The Four Loves (‘Agape’ or ‘God’s Love’) by C.S. Lewis Doodle

[@CSLewisDoodle]

The transcript of this broadcast is provided here: drive.google.com/file/d/1GT9vwknq3Tvup6xeoedczAGIHF4Rx4OI/view?usp=sharing

[@diosa.loba333]

"God can awake in man, towards Himself, a supernatural Appreciative love.. This is of all gifts the most to be desired. Here, not in our natural loves, nor even in ethics, lies the true centre of all human and angelic life. With this all things are possible."

[@esuohhsoj7109]

I wanna let you know, my mind does not have the ability to truly sit down and read. I’ve tried and tried but everyone is different and apparently I’m not the best reader... these videos have helped me in ways you don’t understand and I’d like for you to keep em going. You’re doing a great thing!

[@francisnoel39]

Josh House, it is the same with me...reading while listening to someone read along with me, makes understanding the text much easier...I have now read dozens of books since I encountered these little videos.

[@vanillafoodie]

12:45 hearing this just gave me clarity on the Lord's prayer, ".. Give us our daily bread as we forgive those who sins against us.." I always wonder what our daily bread meant, probably Jesus's body, for Jesus said He is the bread of life and I didn't think too much of it, I just look at it as God giving us daily spiritual food in us to sustain our spiritual needs. I never connected the dots on the hunger for love, or at least now I realize worldly things do not give me pleasure or satisfaction or fulfillment, now I have a new clarity that when I am hungry for love in life or attention as C.S. Lewis had mentioned the types of love we crave as humans, and I search it in the wrong places in this world is because the love I am looking for is not from this world but from God, how amazing our creator is, that He gives His love so freely to us as a gift and mercy. Now, whenever I am feeling down or have this hunger rush, may I find it in God which makes me full and whole like bread. Worldly love cannot sustain me for long and I go hungry again. Wow. Thank you for this doodle, I really appreciate C.S. Lewis intellect on God's words, it has helped me to see things even clearer, God has blessed him with this gift indeed.

[@warriorpoet2968]

Always enjoy hearing the actual C S Lewis speaking

[@josephwheeler2672]

I’m always blown away by Lewis’ insights and the way you create the imagery to help explain it! Thank you so much for the work you do! God Bless

[@tomsmock7674]

Why.... isn’t this watched by millions? Beautiful work. Enlightening, those like myself that are not scholars. Thank you

[@RonLWilson]

These are great! I am a visual learner and the drawings really make the words come alive !

[@rubphilosopher9307]

Awesome thanks this drawing adds so much to this teaching great job

[@John-bv2ft]

I learn more each video....great man

[@in-quisitive.6883]

Thank you, this is a blessing in my search to understand the biblical concept of God.

[@Blessedchanel]

Man, other than Scripture, these keep me going!!! You are such a blessing!!

[@jackp492]

Beautiful stuff, this is now my favourite channel on KZbin, bravo brother, may God bless you so you can continue to be a blessing to the rest of us

[@shibainu121]

I love your Doodles! This is one of my favorite youtube channels.

[@leadersofleaders]

Thank you so much for sharing this!!

[@nathanimadiyi3589]

I get it, I understand how God's love moves us. Thanks so so so much!

[@CliffBerning]

Wonderful. What a blessing. Thank you.

[@CSLewisDoodle]

A good follow up reading to this series is chapter 3 of 'The Problem of Pain - "Love is something more stern and splendid then mere kindness...".

[@JamesDaSilvamusic]

I listen to these every night while I work. Love Lewis. What a great comfort.

[@matthewcalcara8466]

You've won my heart! This is excellent. I've subscribed and can't wait to see more!

[@Itisheylel]

This is beautiful!!

[@samleslie9811]

Always look forward to your videos! Thanks for all the effort and time you put into making this a clear and understandable narration!

[@donnylastella9441]

Wonderful 🎁🎯‼️🤟

[@brdywlkr5107]

the end has me speechless

[@rossbyrd5474]

This is an amazing project. Well done.

[@TokugawaPatrick]

Great work, as always. You are really doing an amazing job illustrating this speeches and help people to easier understand and appreciate them. Thank you :)

[@UNKNWN96]

I ham here early, love this series! Crazy because I was just talking to a few people about God's love just to get a notification that this was uploaded xD

[@zugzug9969]

This is absolutely incredible

[@Beaguins]

Thanks for giving us another great video! So much time had passed since the previous one that I was starting to worry.

