The Four Loves
by C.S. Lewis
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Book Summary Information
Author: C.S. LewisBrand: Houghton Mifflin Company
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1971-09-29
ISBN: 0156329301
Number of pages: 156
Publisher: Mariner Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780156329309
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of The Four Loves
Book Review: Relationships ARE Destiny
Summary: 5 Stars
Even more than most works by C.S. Lewis, "The Four Loves" spans diverse life stages, offering golden wisdom not only to mature singles and married couples, but even to teenagers sorting out keys to friendship and romance.
Three themes are especially powerful tools for shaping rich, reliable, safe and empowering relationships, whether in friendship, in romance or in the family: 1) Relationships are destiny; 2) Extreme conformity is no act of love; and, 3) Controlling personalities eviscerate themselves and others.
1) RELATIONSHIPS ARE DESTINY: Lewis notes that friendships can be schools of virtue or schools of vice, as life companions tend to pipe into our lives their strongest traits and block out qualities alien to their nature. Thus we absorb wisdom, love for truth, courage and faith from virtuous friends, who also buffer us against self-inflicted wounds, corruption and spiritual inertia. What marital grief is saved for those who absorb this Lewis tip before locking in for life!
2) EXTREME CONFORMITY, SUBMISSION OR CAPITULATION IS NO ACT OF LOVE. Mindless self-surrender, notes Lewis, can amount to idolatry for those who relinquish control a mere human that should only be yielded to God. A woman who is to a man as a child is to an adult, adds the author, destroys hope even of genuine friendship. Furthermore, "a man would have to be...indeed a blasphemer," charges Lewis, if he accepts for himself such sovereignty over another person's life.
3) CONTROLLING PERSONALITIES EVISERATE THEMSELVES AND OTHERS. At extremes, both "need love" and "gift love" are used by covert-controllers. A "tyrannous and gluttonous demand for affection," notes Lewis, consumes not only the object of love but also the ravenous heart searching to be fed, rather than to love. Equally treacherous, notes Lewis, are those who exploit "gift love," such as "Mrs. Fidget" who slaved away for her family day and night. By giving them so much that they did not need, indeed, did not want, she put them in her debt, so they could hardly rest for jumping to please this woman who "lives for her family." Such a family colludes to sustain an illusion of warmth, while secret resentment simmers against those whose "love" leaves others impoverished emotionally. After her death, there were "astonishing" changes in the family, reports Lewis, as the husband could laugh, the children enjoyed staying home, and "even the dog, who was never allowed out except on a lead is now a well-known member of the Lamp-post Club."
Lewis notes that more overt controllers may seek to isolate partners from other relationships, clinging to "love" in ways that excludes others. But a wife who alienates her husband's male friends may create a spouse not "very well worth having; she has emasculated him," warns Lewis. Such a partner may accept this fate or go underground, adds the author, creating a secret life beyond spouse control. As a family counselor, I note that marital affairs commonly evolve out of desperate but treacherous attempts to salvage personal identity and escape a controlling partner. As Lewis observes, controllers inevitably lose what they seek to control, as those they strive to master are spiritually annihilated or driven away.
Through "The Four Loves," C.S. Lewis has given us a remarkable roadmap for safe, empowering, destiny-shaping relationships. In an era of disposable spouses, children and friends, we more than ever need such wisdom for relationship radar, spiritual protection, and at times, for survival.
REVIEWER: Beverly Hubble Tauke, LCSW, is author of "Overcoming Sins of the Family" and is a Virginia-based family counselor and lecturer.
Summary of The Four Loves
A candid, wise, and warmly personal book in which Lewis explores the possibilities and problems of the four basic kinds of human love- affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. ?Immensely worthwhile for its simplicity...a rare and memorable book? (Sydney J. Harris).
The Four Loves summarizes four kinds of human love--affection, friendship, erotic love, and the love of God. Masterful without being magisterial, this book's wise, gentle, candid reflections on the virtues and dangers of love draw on sources from Jane Austen to St. Augustine. The chapter on charity (love of God) may be the best thing Lewis ever wrote about Christianity. Consider his reflection on Augustine's teaching that one must love only God, because only God is eternal, and all earthly love will someday pass away:
Who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground--because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend--if it comes to that, would you choose a dog--in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates.His description of Christianity here is no less forceful and opinionated than in Mere Christianity or The Problem of Pain, but it is far less anxious about its reader's response--and therefore more persuasive than any of his apologetics. When he begins to describe the nature of faith, Lewis writes: "Take it as one man's reverie, almost one man's myth. If anything in it is useful to you, use it; if anything is not, never give it a second thought." --Michael Joseph Gross
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