February 10, 2010

What love was meant to be

By James Cavanagh

There’s a lot of confusion about love these days. The problem is that in English we have just one word to cover a wide range of feelings and desires. In 1960 the great Anglican author and apologist C.S. Lewis wrote a brilliant little book called “The Four Loves” to shed light on the meaning of love. Like most of Lewis’ work, it hasn’t lost any of its value since it was first published.

The Greek language, Lewis explains, uses several different words to describe four different kinds of love: storge, eros, philia and agape. The first three—storge, eros and philia—are “natural” loves. They are natural because they are “hard-wired,” so to speak, in our natural instincts.

Storge is the love that exists between parents and their children. Lewis calls it “affection.” It is the most common sort of love, and the humblest, for it not only exists between a human mother and child, but is familiar even in the animal world. “The cat with a basketful of kittens,” Lewis says, “all in a squeaking, nuzzling heap together” is an example of storge; but so is the Madonna and Child. Storge may be characterized by steadfast loyalty. Even brothers who don’t get along love each other because they’re brothers.

Eros is that state we call “being in love.” It’s the passionate desire for one specific person. Many people equate eros with sexual pleasure, but this is a mistake. Eros and sexual pleasure may, and often do go together, but not necessarily. The proliferation of pornography on the Internet and elsewhere proves the point. Sexual desire wants “it”—the physical pleasure detached from the person; eros wants the person.  Eros is characterized by a total, single-minded commitment to the beloved for his or her own sake.

Philia is friendship love and is the least natural of the natural loves.  It differs from storge and eros in that friends don’t focus on each other, but on something else. With storge and eros the circle of love is circumscribed and focuses on the relations. Friendships grow around common interests. The ancients considered friendships to be the noblest and most “godlike” of all the loves because they’re concerned with transcendent ideas. Friends don’t look at each other the way lovers do, but at some object beyond themselves.

The natural loves reflect the goodness of God: storge of his fatherly care; eros of his life-giving fecundity; and philia of his closeness. There is, however, a danger lurking in the garden of the natural loves. Rooted as they are in fallen human nature, the natural loves are inclined to sin. Storge, which is nurturing and protective, can become domineering and possessive. Eros, ardent and adoring, can deteriorate into selfish perversion. And the dark side of friendships is that they can become exclusive, snobbish little societies.

For the natural loves to become what they were meant to be, something else is needed. They need God. “The natural loves,” Lewis says, “prove that they cannot even remain themselves and do what they promise to do without God’s help.”

Agape, or charity, is the greatest virtue and the most Godlike because, as Scripture says, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:8). For this reason it is supernatural. The natural loves are concerned with those who are naturally lovable. But agape loves those who are not naturally lovable: “lepers, criminals; enemies, the sulky, the superior and the sneering.”

Lewis compares the four loves to a garden, which teems with life.  Left to itself it’s just an unruly tangle of weeds. Its natural fruitfulness must be cultivated in order for it to reach its full potential and beauty.  Pruning, hoeing and weeding is needed for the garden to flourish. The natural loves need to be tamed.

 “When God planted a garden,” Lewis wrote, “he set a man over it and set the man under himself. When (God) planted the garden of our nature and the flowering, fruiting loves to grow there, he set our will to ‘dress’ them. If they were needed when the garden was still Paradisal, how much more now when the soil has gone sour and the worst weeds seem to thrive on it best?”

God gives us his own love to cultivate the natural loves so that they can reach their true end. Apart from God, the natural loves cannot live up to their promises. All this may be summed up in the simple idea of putting first things first. When you put first things first you receive second things as well. Put second things first, however, and you lose both first things and second things. “The love of God that is poured into our hearts” (Rom 5:5) perfects our natural loves so that they become what they were truly meant to be.

James Cavanagh is director of evangelization and catechesis for metro-area parishes of the Denver Archdiocese.