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The March of Man: a Chronological Record of Peoples and Events from Pr
""We need others physically, emotionally, intellectually; we need them if we are to know anything, even ourselves.""
We hear often that love is patient and kind, not envious or prideful. We hear that human love is a reflection of divine love. We hear that God is love. But how do we understand its work in our lives, its perils and rewards? Here, the incomparable C. S. Lewis examines human love in four forms: affection, the most basic, general, and emotive; friendship, the most rare, least jealous, and, in being freely chosen, perhaps the most profound; Eros, passionate love that can run counter to happiness and poses real danger; charity, the greatest, most spiritual, and least selfish. Proper love is a risk, but to bar oneself from it--to deny love--is a damning choice. Love is a need and a gift; love brings joy and laughter. We must seek to be awakened and so to find an Appreciative love through which "all things are possible."
""The Four Loves" deserves to become a minor classic as a modern mirror of our souls, a mirror of the virtues and failings of human loving." --"New York Times Book Review"
"Lewis has a keen eye, a large measure of human sympathy, wit, and a command of simple words." --"Times Literary Supplement"
C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898-1963), one of the great writers of the twentieth century, also continues to be one of our most influential Christian thinkers. He wrote more than thirty books, both popular and scholarly, including The Chronicles of Narnia series, "The Screwtape Letters," "The Four Loves," "Mere Christianity," and "Surprised by Joy."
We hear often that love is patient and kind, not envious or prideful. We hear that human love is a reflection of divine love. We hear that God is love. But how do we understand its work in our lives, its perils and rewards? Here, the incomparable C. S. Lewis examines human love in four forms: affection, the most basic, general, and emotive; friendship, the most rare, least jealous, and, in being freely chosen, perhaps the most profound; Eros, passionate love that can run counter to happiness and poses real danger; charity, the greatest, most spiritual, and least selfish. Proper love is a risk, but to bar oneself from it--to deny love--is a damning choice. Love is a need and a gift; love brings joy and laughter. We must seek to be awakened and so to find an Appreciative love through which "all things are possible."
""The Four Loves" deserves to become a minor classic as a modern mirror of our souls, a mirror of the virtues and failings of human loving." --"New York Times Book Review"
"Lewis has a keen eye, a large measure of human sympathy, wit, and a command of simple words." --"Times Literary Supplement"
C. S. (Clive Staples) Lewis (1898-1963), one of the great writers of the twentieth century, also continues to be one of our most influential Christian thinkers. He wrote more than thirty books, both popular and scholarly, including The Chronicles of Narnia series, "The Screwtape Letters," "The Four Loves," "Mere Christianity," and "Surprised by Joy."
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1935
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About the author
C.S. Lewis
812 books47.7k followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.
Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]
Clive Staples Lewis was one of the intellectual giants of the twentieth century and arguably one of the most influential writers of his day. He was a Fellow and Tutor in English Literature at Oxford University until 1954. He was unanimously elected to the Chair of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Cambridge University, a position he held until his retirement. He wrote more than thirty books, allowing him to reach a vast audience, and his works continue to attract thousands of new readers every year. His most distinguished and popular accomplishments include Mere Christianity, Out of the Silent Planet, The Great Divorce, The Screwtape Letters, and the universally acknowledged classics The Chronicles of Narnia. To date, the Narnia books have sold over 100 million copies and been transformed into three major motion pictures.
Lewis was married to poet Joy Davidman.
W.H. Lewis was his elder brother]
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June 25, 2025
ONE OF LEWIS'S MOST FAMOUS BOOKS OF APOLOGETICS
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a novelist, academic, medievalist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist who held academic positions at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. He wrote many other books, such as 'Miracles,' 'Problem of Pain','The Screwtape Letters,' 'A Grief Observed,' 'The World's Last Night,' 'The Abolition of Man,' 'The Great Divorce,' 'God in the Dock,' 'Christian Reflections,' 'The Weight of Glory,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface, "The contents of this book were first given on the air, and then published in three separate parts ... I made a few additions ... but otherwise left the text much as it had been... The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian 'denominations'... There are questions at issue between Christians to which I do not think I have the answer... I was not writing to expound something I could call 'my religion,' but to expound 'mere' Christianity, which is what it is and was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.
"Some people draw unwarranted conclusions from the fact that I never say more about the Blessed Virgin Mary than is involved in asserting the Virgin Birth of Christ... If any topic would be relied on to wreck a book about 'mere' Christianity---if any topic makes utterly unprofitable reading for those who do not yet believe that the Virgin's son is God---surely this is it... I hope that no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communities..."
He recalls, "[As an atheist] My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of JUST and UNJUST? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has come idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z... why did I... find myself in such violent reaction against it?" (Pg. 45)
He gives his famous version of the "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" argument: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God'... A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic---on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg---or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." (Pg. 55-56)
He suggests, "the outer world... may demand ... that they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps---Christian and non-Christian---and that all people in the first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second. This is unreasonable ... The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy...
"Many of the good Pagans before Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass." (Pg. 176-177)
This book is one of the genuine "classics" of modern Christian apologetics; and "mere" Christians of all types need to actually READ, rather than just hear a few passages quoted of paraphrased.
Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was a novelist, academic, medievalist, lay theologian, and Christian apologist who held academic positions at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. He wrote many other books, such as 'Miracles,' 'Problem of Pain','The Screwtape Letters,' 'A Grief Observed,' 'The World's Last Night,' 'The Abolition of Man,' 'The Great Divorce,' 'God in the Dock,' 'Christian Reflections,' 'The Weight of Glory,' etc.
He wrote in the Preface, "The contents of this book were first given on the air, and then published in three separate parts ... I made a few additions ... but otherwise left the text much as it had been... The reader should be warned that I offer no help to anyone who is hesitating between two Christian 'denominations'... There are questions at issue between Christians to which I do not think I have the answer... I was not writing to expound something I could call 'my religion,' but to expound 'mere' Christianity, which is what it is and was long before I was born and whether I like it or not.
"Some people draw unwarranted conclusions from the fact that I never say more about the Blessed Virgin Mary than is involved in asserting the Virgin Birth of Christ... If any topic would be relied on to wreck a book about 'mere' Christianity---if any topic makes utterly unprofitable reading for those who do not yet believe that the Virgin's son is God---surely this is it... I hope that no reader will suppose that 'mere' Christianity is here put forward as an alternative to the creeds of the existing communities..."
He recalls, "[As an atheist] My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of JUST and UNJUST? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has come idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? If the whole show was bad and senseless from A to Z... why did I... find myself in such violent reaction against it?" (Pg. 45)
He gives his famous version of the "Lord, Liar, Lunatic" argument: "I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God'... A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic---on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg---or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to." (Pg. 55-56)
He suggests, "the outer world... may demand ... that they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps---Christian and non-Christian---and that all people in the first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second. This is unreasonable ... The world does not consist of 100 percent Christians and 100 percent non-Christians. There are people (a great many of them) who are slowly ceasing to be Christians but who still call themselves by that name: some of them are clergymen. There are other people who are slowly becoming Christians though they do not yet call themselves so. There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God's secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy...
"Many of the good Pagans before Christ's birth may have been in this position. And always, of course, there are a great many people who are just confused in mind and have a lot of inconsistent beliefs all jumbled up together. Consequently, it is not much use trying to make judgments about Christians and non-Christians in the mass." (Pg. 176-177)
This book is one of the genuine "classics" of modern Christian apologetics; and "mere" Christians of all types need to actually READ, rather than just hear a few passages quoted of paraphrased.
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