Lewis distinguishes four types of love. Storge love is affectionate love; philia is love in friendship; agape is God’s love; eros is love between the sexes. While Lewis refers to agape as “God’s love,” I think we see different aspects of God’s love when each of these loves is expressed. There is something beautiful and unique about each of the three other types of love. Each reflects an aspect of God’s love for us. In class we focused on eros, the last type of love. Eros is the love between two individuals who are in love.
As Lewis put it, “eros does not aim at pleasure or happiness,” as we may first expect. In class we discussed that while men may fall in love, it is an altogether different thing to be in love. I would argue that falling in love may be said to be somewhat “natural.” Anyone can fall in love. Yet being in love is a choice. Falling in love may be relatively “easy;” as we said in class it just “happens.” On the other hand staying in love requires strength of character and a daily commitment to selflessly love another. I thought Lewis’ analogy of a garden was perfect that describe the eros love that occurs when people choose to be in love. A garden will naturally grow, but the gardener must get rid of weeds that threaten the beautiful plants and he must prune those plants that are continually growing so that they may grow more.
One of Lewis’ quotes struck me the most out of all he said. “Love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a God.” In one of the chapters of our readings, Lewis offers a point that helps us understand this: God is love, but love is not God. This is an interesting idea, which I believe is true, but is something I had never thought through before. We must worship God, knowing that the essence of Him is love. But we must not worship love, because love itself is not the god. Especially in relationships with high emotional ties, I think it is important for us to have discernment. Are we worshiping love in and of itself? Or are we worshiping God first and foremost through our relationship? Love itself can be in danger of becoming an idol. We may become slaves to this love, yet not slaves to Christ. We are called to devote ourselves to Christ in all that we do; to be slaves of Christ.
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Love being of God, but not God himself, has been an eye-opener for me. The Bible says, "God is love," but this is not transitive. Love comes from God, but we cannot worship love as we worship God. I feel this is not an uncommon condition in our world today.
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