C.S. Lewis and Pope Benedict XVI were both inspired to talk about the meanings and the dynamic of the love of God, and both open with the words "God is love" (Lewis 1; Benedict XVI #1). Lewis (1) distinguishes between two types of God's love that he calls "Gift-love" and "Need-love." Gift-love is love given as a gift, as when God gave Himself in His fullness to the Son, and the Son returned the gift by giving Himself back to the Father (Lewis 1). In human terms, Lewis likens it to a father working, planning, and saving for the benefit of his family's future even though he will die before he can see or share in the benefits of his provision (Lewis 1). Although Lewis initially thinks of God as giving Gift-Love that is embodied in the gift of Christ to the world, he soon acknowledges that Need-love is as much a part of God as Gift-love.
The Pope sees love in terms of eros and agape, with the former being "worldly" love and the latter being love that is "grounded in and shaped by faith" (Benedict #7). Pope Benedict (#8) recalls the Bible's insistence in Deuteronomy 6:4 that "our God is one Lord" and takes this to mean that it is impossible to separate eros from agape without ending up with a love that is fragmented and incomplete. In other words, God is both eros and agape, and our tendency to think of Him as only agape diminishes who He really is. Just as Lewis cannot separate Gift-love from Need-love, the Pope cannot separate eros from agape.
The dynamic of love as Lewis (17) envisions it is a response to the love of God. As he puts it, "Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Give-love longs to serve, or even suffer for, God." Our response to God's love is not merely a giving on God's part and a taking on our part but rather an outpouring from us of the same kind of love that God is sending to us. As we are increasingly imbued with the love that God gives us, we begin to act more as He acts. Love...