The Four Loves – Part 2

This is the second The Four Lovesand final podcast on the book The Four Loves by C S Lewis.  Lewis organized his book around the four types of human love, using the Greek words for them.  They are

  • Storge – affection
  • Philia – Friendship
  • Eros – the love of other, which is distinct from sexuality
  • Agape – Charity,the love of God.

In this podcast we cover the last 3 types, friendship, eros, and the love of God.  Here we must note two things to avoid misunderstandings.  First, Eros does not mean mere sensuality or sexuality, a part of our nature that we share with the animal kingdom.  Eros is the intense, almost jealous love for another person.  Second the love of God can be interpreted in two ways;  the giving love of God which flows to us, and our devotion for God that God’s love calls forth in response.  Lewis discusses both variations and we cover them in the podcast.

Again, as before, Lewis describes each type of love and suggests how they mirror some aspect of the divine love, and how the unaided human love can go wrong.

The Four Loves – Part 1

This is the first podcast on The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis. In this short but thoughtful work Jack analyzes the four types of love that can exist between persons. The Four LovesHe identifies them by their Greek names as follows:

  • Storge – affection
  • Philia – Friendship
  • Eros – the love for a particular other (distinct from sexuality)
  • Agape – the love of God

In addition, he includes a description of both our needs and pleasures, and discussions of the love of nature and the love of country.

In general, his approach is to identify what is good about our loves as well as what can go bad.  No one love is better than another, and all of them need to be controlled by the Love of God to assume their proper in our hearts.

This podcast covers the material on our needs and pleasures, the loves of nature and of our country, and a review of the first type of love, Storge (affection).