Thus, far from leaving eros behind, the Christian life purifies it and orients it towards God. A passionate desire for God is really the foundation of the devout life. True, eros tends to rise “in ecstasy” towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing.Īnyone who thinks Christianity eschews passionate love-as Nietzsche did-hasn’t read Song of Songs or seen the Ecstasy of St. … Christian faith, on the other hand, has always considered man a unity in duality, a reality in which spirit and matter compenetrate, and in which each is brought to a new nobility. This is hardly man’s great “yes” to the body. Eros, he wrote, must be elevated and purified:Įros, reduced to pure “sex,” has become a commodity, a mere “thing” to be bought and sold, or rather, man himself becomes a commodity. Pope Benedict XVI confirmed this in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est, in which he tried to rehabilitate this love. But, as Catholics we know that the body is good and sacred, so this does not seem quite right to us either. (Vulnerable is from the Latin, vulnus, for wound.)Įros appears nowhere in the New Testament, so it might seem like our ascent to God means leaving it behind. He is often depicted as a youth or baby with a bow and arrow, which symbolize how such love is often involuntary, unexpected, and leaves us feeling vulnerable. To us, Eros is more familiar under his Roman name, Cupid.

In ancient Greek, Eros was viewed as a god-a testament to the uncontrollable passion it could generate between lovers. It is tempting to think of eros as simply a synonym for lust, but it is much more than that. That ascent would seem to begin with eros, the love of bodily desire. These four loves are a program for our spiritual lives, a ladder of ascent to God, who is love.Įros. If philia is the love of our friends, agape is the love of our enemies. This leaves agape, which, particularly in the context of the New Testament, is often defined as divine self-giving love. Philia, on the other hand, is more spiritual and volitional. In a way, they are unchosen: we don’t get to pick our parents, the kind of persons we are attracted to, and the country of our birth. It is the love with which we love God, our children, and the homeless.Įros and storgos are rooted in our nature. Agape goes beyond these and is the supreme form of love. Storgos is the natural affection one might feel for his parents, his tribe, or his country. Lewis’ classic, The Four Loves.) Eros designates the whole sphere of sexual attraction and carnal desire. They had four words for love: eros, storgos, philia, and agape (as popularized in C.S. In our culture, this single word is tasked with describing our attitudes towards everything from chocolate cake to our children and spouses. Love, British actress Hermione Gingold once said, is a worn-out word.

4 kinds of love cs lewis