The Four Loves ('Philia' or 'Friendship') by C.S. Lewis Doodle
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2017
- This is an illustration of C.S Lewis’ talk about the second of the four loves - 'Philia' or 'Friendship'. Notes below...
Originally 'The Four Loves' series was recorded by Lewis in London in 1958, prepared as 10 talks to air on the ‘Protestant Hour’ on American radio. I believe 'Philia' was split into three talks. The second part begins at 7:01 & the third at 18:30 if you need smaller, bite-sized segments.
You can find my transcript of this talk here: drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Mm...
You can purchase Lewis' original radio broadcasts here: www.amazon.com/The-Four-Loves...
These talks were later turned into a larger book with more detail (with quite different examples), which you can find here: www.amazon.com/Four-Loves-C-S...
(1:14) "[Ancient romantic couples such as] Tristan & Isolde, Antony & Cleopatra, Romeo & Juliet, have innumerable counterparts in modern literature: [Ancient friendships such as] David & Jonathan, Pylades & Orestes, Roland & Oliver, Amis & Amile, have not. To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it."
(2:21) “Your [friendship] love was…greater than the love of women [i.e., Eros]”. Friendship love from Jonathan in David’s life had been of a better quality here than the Eros love from his wife, Michal, Jonathan's sister.
(4:37) Dr Johnson was probably the most distinguished man of letters in English history and Boswell wrote his biography, which is claimed as “the greatest biography written in the English language”. Lewis described this relationship as a “pretty flagrantly heterosexual couple”.
(15:45) No slight here: “I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, & safe in their own homes? As Dr Johnson said, ‘To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour’. (1st to be happy, to prepare for being happy in our own real Home hereafter: 2nd, in the meantime, to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist.” (Lewis, 1955).
(21:29) See Genesis 4.9 “Am I my brother's keeper?” But note God’s exception to this kind of help in 2 Chronicles 19.2.
(22:34) “This [Friendship] love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies, but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities."
(23:56) ‘Immune from the internal corruptions of Storge’ - that is, Friendship is almost free from Affection's need to be needed.
(24:20) “…We must notice that Friendship is very rarely the image under which Scripture represents the love between God and Man. It is not entirely neglected; but far more often, seeking a symbol for the highest love of all, Scripture ignores this seemingly almost angelic relation and plunges into the depth of what is most natural and instinctive…Friendship is even, if you like, angelic. But man needs to be triply protected by humility if he is to eat the bread of angels without risk. Perhaps we may now hazard a guess why Scripture uses Friendship so rarely as an image of the highest love. It is already, in actual fact, too spiritual to be a good symbol of Spiritual things." ('The Four Loves', Friendship).
(29:01) From ‘Aucassin and Nicolette’ (c. 1200): “For to Hell go the fair clerks [intellectuals] and the fair knights who are slain in the [jousting] tourney and the great wars, and the stout archer and the gallant nobles. With them will I go. And there go the fair and courteous ladies, who have lovers, two or three, together with their wedded lords. And there pass the gold and the silver, the ermine [mink] and all rich furs, harpers and minstrels [poets], and the happy of the world. With these will I go, so only that I have Nicolette, my very sweet friend, by my side.”
(29:05) “Now a man must be very good or…very bad, not to feel in himself a response to that gesture”; ”The real black, diabolical Pride comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you. Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks. But the Proud man has a different reason for not caring..." (Mere Christianity, ‘The Great Sin’).
(15:45) Lewis on being a housewife, the most important work: “I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, & safe in their own homes? As Dr Johnson said, ‘To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour’. (1st to be happy, to prepare for being happy in our own real Home hereafter: 2nd, in the meantime, to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist.” (Lewis, 1955).
A wonderful way to put it.
It may not be the most glorious of all works, but it may perhaps be the most important.
Its so cool to me that this is his actual voice. 😊
It’s a shame that they don’t teach us things like this in school.
Man that's deep.
In the bible God calls Himself our: Father(storge) Husband (Eros) Friend(philios) and Saviour(Agape)
Never noticed that before watching this. We are loved loved! Thank God for the blood of Jesus Christ
2:25 So true. You can see this in discussions about characters in a book, movie, etc. Whenever you have two people of the same sex who have a genuinely close relationship or a character being devoted to someone else of the same sex, there are always those who think that they're gay.
I heard a wise man say that if you can count two or three true friends at the very end of your life, you have been very fortunate indeed. So don’t be too discouraged if you haven’t experienced this kind of Friendship love, for it is the rarest form of love and not absolutely necessary for your well-being as Proverbs 18.24 says "A man of friends may be broken up, but there is a Lover who sticks closer than a brother" (KJ3).
CSLewisDoodle it actually has give. Me some insights as to why I have a hard time (being 20 years in military) keeping long term friends. It was just a shared experience, not so much of a deeper connection or extended conversation beyond work environment
Lewis is so intelligent, and yet packs so much subtle humor into his speaking, it's wonderful.
Some folks have written in to ask, ‘But wasn’t Abraham a friend of God? And isn’t this picture used in Scripture of our relationship with God?’
Yes it is used, but Friendship is very rarely the image under which Scripture represents the love between God and Man, whereas the image of Eros and Storge is used countless times. Nevertheless friendship with God is mentioned. I can count two or three persons/groups in Scripture who are friends of God. Enoch perhaps (Genesis 5.24), Abraham of course (2 Chon. 20.7 etc.), Moses probably (Exodus 32.10, 33.11), and the apostles definitely (John 15.15). Why isn't it mentioned more frequently? Not because friendship is any less important an image. Lewis give his explanation for this rarity in his book version:
(24:20) “…We must notice that Friendship is very rarely the image under which Scripture represents the love between God and Man. It is not entirely neglected; but far more often, seeking a symbol for the highest love of all, Scripture ignores this seemingly almost angelic relation and plunges into the depth of what is most natural and instinctive…Friendship is even, if you like, angelic. But man needs to be triply protected by humility if he is to eat the bread of angels without risk. Perhaps we may now hazard a guess why Scripture uses Friendship so rarely as an image of the highest love. It is already, in actual fact, too spiritual to be a good symbol of Spiritual things." ('The Four Loves', Friendship).
There is one other point that might be worth considering. Friendship with God might be at a whole different level. You remember Jesus said this to his disciples: "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you."
Because friendship with God is not spoken much about in the Scriptures, I wonder if it is because there are not that many of us who He could share His deeper secrets with and in return, would we keep it to ourselves? Remember how many times the Lord spoke to folks, that they were not to speak of the miracle he had just done for them (John 5.14, Mark 1.41-45 etc.), and they immediately went out and reported it to everybody! Not a lot of real friendship going on there.
Additionally, their loose lips meant that Jesus couldn’t go into some towns to preach (Mark 1.45). Yet some "friends of God" were allowed to proclaim their own healing (Luke 8.39), others could tell revelations, but not until certain events occurred (Matthew 17.9). Other friends of God (Moses) were asked to go and proclaim the message in public (Exodus 5.1).
How many of us, if God should show us something troubling coming up, that was in His Will, and we didn’t like it that much, would go about trying to stop the event? How many of us would try to stop the troubling of the waters that would result from God’s Will occurring, that God needed to take place for His own purposes? For instance, Jesus knew about his upcoming trouble of his own crucifixion, but he didn’t change the event. Only his disciples (his friends) heard about it, and Peter tried to change his mind, and we remember the curt reply by Christ “Get behind me Satan”.
In our own circumstances some of us might have wondered “Why didn’t God forewarn us?” of some trouble that was to come, as He definitely does at times. Could it be that we were going to meddle and spoil the bigger picture? Being a friend of God is a position of confidence and of great trust.
Your work is fantastic.This is a labor of Love. It makes the resources of Lewis far more accessible: and in a very attractive format.
This reminded me of a highschool bully, I remember he treated his friends well and his friends genuinely liked him. However in the next moment you would see him corner an unlucky passerby and hurt them. His friends would laugh and egg it on. No one was worthy or afforded dignity or respect except each other.
This is the toxic side of philia.
I was also bullied by this person and rejected from any friendship group. For a long time afterwards I had a deep suspicion and resentment towards friendship and anyone wanting that with me.
It's only later now in my adult life that I've managed to put my trauma down and accept and trust people enough to enjoy friendship in my life. I'm glad I did because it's added a special beauty and comfort to my days have become and have become a better and stronger person for it.