[@Itisheylel]

Easy to none but possible to all 💜

[@georgedebleu]

Outstanding, thank you!

[@kingdomkid6790]

The Most Amazing video I can remember. Thank You So Very Much.

[@stevens.286]

Beautiful!

[@NoahProductionsNP]

Amazing work, so instructive!

[@hugoheyman1306]

Waited long for this one! Thank you!

[@Ittoramstagram]

Amazing work as always!

[@axelord4ever]

Golly go, here it 'oes. I've been waiting for this. Many thanks, my man.

[@christofferjuhlin3035]

Good work! Love this.

[@upliftingcommunity2465]

Yay!! Finally woohoo. Imma tell everyone I know to subscribe to this channel. Can you please finish Abolition of man when you get the chance?

[@alin8591]

Thaaaaaank youuuuu!!!

[@rachellebaetz8217]

Incredible

[@muncleike]

2:45 nice! Well done. Ty for you work and dedication!

[@louisryan5815]

YEEEEEAAAHHH! love this channel

[@facecrash24]

I have absolutely loved this series. Your illustrations are impeccable and really help with understanding what is being said. I'm pretty darn new to Lewis and have only realised with this video how strongly Christian he was. I really enjoyed enjoyed the topics of eros, phillia and storge finding them pretty enlightening but I had hoped that the subject of this video would be more abstract, with "God" being an allegory for the ideal love rather than an actual deism who's love cannot be matched but only idealised and striven to be closer to. I don't find the Christian assertion of their God to be the epitome of love to be true (if we were only to fundamentally follow scripture that is) and was instead hoping for a more abstract 'ideal' or perhaps even a Jungianesque archetype of a 'true love giver'. Nevertheless I found this video interesting for its theological content.

[@CSLewisDoodle]

Hi Jay, It sounds like you are on a similar path to one that Lewis traversed himself: He described his own journey from atheism to Christianity like this: "I left that ship [of scientific atheism] not at the call of poetry, but because I thought it could not keep afloat. Something like philosophical idealism or Theism must, at the very worst, be less untrue than that. And idealism turned out, when you took it seriously, to be disguised Theism. And once you accepted Theism you could not ignore the claims of Christ..." (Lewis, 'Is Theology Poetry?'). “On the intellectual side my own progress had been from ‘popular realism’ to Philosophical Idealism; from Idealism to Pantheism; from Pantheism to Theism; and from Theism to Christianity. I still think this a very natural road, but I now know that it is a road very rarely trodden. (Afterword, 'Pilgrim's Regress'). On the topic of Love, could I suggest you try a book called ‘The Problem of Pain’? There is a section from chapter 3 on Divine Goodness which talks a lot more on God's love: Chapter quotation: Love can forbear, and Love can forgive . . . but Love can never be reconciled to an unlovely object. . . . He can never therefore be reconciled to your sin, because sin itself is incapable of being altered; but He may be reconciled to your person, because that may be restored. Traherne, Centuries of Meditation, ii, 30 Lewis: “Any consideration of the goodness of God at once threatens us with the following dilemma. On the one hand, if God is wiser than we His judgement must differ from ours on many things, and not least on good and evil. What seems to us good may therefore not be good in His eyes, and what seems to us evil may not be evil. On the other hand, if God’s moral judgement differs from ours so that our ‘black’ may be His ‘white’, we can mean nothing by calling Him good; for to say ‘God is good’, while asserting that His goodness is wholly other than ours, is really only to say ‘God is we know not what’. And an utterly unknown quality in God cannot give us moral grounds for loving or obeying Him. If He is not (in our sense) ‘good’ we shall obey, if at all, only through fear-and should be equally ready to obey an omnipotent Fiend. The doctrine of Total Depravity- when the consequence is drawn that, since we are totally depraved, our idea of good is worth simply nothing-may thus turn Christianity into a form of devil-worship. The escape from this dilemma depends on observing what happens, in human relations, when the man of inferior moral standards enters the society of those who are better and wiser than he and gradually learns to accept *their* standards-a process which, as it happens, I can describe fairly accurately, since I have undergone it. 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. It is in the light of such experiences that we must consider the goodness of God. Beyond all doubt, His idea of ‘goodness’ differs from ours; but you need have no fear that, as you approach it, you will be asked simply to reverse your moral standards. When the relevant difference between the Divine ethics and your own appears to you, you will not, in fact, be in any doubt that the change demanded of you is in the direction you already call ‘better’. The Divine ‘goodness’ differs from ours, but it is not sheerly different: it differs from ours not as white from black but as a perfect circle from a child’s first attempt to draw a wheel. But when the child has learned to draw, it will know that the circle it then makes is what it was trying to make from the very beginning. This doctrine is presupposed in Scripture. Christ calls men to repent-a call which would be meaningless if God’s standards were sheerly different from that which they already knew and failed to practise. He appeals to our existing moral judgement-‘Why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?’ (Luke 12.57) God in the Old Testament expostulates with men on the basis of their own conceptions of gratitude, fidelity, and fair play: and puts Himself, as it were, at the bar before His own creatures-‘What iniquity have your fathers found in me, that they are gone far from me?’ (Jeremiah 2:5). After these preliminaries it will, I hope, be safe to suggest that some conceptions of the Divine goodness which tend to dominate our thought, though seldom expressed in so many words, are open to criticism. By the goodness of God we mean nowadays almost exclusively His lovingness; and in this we may be right. And by Love, in this context, most of us mean kindness-the desire to see others than the self happy; not happy in this way or in that, but just happy. What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, ‘What does it matter so long as they are contented?’ We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven-a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves’, and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all’. Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don’t, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction…"

