The Four Loves-Eros

                C.S. Lewis differentiates between four different types of love.  In chapter four he focuses on Eros, love between the sexes.  I thought it was interesting that we talked about this because I feel like it is something we don’t usually talk about, and when we talk about the mystery of being married or the excitement of falling in love.  It is easy to misunderstand what a relationship the extremes of the media not taking sex and love serious enough and the church who sometimes takes them too seriously.  In discussing how we must think of sex I thought it was interesting that C.S. Lewis said, “Natural things are dangerous when they seem divine.”  I really liked this because I think it is very true yet I had never thought of it that way.  We so often make natural things into idols.  Whether it is sex or the person we love, we many times let that thing become more important than our relationship with God.  It seems as though God’s greatest gifts to us can also be our greatest stumbling blocks in faith if we use them incorrectly. 

                I thought it was interesting that he described falling in love first as a preoccupation with the one you love, thinking about him or her all the time.  Than after this preoccupation comes sexual feeling for her.  This makes sense, however, in our culture its usually described as first finding a girl attractive and having sexual feelings for her, than getting to know her and falling in love.  I think it’s important that to have a strong biblically based relationship, the sexual desires must be pushed to the back of the mind til you are in a relationship in which it is decent to do so, a marriage relationship.  However, as obvious as this sounds its quite countercultural.  He described another man who didn’t want a woman because he loved her but simply because of the sexual sensations she could give him.  He went on to describe this man with a metaphor of a woman being like a pack of cigarettes in which just as he throw away the pack after he had smoked all the cigarettes, he dumped the woman after she had given him the sexual stimulation he had wanted.  This is a shocking comparison.  Everyone knows you can’t treat a woman like that.  And yet it has become somewhat acceptable in our society. 

                I really liked the class discussion we had about submission.  I am not sure how I feel about it.  Although I know in the Bible it says wives submit to your husbands, that was also an extremely patriarchal society.  I have learned my whole life that I am equal to a man.  I can be just as smart, have the same job, and should receive the same wage for the same job.  However, if the wife is to the husband as the church is to Christ, than we are not equal.  Although Christ loves the church, the church has no part in decisions because Christ is subordinate to Christ in every way.  When I think of a husband and wife making decision I think of the man and the woman discussing and helping each other to see the errors in their ideas so they can compromise on the best plan.  When I think of Christ making a decision I think of an all-powerful, all-knowing God that knows much better than the church.  The Church can’t be give any helpful criticism because God knows infinitely more than the church.  We are his humble servants who he provides for and loves in spite of our sinfulness.  In biblical times, the husband would be much older and therefore have much more knowledge from experience, and also have much more schooling.  It would only seem fitting that the man would make all the decisions because he was much wiser.   In society today men and women are generally pretty equally educated and therefore both equally able to make decisions.  Although I do realize that women and men think differently and that men are generally stronger, I think it’s important to realize that there has been a pretty large paradigm shift in the role of women in society.  As a woman, I personally don’t want to be the head of the household; I don’t want to make the final decisions in my marriage.  However, I also realize that is partly because of my upbringing and my personality.  However, I know many couples in which the woman gladly takes on this role or they share it equally.  I was having a conversation with one of my high school teachers about this one time and he explained it to me this way.  He said that from an on lookers perspective it would seem as if he has a 50 50 relationship with his wife.  He says he doesn’t make decisions without his wife’s input and makes sure they find a good compromise.  However, at the end of the day his wife lets him have the final say.  He says in that way it is more of a 51 49 relationship.  He then made it clear that these percentages were only for decision making.  He said that to make a marriage work you must be giving 110% and not expecting anything in return.  I think this is an important idea as well.  I think that when you do this you make each other more beautiful.  This Monday I went to a January series talk and the speaker used a metaphor of different cultures polishing each other like a rock polisher.  They bump there sharp and dirty points and end up with something beautiful.  I think this is also how a marriage relationship should be.  You are going to have differences and but when you listen to each other and the compromise can make you both more beautiful.

                As college students, we need to start thinking about things like this.  As much as we joke about it here at Calvin, a lot of people do find their spouse in college.  If we want to be in godly intentional relationships we must consider thinks such as love sex and marriage.