Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Four Loves, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Elements of Love
Humanity’s Relationship with God
Disproportionate Love
Transformation of Love
Summary
Analysis
Eros refers to the state of being in love. This is more than a discussion of just human sexuality, however; that’s just one ingredient of “being in love.” There’s a carnal sexual element that Lewis will refer to as “Venus.” Sexuality can operate without Eros or as part of it. By saying this, Lewis isn’t making a moral judgment about the relationship between Eros and sexuality—that is, sex without Eros isn’t necessarily wrong (throughout history, arranged marriages generally weren’t dependent on Eros, after all). And on the other hand, a “soaring and iridescent Eros” that’s not very sensual can still be adulterous or otherwise hurtful to others.
While “Eros” is generally associated with sexuality, Lewis sees sex (“Venus”) as just one aspect of Eros, and it’s not even absolutely necessary. Likewise, sex can exist without Eros. And the goodness or distortion of Eros isn’t necessarily connected to sexuality—like many other aspects of the natural loves, sex is ambivalent.
Themes
Sometimes a man will feel sexually attracted to a woman and only later “fall in love,” but Lewis suggests this is rare. More often, a man becomes preoccupied with a woman as a whole person, and Eros gradually awakens. Another way of saying this is that sex without Eros just desires sex in itself; Eros wants the beloved person. Someone who just wants sex sees the other person as “the necessary piece of apparatus.” But Eros means desiring a particular person and not just the pleasure that person can give.
Lewis sees Eros as something deeper than simple sexual desire; it’s an attraction to a whole person. Sex can happen without Eros (in which case the other person isn’t really appreciated as a whole individual), but Eros can also be fully developed—a person can be completely in love— without sex ever happening.
Themes
In this way Eros transforms a Need-pleasure into an Appreciative-pleasure. The intense need sees the object of its need as admirable in itself, beyond the need. In this way, too, Eros almost becomes a mode of expression, something directed into the outside world and not back into oneself.
Lewis explains how different elements of love are active within Eros. Though sexual desire is a form of Need-pleasure, the experience of Eros, or being in love, gathers that need into a deeper Appreciative-pleasure that admires the whole person.
Themes
Lewis now turns to some moral evaluations. Some people have viewed the danger of Eros in its “carnal” element, seeing it as purest when “Venus” is minimized. But this isn’t the approach taken in the Bible. St. Paul, for instance, actually discourages abstinence from Venus for too long. Anyway, the medieval theologians were celibates who likely didn’t understand the relationship between Eros and sexuality.
Even though Lewis sees Eros as bigger than sexual desire, sex is still important for Eros. He points out that the Bible doesn’t disparage sex and actually speaks frankly of it (the apostle Paul warns married couples not to neglect sex for too long) and suggests that, in this respect, unmarried theologians haven’t been reliable interpreters of the Bible.
Themes
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One present-day danger is making Eros serious in the wrong way. There’s very little joy in sex these days and too much solemnity. Of course, it is serious. Theologically, it’s serious because it mystically symbolizes the union between God and humanity. It’s also serious because it’s a participation in the natural forces of life and fertility, because it involves obligations as a potential parent, and because it often has an inherent emotional gravity. But our humanity demands that we not be totally serious about it, any more than we would be totally serious about eating. It is “one of God’s jokes” that something as lofty as Eros is linked to such a mundane bodily appetite.
Lewis argues that modern people sometimes take sex too seriously. Sex does have important symbolism and often feels like a serious experience; it can also have life-changing outcomes if it results in a pregnancy. But if sex is only serious, then something’s missing. In a way, sex is just another bodily function that shouldn’t be regarded either too gravely or too flippantly. Lewis suggests that the connection between love and sex is evidence of God’s sense of humor.
Themes
Rather than rejecting the body as filthy or deifying it, Lewis prefers Francis of Assisi’s view of regarding the body as “Brother Ass.” After all, nobody can “either revere or hate a donkey.” There is an element of the “buffoon” in the body and certainly in the body’s expression of Eros. The body provides a sort of clumsy undertone to the loftier music of Eros.
Lewis cites the medieval book The Life of St. Francis, in which the titular saint likened his body to a burden-bearing donkey that shouldn’t be indulged or abused. He suggests that people should have a sense of humor about their body’s role in the expression of love, neither hating nor revering it.
Themes
Lewis recognizes a certain “Pagan” element in sex. That is, in sex participants aren’t just themselves but representatives of all masculinity and femininity. But this must be taken playfully. or else it becomes idolatrous. For example, a woman who takes self-surrender in sex too literally would be offering to a man something that belongs only to God. Likewise, a man would be a “blasphemer” if he took literally the “sovereignty” to which Venus momentarily raises him. But these things can be enacted, as in a ritual or drama. That is, nakedness makes couples a sort of “universal He and She.”
By “Pagan” element, Lewis means that sex has an inherent, primal symbolism. So, every man and woman who engage in sex are symbolizing “Man” and “Woman” in general; sex is an embodiment of something universal to all humanity. Yet Lewis makes clear that this participation in universal symbolism shouldn’t be woodenly applied to relationships in everyday life. In other words, a man might feel briefly godlike during sex, but that doesn’t mean he should walk around with that attitude all the time.
Themes
But with all this in mind, it’s also important to avoid confusing Eros with a higher mystery. Just as the natural mystery can be taken too seriously, so the Christian mystery of marriage can be taken not seriously enough. While the Bible says that the husband must be the head of his wife, he does this in the sense that—like Christ being the head of the church—he gives up his life for her and cares for her inexhaustibly exactly when she is least easy to love. Neither of these “crowns”—the “Pagan” or the “Christian”—should be begrudged a man, because the first “is of paper and the other of thorns.”
Lewis addresses another kind of Eros symbolism: the traditional Christian teaching (found in the Epistle to the Ephesians) that the husband is the “head” of his wife in the same sense that Christ is the head of the Church. He implies that this teaching is often taken lightly, whereas it’s deadly serious—much as Christ died for imperfect people, a husband must also be willing to suffer for his wife no matter what. He argues that this shouldn’t make a man arrogant—much as his “Pagan” crown is just pretend, his “Christian” crown is basically a pledge that he’s willing to die (Christ wore a crown of thorns on the cross).
Themes
The same things can be said of Eros as of Venus. Within Eros, Venus doesn’t really aim at pleasure; similarly, Eros doesn’t aim at happiness. It’s a mark of Eros that we’d rather share unhappiness with someone we love than be happy on other terms. If that isn’t true, it’s not really Eros.
Lewis suggests that people in love have sex because they’re in love, and pleasure might come from that. In the same way, people in love don’t aim at being happy. Happiness might follow, but even if it doesn’t, they’ll still be in love.
Themes
Eros is such a grand, godlike thing that it can easily be mistaken for the voice of God Himself. But again, Eros can lead to evil as well as good—to cruelty and murder as well as faithful marriage. Some, like Plato, have seen Eros as really transcendent—hence Plato’s teaching about soul-mates. But many “love-matches” prove to become unhappy marriages, so Plato can’t be right.
Like other natural loves, Eros is ambivalent—it can lead to either good or bad. Some classical writers elevated Eros more highly. Lewis is probably thinking of Plato’s Symposium here, in which souls long to reunite with their "other half." But Lewis argues that being in love doesn’t guarantee lasting happiness.
Themes
There are equivalent theories in our own day. For example, Shaw’s Romanticism, which hears in Eros the voice of the “Life Force” or “evolutionary appetite.” This force overcomes couples in order to create parents or ancestors for the “superman.” It has nothing to do with people’s happiness or with morality, but with perfecting the human species. But Lewis argues that there’s no clear relationship between the intensity of Eros between a couple and the superiority of their offspring.
Lewis refers to dramatist George Bernard Shaw, whose play Man and Superman describes a “Life Force” guiding evolution. This idea basically sees Eros as a vehicle for improvement of the human species. Lewis rejects this idea. He sees it as a variant of Plato’s view, in that both see Eros itself as a kind of supernatural phenomenon.
Themes
Neither the views of Plato nor of Shaw are of much use to a Christian. A Christian doesn’t need to ignore the god-like aspect of Eros, because it really does resemble God Himself in a way—but not necessarily by approach. It can become a means of approach; it’s a kind of example of the love we should give to God and other people. The “prodigality” of Eros is an example of the free, generous love we should offer to him and others. But Eros itself is never enough; it has to be “chastened and corroborated by higher principles.”
Lewis agrees that Eros has aspects that resemble God. But as he’s explained before, likeness isn’t the same thing as actual nearness. In other words, Eros at its best can be wholeheartedly generous, actually drawing people near God. But even its best characteristics, left to themselves, can unravel and lead people away from God, too.
Themes
If unconditionally honored and obeyed, however, Eros becomes demonic. It rebels against everything that opposes it. It’s not so much that people in love idolize one another, but that they’ll idolize Eros itself. They almost boast that love forces them to do wrong things. Love becomes a law unto itself, a god with its own religious demands. These aren’t necessarily acts of unchastity, but neglect of loved ones and other betrayals of one’s conscience that almost take on the tone of pious sacrifices.
Unconditional Eros becomes “demonic” because it demands that a person give their all. People will then use Eros as justification for all sorts of wrong actions—not necessarily bad sexual behavior, but behaviors that harm others outside the erotic relationship. People will even deceive themselves into believing their actions are good, not realizing that love has become a dictator in their lives.
Themes
There is a sense in which Eros does enable us to “love our neighbour as ourselves,” even if it’s just one neighbor. This gives a foretaste of Love Himself ruling within us. But even between the best lovers, the old self reemerges. Then Venus will eventually become sexuality again. Those who understand that feeling isn’t everything won’t be undone by this. It’s up to us to follow through on the promises of Eros even when it’s not present. Eros, then, must be ruled by something else.
At its best, Eros is like God’s love. But like any other natural love, it “goes bad” unless it’s corrected by divine love. When the powerful feeling of being “in love” goes away, Eros tends to decay into more sexuality. Lewis suggests that when Eros is governed by a higher form of love, it can remain steady even when emotions fluctuate or fade.
Themes
