Forms of Love

English speakers meanwhile have trouble substituting "I lust you" for "I love you" because, though more accurate, it's too blunt, and needs a preposition. The Greek words "agapé," "phileo," "storgé," and "eros" are the words that the Greeks used which our one English word "love" tries to express. In English one must determine context and character to know the difference.

C.S. Lewis has helped the English speaker greatly by writing about The Four Loves. He begins the "Introduction" by putting man in his place in this subject, which is vitally important for any human who reads the book to understand before all else. He distinguishes between "gift love" and "need love" and notes that God is responsible for the former while man can only muster the latter at best. And while he states "I cannot now deny the name love to Need-love" (12) he adds "No doubt Need-love, like all our impulses, can be selfishly indulged (13). But he also clarifies that our need for love is as much a need as our need for food. Thus, "man's love for god, from the very nat

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nd repent. Lewis also explains the love that holds the church together, in Jesus' oft repeated commandment to love (phileo) one another. He cites Emerson: "Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth? -- Or at least, 'Do you care about the same truth?" (97). Members of the body of Christ, then, are friends in the fullest sense of the word: they love the same person, who loves each of them, and loves and blesses their fellowship (Koinonea) where they share Jesus with each other. Lewis thus gives an intriguing and ironic observation: "The little knots of Friends who turn their backs on the "World" are those who really transform it" (101). And is that not what Christ commands His church to do: reject the world, and in so doing transform it by then being salt and light? This also explains why "friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). Another ironic observation is that the baser, more natural loves are used by God to describe His love: "Affection is taken as the image when god is represented as our Father; Eros, when Christ is represented as the Bridegroom of the Church" (112-113). But we should expect that when we consider that Friendship "has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give val
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Approximate Pages = 17 (250 words per page)