It is described as the most natural, emotive, and widely diffused of loves: It is natural in that it is present without coercion, emotive because it is the result of fondness due to familiarity, and most widely diffused because it pays the least attention to those characteristics deemed 'valuable' or worthy of love and, as a result, is able to transcend most discriminating factors. An example is the natural love and affection of a parent for their child. Storge ( storgē, Greek: στοργή) is liking someone through the fondness of familiarity, family members or people who relate in familiar ways that have otherwise found themselves bonded by chance. Lewis states that just as Lucifer (a former archangel) perverted himself by pride and fell into depravity, so too can love – commonly held to be the arch-emotion – become corrupt by presuming itself to be what it is not.Ī fictional treatment of these loves is the main theme of Lewis's novel Till We Have Faces.

In his remaining four chapters, Lewis treats love under four categories ('the highest does not stand without the lowest'), based in part on the four Greek words for love: affection, friendship, eros, and charity. Throughout the rest of the book, Lewis goes on to counterpoint that three-fold, qualitative distinction against the four broad types of loves indicated in his title. Appreciative love', to go along with Need-love and Gift-love. From the latter, he developed what he called 'a third element in love.

Lewis continues his examination by exploring the nature of pleasure, distinguishing Need-pleasures (such as water for the thirsty) from Pleasures of Appreciation, such as the love of nature. However, he swiftly happened on the insight that the natures of even these basic categorizations of love are more complicated than they at first seemed: a child's need for parental comfort is a necessity, not a selfish indulgence, while conversely parental Gift-love in excessive form can be a perversion of its own. John's words 'God is Love', Lewis initially thought to contrast 'Need-love' (such as the love of a child for its mother) and 'Gift-love' (epitomized by God's love for humanity), to the disparagement of the former. at the time for their frankness about sex. The book was based on a set of radio talks from 1958 which had been criticised in the U.S. Lewis which explores the nature of love from a Christian and philosophical perspective through thought experiments.

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis