Product Description

A candid, wise, and warmly personal book in which Lewis explores the possibilities and problems of the four basic kinds of human love- affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. “Immensely worthwhile for its simplicity...a rare and memorable book” (Sydney J. Harris).

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4070 in Books
• Published on: 1971-09-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 156 pages

Amazon.com Review
The Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human love--affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. Masterful without being magisterial, this book's wise, gentle, candid reflections on the virtues and dangers of love draw on sources from Jane Austen to St. Augustine. The chapter on charity (love of God) may be the best thing Lewis ever wrote about Christianity. Consider his reflection on Augustine's teaching that one must love only God, because only God is eternal, and all earthly love will someday pass away:

Who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground--because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend--if it comes to that, would you choose a dog--in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates.

His description of Christianity here is no less forceful and opinionated than in Mere Christianity or The Problem of Pain, but it is far less anxious about its reader's response--and therefore more persuasive than any of his apologetics. When he begins to describe the nature of faith, Lewis writes: "Take it as one man's reverie, almost one man's myth. If anything in it is useful to you, use it; if anything is not, never give it a second thought." --Michael Joseph Gross

Review
The Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human love--affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. Masterful without being magisterial, this book's wise, gentle, candid reflections on the virtues and dangers of love draw on sources from Jane Austen to St. Augustine. The chapter on charity (love of God) may be the best thing Lewis ever wrote about Christianity. Consider his reflection on Augustine's teaching that one must love only God, because only God is eternal, and all earthly love will someday pass away: Who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground--because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend--if it comes to that, would you choose a dog--in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates. His description of Christianity here is no less forceful and opinionated than in Mere Christianity or The Problem of Pain, but it is far less anxious about its reader's response--and therefore more persuasive than any of his apologetics. When he begins to describe the nature of faith, Lewis writes: "Take it as one man's reverie, almost one man's myth. If anything in it is useful to you, use it; if anything is not, never give it a second thought." (Amazon.com Review - Michael Joseph Gross )

About the Author
Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends as Jack, was a Northern Irish academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters, The Chronicles of Narnia and The Space Trilogy. Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings. Both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings". According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptised in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at about the age of 30, Lewis re-converted to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the Church of England" (Lewis 1952, p. 6). His conversion had a profound effect on his work, and his wartime radio broadcasts on the subject of Christianity brought him wide acclaim. Later in his life he married the American writer Joy Gresham, who died of bone cancer four years later at the age of 45. Lewis's works have been translated into more than 30 languages and have sold millions of copies over the years. The books that comprise The Chronicles of Narnia have sold the most and have been popularized on stage, in TV, in radio, and in cinema.

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Customer Reviews

Truly written book about Love
This book is exactly what I have expected! It's about the true love, it's meanings, explanations and everything you need to know about many different kinds of love, such as love between friends, between man and woman, between parents and their kids etc. If you are interested in the subject, don't think about buying it. Simply but that book!

Keen Observations
Though C. S. Lewis was a bachelor most of his life, he never lived alone. And the people with which he shared his home were far from perfect. In one of his letters, he writes that he often came home with a feeling of dread, because he was afraid of the horrible conflicts that had arisen in his absence. A peaceful home was something that Lewis did not experience very often.

This - apart from his literary input - provided him with ample examples of what different kinds of love are like and what their corresponding weaknesses are. Especially the weaknesses. It does not come as a surprise, then, that "The Four Loves" is filled with everyday examples of human weaknesses, many of them in a home setting.

As in his other writings such as "The Screwtape Letters," Lewis makes his observations of human nature with a keen eye and articulates them eloquently, focusing in this book on the themes of affection, friendship, romantic/erotic love, and selfless love (in the original sense of "charity").

About romantic love, for instance, he says that oftentimes it "extenuates - almost sanctions - almost sanctifies - any actions it leads to. When lovers say of some act that we might blame, `Love made us do it,' notice the tone. A man saying, `I did it because I was frightened,' or `I did it because I was angry,' speaks quite differently. He is putting forward an excuse for what he feels to require excusing. But the lovers are seldom doing quite that. The confession can be almost a boast. In extreme cases what their words really express is a demure yet unshakable allegiance to the god of love."

Strong words. But with much wisdom.

"The Four Loves" is as challenging as it is delightful and instructive. I have little doubt that I shall read it again one day.

