Though the ancients prized Friendship, Lewis argues that it’s largely disregarded today. The second broad type of love Lewis discusses is Friendship. When a person tries to live on Affection in this way, the Affection itself fuels only grievance, resentment, and even hate. Even when Affection is offered as a Gift-love, it can be perverted if a person wants the object of their love to receive only the good that they can give. People can be insatiable in their need for others’ affection they can also use familiarity as an excuse for cruelty. Affection also applies to the humble, familiar bond between members of families, schools, and other environments where very different people are “thrown together.” But Affection has its dangers. The first is Affection-for example, the natural bond between mother and child. Need-love, Gift-love, and Appreciative Love generally mix together.Īfter discussing these three elements of love, Lewis begins to discuss four broader types of love. Pleasures of Appreciation foreshadow Appreciative Love, which simply delights in a beloved person.

A Need-pleasure loses its appeal once it’s satisfied, while the object of an Appreciative pleasure is enjoyed for its own sake, separate from the person enjoying it. The first must be preceded by a need, while the second doesn’t require preparation. Pleasures can be divided into Need-pleasures (like a drink of water for someone who’s thirsty) and Pleasures of Appreciation (like the sudden smell of flowers). Thus, loves that are “like” God can encourage “nearness” to God as well, but they can also hinder it.īefore discussing “higher” loves, Lewis begins with likings, or pleasures. When that happens, those loves become “demonic,” self-destructive, and damaging to others. This distinction is important because human Gift-loves (those that already resemble God) can come to be mistaken for divine love. “Nearness” to God, on the other hand, is a spiritual quality that a person must actively seek. “Likeness” to God is something given, by virtue of the fact that human beings are God’s creatures.

Lewis expands on the ideas of likeness and nearness to God-they aren’t the same thing. For one thing, human beings never lose their need for God, and this is the way God intends it to be.

However, he soon realized that things are more complicated. Based on this distinction, Lewis planned to praise Gift-love and criticize Need-love. Therefore, he divided natural human loves into two types- Gift-love (which is God-like, because God is self-giving) and Need-love (which is unlike God, because God lacks nothing). When Lewis first set out to write about love, his thesis was “God is love” (as St.

One true loves book summary