Lewis was greatly helped by good friends, a lot of which is described in his autobiography, but here is a section from the 'Problem of Pain', which talks about the effect it had on him:
"When I came first to the University I was as nearly without a moral conscience as a boy could be. Some faint distaste for cruelty and for meanness about money was my utmost reach-of chastity, truthfulness, and self sacrifice I thought as a baboon thinks of classical music. By the mercy of God I fell among a set of young men (none of them, by the way, Christians) who were sufficiently close to me in intellect and imagination to secure immediate intimacy, but who knew, and tried to obey, the moral law. Thus their judgement of good and evil was very different from mine. Now what happens in such a case is not in the least like being asked to treat as “white” what was hitherto called black. The new moral judgements never enter the mind as mere reversals (though they do reverse them) of previous judgements but “as lords that are certainly expected”. You can have no doubt in which direction you are moving: they are more like good than the little shreds of good you already had, but are, in a sense, continuous with them. But the great test is that the recognition of the new standards is accompanied with the sense of shame and guilt: one is conscious of having blundered into society that one is unfit for." (Chp. 3 Divine Goodness).
This stuff is so well drawn. When he talked about losing an object for storge vs friendship...ouch.
I want to personally thank you for doing these videos. The Four Loves was a book that I read in college (of my own will) and found to be tremendously deep and difficult, in part because I am dyslexic. Your presentations to accompany the text do such an amazing job of explaining the deep meanings of it that I have come to understand it so much better.
Please continue this series. I know that Eros will be difficult to present tastefully, but I have faith that you can do it.
I really love the use of color in this.
Lewis has such wit and I love it!
Thank you for continuing with The Four Loves.
Transcript here: drive.google.com/file/d/0B9MmcPqIiEnKTWtnYmthbHNvNDg/view?usp=sharing
He is such a genius. Wow.
Oh my dear lord, I have been fervently pouring over every tiny word in the actual book and couldn't find the topic being discussed at 10:07 (difference between liking someone's conversation vs their personality)! And I happened to read the description and wow you have not left *anything* out 😅 thank you for sharing the transcript, and clarifying the fact that this is Lewis' own narration. Delighted to have run into this! And I love the doodle style, the slightly shaky white lines and how you keep retracing the heads 😂
Your hard work is greatly appreciated. All should know, we are to continually grow and that takes learning guided by the Holy Spirit. Again, Thanks .
This is amazing, it really helps me sort out relationships.
I’d recommend getting this book
Thanks for continuing the Four Loves.
As always, these are amazing. Thank you so much for doing these!
Wow. Thank you so much for this. Lewis’s words are powerful but when out together with your illustrations it definitely helps me learn in a deeper way. Thank you!
This made me miss my bestie. Our love was philia and agape too. 💙💛
As usual, this is very interesting and accessible. Thank you!
Wow this makes it so much more understandable to someone like me, thanks for all your hard work!
Thank You! Had to read this for a Theology class, way better!
There are more notes (plus time stamps) in the video description above that might help clarify Lewis' meaning on some points. Also, the PDF of the transcript in the comment's section includes all the scripture references which makes it much easier to find them. CLSD.
thank you for your tremendous work
Great visualization!
Amazing. Thank you so much for these. I am excited to see all four loves.
Awesome👍😁.
this is too awesome! thank you for sharing
Thank you so much!
Excellent work as usual. Thank you.
Thank you
Thank you!
Masterful :)
Magnificent .
Excellent video!!!
instant sub
I appreciate what you do so much. Thank you for you hard work and good taste in projects. :)
So I just realized I don’t have any real friends. Oof.
I heard a wise man say that if you can count two or three true friends at the very end of your life, you have been very fortunate indeed. So don’t be too discouraged if you haven’t experienced this kind of Friendship love, for it is the rarest form of love and not absolutely necessary for your well-being as Proverbs 18.24 says "A man of friends may be broken up, but there is a Lover who sticks closer than a brother" (KJ3).
It does have alternate translation also: "A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
So true!
bouta pass an exam because of you
TIL I don't have any actual friends.
Do you know of anyone in your life who seeks your good? And to flip it around, is there anyone whose good you care about? If they were in trouble would you be there asap?