us have squealed with joy over youtube clips of chickens snuggling up to their doggy buddies, or cats who like hanging out with sheep.

familiarity is the basis of affection.

it grows between people who see each other regularly.

but unlike when we love a friend or partner we see all the time, affection isn't based on shared interests or heady passion.

the key difference is that we will choose our friends and lovers, but the people we feel affection for have randomly entered our lives.

and this is what makes affection so special.

it brings together people who wouldn't otherwise be close.

say, for instance, you move into a shared house and you don't know any of your housemates.

they might be wildly different from you, people you'd never normally cross paths with.

but over time, you start appreciating their quirks, and after a while, you realise you're quite attached to them.

because of this, affection plays an important role in broadening our minds.

being thrown together with people you haven't chosen gives you the chance to learn about other perspectives and experiences.

that's why it's important not to view affection as a lesser type of love.

the fact that it doesn't discriminate the way that friendships and romantic relationships do is precisely what makes it so valuable.

the problem with not choosing people means that sometimes we end up taking them for granted.

even if you haven't specifically chosen someone in your life, you still need to put the effort in.

just like in any other relationship, affection relies on kindness, patience and ongoing nurturing.

without that, well, we all know how quickly things go sour when someone feels taken for granted.

friendship, lewis's second love, also needs nurturing if it's going to survive.

friendship – the second love – unites us with kindred spirits#

but it couldn't be more different to affection.

where affection brings random strangers together, friendship is like a magnet that attracts like-minded people.

think about all the people you're friends with.

can you pinpoint a shared passion or interest that drew you to each of them?

perhaps you both shared a love for stamp collecting or you met because your interest in singing led you to join a choir.

or maybe you were both volunteering for a cause you feel deeply about and you connected that way.

well, friendship in the sense of lewis's loves is more than just companionship.

true friends are on a journey of some kind, pursuing that shared hobby or sport, fighting for that cause or practicing a shared faith or profession.

a key element of friendship is that friends support each other on this journey.

they're both invested in making the journey because they see the value in it and they want to help their friend on that journey too.

this makes friendship sit squarely in the gift-love category.

true friendship isn't driven by a need to be needed.

it's motivated by that shared passion.

we don't need our friends for survival in the way that we might need someone to feed us when we're young.

it also doesn't involve sexual need, which is part of eros, the love we'll look at next.

and so, free from the needs that hound other types of love, friends can just get on with being friends, working alongside each other as they pursue their mutual passion.

friendship doesn't just free us from that sense of need.

it also frees us from the labels that other types of love stick on us.

think back to a time when you discovered someone shared your passion.

in that moment, you didn't care about how old that person is, their personal history or how much money they made.

next, to your shared passion, all of your new friend's other characteristics became incidental.

over time, you learned more about this person, but none of those details were fundamental to forming or maintaining your friendship.

this means that when we're with our true friends, we can shake off other labels that we might carry around, like boss or parent or colleague or spouse.

and once we've done this, what remains is simply who we are.

in that raw essence, we can set off on our journey with our true friends.

and with them at our sides to cheer, support and guide us, we can become truer and truer to ourselves.

because of this, friendship brings out the best in us.

among a group of friends, you'll probably be humbled and amazed wondering how you managed to find such an incredible group of people who share something you love.

but in truth, they're going to be thinking exactly the same thing about you.

sadly, there is a fly in this otherwise fabulous ointment.

when we're surrounded by like-minded people, we run the risk of living in an echo chamber where our views are constantly affirmed by people who think the same way as us.

this means we're more likely to dismiss other points of view, for better or for worse.

it's one thing to ignore people who tell you that stamp collecting is dead boring and a complete waste of time.

but what if you ignored people who were offering you important new information like those brave early meteorologists who were trying to convince others that storms weren't made by witches?

that's why affection is an important way to temper the side effects of friendship.

when the two work in tandem, we can simultaneously foster our passions while keeping our minds open.

eros – or romantic love – teaches us how to love god#

now you probably know a few couples who started out as friends and then fell in love.

people who experience this transformation really are truly lucky.

they get to pursue their shared passion with someone who adores them.

and the icing on the cake, of course, is sex.

when lewis started meditating on the third love, romantic love, or eros, he needed to think about sex as well.

for many people, sex will be a component of eros.

but since you can have sex with people you're not in love with, sex itself doesn't necessarily indicate the presence of eros.

sexual desire in its purest form seeks out sensual pleasure.

but eros wants more.

it wants the beloved completely, and it wants the beloved specifically.

and no one else will do.

the sensual pleasure that the beloved might offer the lover in return during sex is almost incidental.

the lover's desire to admire, celebrate, and please their beloved outweighs their own yearning for sexual pleasure.

here's a little nugget that might interest you given lewis's deep faith and the conservative times in which he lived.

lewis believed that british society and the church took sex way too seriously, to the point where people were either bewildered by it or just plain terrified.

he didn't see sex as a great impediment to spirituality, a view that was touted from many pulpits.

in his view, it was much more likely to be the minutiae of married life, like the daily chores and obligations, not sex itself that stood in the way of prayer.

right, let's get back to the matter at hand.

