I was very intrigued Lewis’s Four Love’s work. We listened in class to the description of “eros” which is sometimes described as “being in love.” Lewis described eros as the most mortal and fallen type of love, but as we also say in class, although it is the most fallen, it is also the closest picture of agope love (the eternal love that God has for us). I really liked that point, because it shows me that God can use the most depraved, fallen type of love to be a picture for us of His greatest love. Continuing on in his description of love, Lewis said that eros does not act in happiness. We sometimes think that if we are in love, if we find someone to share this eros with, we will be happy. Rather, the opposite is true. “We would rather share unhappiness with our lover than happiness without them” states Lewis. Many times, the voice of eros works in a way of unhappiness. This voice, however, many people mistake for the voice of God, which is not the case. Sometimes, however, we worship eros itself as if it is a god. Eros promises us that our feelings will last through eternity, but as we can see from society today, this is not the case. Too many people listen to the voice of eros and treat it as a god, allowing its lies to persuade them that their feelings will last forever—thinking that they will be on their “eternal honeymoon.” Do not be fooled by the voice of eros!
I also really appreciate Lewis’s analogy about “falling in love” and “being in love,” and the distinction between them. He said that falling in love is like diving and being in love is like swimming. Falling in love is like diving into the water—it hardly takes any work, you only have to jump, and then gravity does the rest. Once you are in the water, or in love, however, you need to put work in—you need to swim. Without swimming, if you don’t put work into your relationship, you will drown and your relationship will die.
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Hey Becca! I also liked the point of how Eros love is the closest type of love to Agape love. Even though this is the most depraved type of love, God still chose it to symbol His relationship with us, and I think that relates to God choosing us to be His people even though we are totally depraved. This reinforces the idea of how loving and wonderful our God is because He can take depraved relationships and people and turn them into something to glorify His name. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI also liked what Lewis said about Eros being the most fallen love but it is also the closest we have to Agape love. It's reassuring to hear that something that is so fallen and corrupt can be redeemed, and without God's saving grace this would never be the case.
ReplyDeleteI also found the analogy of "falling" and "being" in love relating to diving and swimmiing, respectively, to be fascinating. I had never really thought about this idea in the past, but it makes a lot of sense to me. I think it also sheds some light on why the divorce rate is so high here in America, too many people jump in without knowing or attempting to swim.
Hi Becca! Thanks for your post. I too appreciated your connection between eros and agape. By listening to Lewis and from our discussion in class, I realised that there are a lot of negative aspects to eros, and a lot of things we need to be careful about when we enter a relationhip. However, we also need to remember that marrige and the love between a man and woman is a good gift of God and if it is used rightly, it is a picture of the love of Christ for his church.
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