Was man Liebe nennt. Zuneigung, Freundschaft, Eros, Agape. (1960)

The author writes about how human beings love things/people in many different ways. First he laid out the difference between Need-love, Gift-love, and Appreciation and gave examples. Then he wrote about Affection (the love you have for things/people because of chance, close proximity, a factor beyond your conscious choice), Friendship, Eros (a.k.a. romantic love) and Charity (a.k.a. how God loves). I've heard of the categories for the better part of my life, because pastors often quote the book in church sermons. But the nuances in description and evaluation in the book are much more interesting than just the four categories of love. A couple of points that stayed with me: 1. Affection, Friendship, and Eros are not higher than one another in its intrinsic value. They are part of our nature as God created us. They can function individually, but often our love for an individual is a mixture of two or three types of love; 2. Affection, Friendship and Eros can operate for good or for evil, depending on whether the loves are in line with God's principles. 3. With God's grace, we can develop a supernatural love for God in all terms of Need-love, Gift-love, and Appreciation. ( )

Very dry, muddled through. But still, a few very poignant things are stated. I had never considered the idea that God created us as parasites to His host, so we could exploit him - and that this is true love. Wow. Mind blown. ( )

《四种爱》堪称爱的经典，是路易斯晚年在遍尝情爱、友爱、爱情和仁爱之后创作的，对每一种爱的论述都反映了他丰富坎坷的人生经历。在书中，他谈到情爱由彼此相处熟悉中产生，是一种最没有等级差别的爱；共同的兴趣将朋友们连结在一起的友爱，则是“高度灵性的”；而爱情的伟大之处在于全身心的投入，超越了对自己的关注；能够爱不可爱之人，像上帝那样无私地给予的爱，就是大爱、仁爱。

Lewis categorizes love into four types: Affection, Friendship, Eros, and Charity. The book is short but the chapters are loooooooong and there weren’t any natural stopping places, so either you have to read 30-40 pages in one sitting or you have to stop in the middle of a thought. ( )

Another excellent thought-provoking piece by Lewis. He has a way of pointing out obvious things in life that I've somehow missed. We all talk about "loving" this or that person or thing, but I never stopped to consider what that really means. Reading this book has made my life richer. ( )