The Four Loves

Clive Staples Lewis, the author of The Four Loves, was already a formidable and revered academic by the time the book was published. It may be surprising to many readers of such a religious philosophical work to learn that, although raised by a religious family—they were members of the Church of Ireland—Lewis became a staunch atheist at the age of 15. His church duties began to feel onerous and pointless as soon as his faith began to wane. Lewis saw the amount of suffering in the world as incompatible with the reality of an all-loving, all-powerful God. For the next 18 years, he maintained this view until reconverting to Christianity in 1931, largely as a result of intense theological discussions with church-going friends, one of whom was the author J.R.R. Tolkien.

After Lewis returned to the faith of his childhood, his writing took on a more obvious religious bent, evidenced by books like The Problem of Pain(1940), The Screwtape Letters(1942), Mere Christianity(1952), and The Four Loves(1960).

In reading The Four Loves,it is difficult to imagine that Lewis was ever a committed atheist because the author believes so strongly and poignantly in God’s love. However, it was his relationship to his wife Joy Gresham that informed much of the urgency with which he conducted his investigation of love.