The Evolution of Our Affection

In his book The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis writes about love, and with the help of the ancient Greeks, beautifully divides it into four main categories. Lewis' definitions of each type of love - in a nutshell - are as follows:

Storge: Affection; a fondness through familiarity.

Philia: The strong bonds of friendship shared between people; “the instrument by which God reveals to each the beauties of all the others.”

Eros: The state of being “in love.”

Agape: Christian charity. This love is the highest, and it is unconditional.

While the first three loves come naturally, Lewis writes that without the fourth kind of love, the other types can become corrupt. He speaks of Agape as the love of God, which, quite literally, gives the other types of love the grace they need to become something more than they can be on their own. Storge, Philia, and Eros all point towards Agape, which is the natural evolution of love – if it is allowed to develop.