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January 26, 2005
CIC—Washington, DC
The Four Loves
Introduction
I. NEED-LOVE vs. GIFT-LOVE
A. Divine love is gift-love. Creaturely love is mostly need-love.
B. Two ways to be close to God: Likeness to God vs. nearness of approach: “Man
approaches God when he is in one sense least like God.” (4)
C. “Love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god.” —Rougemont (6)
D. Love is most easily mistaken for divine love when it is at its most perfect, and the claim
is most plausible, viz., gift-love.
E. “The highest does not stand without the lowest.” (9)
F. How is need-love different from use (LR pp. 29,35: consumere, uti)?
Chapter 1: Likings and Loves for the Sub-Human
I. Two classes of pleasures:
A. NEED-PLEASURES–pleasures that are only pleasures if preceded by desire
B. PLEASURES OF APPRECIATION–pleasures in their own right and need to antecedent desire
C. Need-pleasures are more tied to our momentary human condition. Pleasures of
appreciation have a certain selflessness to them; that these things should be enjoyed by
someone, even if not the subject of the appreciation.
D. Need-pleasures foreshadow need-loves.
E. What does appreciative pleasure foreshadow? (15)
1. No clear distinction between sensual and aesthetic pleasures.
2. Possesses an almost disinterested reverence towards the object. “Disinterested” does
not mean “uninterested” but not self-interested. (16)
3. A third element in love (aside from need- and gift-love) in which the attention
becomes payment of a sort of debt: APPRECIATIVE LOVE, which “gazes and holds its
breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will
not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen
her at all.” (17)
4. Except for need-love, none of the elements of love ever exists in a pure form.
F. Two forms of love of the non-personal:
1. Loving nature
a. “If you take nature as teacher she will teach you exactly the lessons you had
already decided to learn; this is only another way of saying that nature does not
teach.” (19) Is this the classical or modern conception of nature? Compare to
Lewis’s conception of nature in The Abolition of Man:
“Nature is a word of varying meanings, which can best be understood if we consider its various
opposites. The Natural is the opposite of the Artificial, the Civil, the Human, the Spiritual, and the
Supernatural…. Now I take it that when we understand a thing analytically and then dominate and
use it for our own convenience, we reduce it to the level of ‘Nature’ in the sense that we suspend
our judgements of value about it, ignore its final cause (if any), and treat it in terms of quantity….
We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may ‘conquer’ them. We are always conquering
Nature, because ‘Nature’ is the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered.” (ch. 3)
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b.
January 26, 2005
CIC—Washington, DC
“Nature never taught me that there exists a God of glory and of infinite majesty. I
had to learn that in other ways.” (20) On the contrary, the Apostle writes,
“For since the creation of the world [God’s] invisible attributes are clearly seen—his everlasting
power and also divinity—being understood by the things that are made.” (Rm 1:20)
2. Patriotism; five facets:
a. Love of home, of the familiar (23)
b. Glorying in the country’s actual or mythic past (24)
c. Belief in the superiority of our nation to others (26)
d. Rights and duties consequent to our national superiority (27)
e. Love for country only because/when it is good or best (28)
3. The penumbra of patriotism
a. “Rulers must somehow nerve their subjects to defend them or at least prepare for
their defense. Where the sentiment of patriotism has been destroyed this can be
done only by presenting every international conflict in a purely ethical light. If
people will spend neither sweat nor blood for ‘their country’ they must be made to
feel that they are spending them for justice, civilization, or humanity…. If our
country’s cause is the cause of God, wars must be wars of annihilation.” (29) Is it
possible for Americans to have true patriotism?
b. The old sentimental view was conscious of its own limitations. “Wars could be
heroic without pretending to be Holy Wars.”
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