The Four Loves

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.