- Jacob Schriftman, Author of The C. S. Lewis Book on the Bible: What the Greatest Christian Writer Thought About the Greatest Book

Exploring the One Truth, Which Is Loving Kindness
There are two types of love... true love and mundane love, mundane love is mixed and can be given, taken for selfish reasons, true love however has no shadow of selfishness, but is selfless in the presence of the object of its/his/her lover. infact true love empties itself into the person or thing it is loving. just as some of us empty ourselves into the posts we put on amazon. And in emptying ourselves we are filled with the satisfaction that we may have shared a little understanding (truth).

i have given this book three stars because this is such a monumental subject lewis is writing about, and also because it is very honest. he is clearly wracked by certain doubts as pertains to his somewhat 'evangelical' slant which gives so many simple, though often emotionally unsatisfying answers. this is a christian exploring deeper than the answers he has been giving in his previous books. Having met Joy Davidson in September 1952, this book was published in 1960, but he is certainly asking some very difficult questions for which a simple answer just wont do. not knowing the history of lewis i can see that he was brave enough at the time of this book to confront certain loose ends in his once over-simplistic theology. [on page 154 in the chapter 'charity']

some excerpts from p 154: Harper Collins 2002 edn: "God carried in his hand a little object like a nut, and that nut was 'all that is made'(Julian of Norwich). God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly 'superfluous' creatures in order that He may love and perfect them... the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross...[and] If i may dare the biological image, God is a 'host' who deliberately creates His own parasites causes us to be that we may exploit and 'take advantage of' Him. Hererin is love. (are these not the views of some, and with these 'some', he is struggling in the chapter on charity, clear as crystal. infact this whole chapter is a struggle. i find it sad some have said, he denied his faith at the end, no, he found it at the end!)

those of us who have watched and loved the film "shadow-lands", though i hear it is not an entirely accurate representation of things, can see something of the struggle that was going on inside his mind as to just what is 'love' and what love demands of us. his future wife, Joy, a christian herself, and a divorcee was a very profound thinker and challenged the way he thought, right into the marrow of his bones, to the core of his heart and soul. his simple little packaged answers to difficult questions, of which at one time he was so sure all came tumbling down when joy was diagnosed with cancer. he married her shortly before her death... much to the horror of a traditional and evangelical church. one just did not marry a divorcee in those days! in the film, perhaps the most moving scene is when he admits... "i just dont have any answers anymore".

the four loves are the four greek words: agape (charitas), filia, eros and sorge. the one we are interested in here encompases and enlivens the other three. the one is "charitas"/"agape", we do not have a new testament in the original hebrew sadly, but it is in my mind a certainty that the word 'chesed' or 'hesed' is synonymous with the greek usage 'agape' and that the word charitas is directly derived from chesed. this chesed or agape represents true love, or as the jews understand it 'loving kindness'. loving kindness is the force behind creation and salvation in the mind and heart of the jew. this too would have been the word in jesus that propelled him and moved him to will and act as he does and did. he would have grown up a witness of the chesed between his mother and father, and the chesed he shared with his parents and friends, even his enemies and the chesed between God and his chosen people.

as christians though, we believe that Jesus was and is the personification of true love. that is... Jesus is Chesed, Jesus is Agape, God is Love. we christians believe that it was Jesus the Word that created all ("by him, all things were made"), we also believe that it is Jesus who will redeem all. "for he is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the 'whole' world." (Authorised King James version-New Testament). therefore Jesus is chesed. it is only sad that we cannot read the original hebrew to see this word inscribed before our very eyes. not only is chesed a word, it encapsulates the true nature and being of God. I wonder if the cHasidic Jews realize just how awesome their nameing, and the 'full' meaning of this name chesed.

the awesome, and i have to use this word awesome again and again, christian revelation is that God is Love. God is Chesed/Agape. some will frown at this... "is not chesed, albeit the highest of all Gods attributes, only an attribute?" No, we as christians believe that loving kindness is God. And what is agape? agape is chesed! and what is chesed? chesed is 'true' love, and what is true love? true love is 'loving kindness'.

lewis points towards a jewish translation when he calls agape 'gift love', this is because, chesed is a giving, merciful love without strings attached. it shows and shares itself with both the good and the bad, the obedient and the disobedient. it is a free gift. Lewis pointing at a christian understanding speaks of 'Love Himself'. the personification of Love, being God. (one person within three).

it is from God that all good procedes, gods love is found in all and therefore all are God, love makes divine, that which is not divine, thus speaks the language of love, without judgement. the language of logic and reason says: "ah yes, but God is 'that' i am". correct, the truth however always resides in a paradox. that God is all and yet perfect in and as one. love says all is one, reason says one is one. love says everywhere, reason says over there. love knows all, reason knows nothing. or love knows all, reason knows very little. logic, analysis and interpretation can only take us so far, the reason has its limits, we must be prepared to open our hearts. chesed is more than an attribute, chesed is one, and makes all things one. its tendency is to draw together and not to separate.

this is the earth-mending teaching of the early church, but not always remembered. that God is love/agape/chesed. lets try not to forget it, so please help us dear father in heaven to remember this and live it by your chesed/yourself.

with loveing kindness, by loveing kindness, from, snow-flake. xxx