Love is a word that we use daily. We love our morning coffee. We love our favorite sports team. We love movies. In English, we often overuse or misuse this word. In Scripture, 1 Corinthians 13 goes into wonderful detail about what love is. We can also learn a great deal about love through the wise words of C.S. Lewis. According to C.S. Lewis, the Greeks had four types of love. There is Storge (affection, empathy bond), Philia (friend bond), Eros (erotic, romantic love), and Agape (God love, charity).
“… Faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
- 1 Corinthians 13:13
C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, makes the distinction between “Gift-love” and “Need-love.” Gift-love is like the love of man to give his all for his family with no expectation of receiving anything in return. Need-love is the love and care a child needs from his mother. Lewis quickly understands the paradigm ahead. The need of the child is a necessity however it can turn into a selfish indulgence and be perverted. But these two terms are not sufficient to explain all that love has to offer. Let's look at what Lewis proposes.
Storge (στοργή)
The first of the four is Storge. This is generally attributed to the affection between parents and offspring. We can imagine this in the love of a nursing mother. However, Lewis notes that affection (Storge) is much more than just the relation of mother and offspring. We can see this love even ignore barriers such as species. A man can love a dog just as a dog can love a cat. The objects of affection have to be familiar. Storge is humble and modest. Lewis explains that it is not because of your “cleverness, perceptiveness, or refinedness that you love them.” It’s organic, like how you love an old rocking chair or the sound of your dog’s happy tail hitting the floor. One interesting part about Storge is that we can never remember the beginning of it. We often can know the day we become friends with someone, however, once we become aware of Storge is to be aware that it has been going on for some time. Lewis describes Storge as “a base or medium for other loves.” We can see this in friendship. He explains, “all those things that about your friends that had nothing to do with the friendship to begin with become dear because they are familiar.” Storge is the jacket or blanket that clothes the other loves.
Philia (φιλία)
Philia (friendship) is a love that is often forgotten about. In the modern world we often value Eros and Storge more. Lewis describes it as “the bread you crumble almost unconsciously at a long dinner.” Why is it this way? It’s because most people do not get an opportunity to experience it. It is nearly impossible to go through life without experiencing Eros and Storge. Eros is the love that you are begotten from and Storge is the love that you are reared (raised) in. However, friendship is not unavoidable. The people we call “friends” are those generally who we like to go out and have a beer with or watch a sports game. But Lewis explains there is more to Philia than just mere friendship. We can look at 2 Samuel 1:26 for this:
“…Most dear have you been to me; More wondrous your love to me than the love of women.”
Lewis says if you take this love seriously you can be “suspected of homosexuality.” People who charge this claim, according to Lewis, have “never known Eros and never known friendship.” He makes a clear comparison about the communication between lovers and friends. Lovers talk incessantly about their love for one another while friends hardly talk about their friendship. We can even see how a friendship of a man and woman can “turn into” love (Eros). The turning into is the very notion that it is different from Philia.
Eros (ἔρως)
Eros (romantic love) is often considered the most dangerous of loves. Lewis describes this as the “being in love… that kind of love which lovers are in.” The issue with Eros is that you can end up following something blindly due to a feeling of passion. When this feeling has died down, we can feel like the love has been lost. This, like Augustine, can cause you to despair and dwell on things you cannot change. To further the dangerousness, Lewis says a lustful man doesn’t want a woman, rather he wants the sensation or pleasure like you get from a bottle of wine or cigarettes. When you are done you throw the pack or bottle away. This is how Eros can become perverted. Very easily it can be twisted because of the carnal element. In contrast, true Eros gives you the desire to want this woman. The lover desires the beloved rather than the pleasure she can give. Without Eros our desires become about ourselves, a selfish desire, but with it becomes about the beloved. But this should not make you become afraid of this kind of love. In 1 Corinthians 7 Paul gives advice to the married. In verse 5 he explains how to keep true Eros and how to stay away from temptation:
“Do not deprive each other, except perhaps by mutual consent for a time, to be free for prayer, but then return to one another, so that Satan may not tempt you through your lack of self-control.”
Agape (ἀγάπη)
Agape (charity) is often described as God’s love for man and the Christian love for the brethren. This is the love that we should all strive for in our lives. Philia and Eros is the foundation for us to grow in charity. This is selfless love and the greatest of all. Agape calls us to love those who are broken and those who break us. As mentioned before, 1 Corinthians 13:13 explains how love is the greatest of virtues. Reading the text in the Greek we see this love Paul talks about is Agape:
“νυνὶ δὲ μένει πίστις ἐλπίς ἀγάπη τὰ τρία ταῦτα· μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη”
“Now however abide faith, hope, love, the three things; [the] greatest however of these [is] love.”
References:
Lewis, C. S. (1960). The Four Loves. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt P.
Art by: Mike Moyers Fine Art
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