after mulling over sex in its various contexts, lewis decided to set aside purely sexual relationships from his study, not on a moral basis, but because his goal was to examine love.

lewis described the act of falling in love as becoming completely and delightfully preoccupied with another person, and not just because of physical attraction, but because of who that person is.

the lover will spend their time thinking about all the wonderful qualities they've discovered in their beloved and will be ready and willing to turn their life upside down to please them.

because of this, eros is anchored firmly in the gift-love category.

this doesn't necessarily lead to happiness, though.

western society has been trying to sell us the notion that love leads to happiness for who knows how long, but lewis didn't think eros could care less about happiness.

he saw eros as the main reason that people stayed together through tough and miserable times, and this is both the triumph and terror of eros.

because, in fact, eros has the power to drive us to do terrible things.

some people exalt eros so much that they'd rather suffer deeply or even commit terrible crimes than part ways with their beloved.

now, don't be mistaken.

a love that drives people to murder in its name isn't a passing crush or a sexual fixation.

it is eros at its most potent.

and that is why we must always remember that eros isn't some elevated spiritual state, which is the message that poetry, music, and tv shows often try to sell us.

eros well and truly lives in the domain of humankind.

but it's not all bad news.

paradoxically, eros also offers us a way to grow closer to god.

if we love god with the same devotion and abandon that we do our beloved when we're falling in love, then our relationship with him will deepen immeasurably.

we'll no doubt fall short from time to time just as we do with our beloved, but we can recommit ourselves again and again.

like a couple whose relationship is strong enough not to break up over daily squabbles, we can find our way back to loving god knowing that he will never turn his back on us.

charity – the fourth love – is divine love working inside us#

so as we've seen in the chapters about the first three loves, each of them has the potential to go sour.

the randomness and familiarity of affection means we can take people for granted.

friendship can turn into an echo chamber and narrow our views.

and eros, well, most of us know how its potency can make us behave terribly.

there is an antidote to this, though.

we can stop these loves from going sour by holding on to god's divine love and actively nurturing all our relationships no matter what type of love they are.

it's a bit like if you had a garden and your loves were the plants growing there.

they might thrive at first, flowers bursting out in every color, attracting birds and butterflies.

but if you don't tend to the garden by weeding it, fertilizing it, and even doing a bit of pruning now and then, your plants will suffer.

over time they'll stop flowering and might even die.

but if you tend to the garden consistently, it'll flourish.

and there is one love that doesn't go sour.

lewis's fourth love.

charity.

charity happens when humans practice the purest form of gift love.

just a reminder, gift love is the kind of love that's based in generosity.

you desire only what's best for someone else without any self-interest or hidden agenda.

it's the kind of deep love you might feel towards someone very dear to you.

but charity takes gift love a step further.

it's the kind of love that motivates you to care about people who aren't actually very lovable.

they might be someone who's ill or hostile or infirm.

they could be someone who infuriates you or even your enemy.

or they might be a stranger that you help, and in doing so, you serve christ.

charity is also what helps us love the people in our lives when they're behaving badly, like when a child is throwing a huge tantrum in the middle of a mall.

they might be pressing every button their mother has, but she still loves them.

or when our partner is being obnoxious.

charity helps us look beyond their behaviour to see how tired and stressed they are, and what they really need in that moment is tenderness.

this is an important gift charity offers us.

it's the love that's given to us when we're unlovable, and this makes it the love that we all need most.

ironically, most of us crave a different type of love.

we want to be loved because we're attractive or brilliant or talented, and because of this, we're often shocked and humbled when someone offers us charity.

for instance, imagine you fell terribly ill not long after your wedding.

you and your spouse were faced with an awful new reality that your health would never fully return and that you would need care for the rest of your life, which might be decades.

you're both devastated.

but your spouse takes this all in their stride, caring for you without complaint.

this act of selfless love affects you deeply.

you can't understand why your spouse would choose to embrace this new life for your sake.

you just can't believe that they love you that much.

okay, so this example is extreme, but the truth is that we all have unlovable characteristics.

we are human after all.

the great blessing of charity is that we can be loved and are loved in spite of what makes us unlovable.

god's divine love working inside us is what makes this possible.

it's up to us to infuse all the other loves with charity, making them flourish like our metaphorical garden, sharing a joke with an acquaintance to brighten their day, playing a game with our kids, making love in the truest sense to our partner.

these are all charity in action.

when we console or forgive others, we invite charity into our hearts and it's in these moments that we deepen our connection with god by manifesting him in the way we love.

final summary#

Conclusion

when it comes to love, it is clear that no two loves are the same.

the love we feel for our neighbor might seem far less valuable than the love we have for our spouse.

but the truth is that all forms of love have worth because they're an opportunity to offer charity to others.

and when we do this, we become a conduit for the greatest love, the divine love of god.

The Four Loves

Table of Contents

Book Summary

what’s in it for me? understand the nature of love so you can grow closer to god#

different types of love can be categorized into two distinct groups, according to what motivates them#

familiarity creates affection – the first type of love#

friendship – the second love – unites us with kindred spirits#

eros – or romantic love – teaches us how to love god#

charity – the fourth love – is divine love working inside us#

final summary#

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