[@facecrash24]

@@CSLewisDoodle Wow, that was an unexpectedly comprehensive reply. Thank you.

[@alexdemetriou707]

KJV:KJV Luke 14:26 "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple". AOB: “IF ANYONE COMES TO ME, AND IS NOT WILLING TO FORSAKE (when necessary) HIS OWN FATHER AND MOTHER AND WIFE AND CHILDREN AND BROTHERS AND SISTERS, YES, AND EVEN HIS OWN LIFE, HE CANNOT BE MY DISCIPLE". Translation matters! "And hate not his father" versus "And not willing to forsake (when necessary) his father". Two completely different tones.

[@CSLewisDoodle]

Check out the video description notes/ the book version of 'The Four Loves' for more on this issue of hatred: (7:49) "Consider again, "I loved Jacob and I hated Esau" (Malachi 1. 2-3). How is the thing called God's "hatred" of Esau displayed in the actual story? Not at all as we might expect...And, from all we are told, Esau's earthly life was, in every ordinary sense, a good deal more blessed than Jacob's. It is Jacob who has all the disappointments, humiliations, terrors, and bereavements. But he has something which Esau has not. He is a patriarch. He hands on the Hebraic tradition, transmits the vocation and the blessing, becomes an ancestor of Our Lord. The "loving" of Jacob seems to mean the acceptance of Jacob for a high (and painful) vocation; the "hating" of Esau, his rejection. He is "turned down," fails to "make the grade," is found useless for the purpose. So, in the last resort, we must turn down or disqualify our nearest and dearest when they come between us and our obedience to God. Heaven knows, it will seem to them sufficiently like hatred. We must not act on the pity we feel; we must be blind to tears and deaf to pleadings.”

[@alexdemetriou707]

@@CSLewisDoodle Thank you for the guidance, very much appreciated.

[@joannaszarska6267]

CS Lewis would love that :D :D :D

[@joelunruh6534]

The music reminds me of "God loves nicky cruz" from the cross and the switchblade.

[@CSLewisDoodle]

From 'The Witness' Musical by Jimmy and Carol Owens. kzbin.info/www/bejne/mqeUgqdjm8aYkLs

[@nedebitus]

I enjoy these doodle lectures. Question. If ἀγάπη makes up God's nature and being, how is it that natural or soulish psuchikos men [1 Co 2:14] have access to it. Obviously they are not able love the light [another attribute of what God our Father IS] but how is it that they have access to it, being alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:17-18)? None of the commentators are of any help. An apparent huge contradiction. Joh 3:19 `And this is the judgment, that the light hath come to the world, and men did love [ηγαπησανG25] the darkness rather than the light, for their works were evil; Joh 12:43 For they loved [ηγαπησανG25] the glory of men more than the glory of God. G26 ἀγάπη agápē; gen. agápēs, fem. noun from agapáō (G25), to love. Love, affectionate regard, goodwill, benevolence. With reference to God's love, it is God's willful direction toward man.

[@CSLewisDoodle]

I don't know. I do notice I have received comments from angry Koine Greek biblical students over the meanings of these Greek words, and when I send them the Classical Greek dictionary definitions, they realise C.S. Lewis was perfectly right. There may be a difference as to how these words were used in Classical vs Koine Greek, which you might want to investigate. Which word would a man speaking classical Greek use to express ungodly or wrong supernatural love? I know C.S. Lewis, who was fluent in Classical Greek, found that his first reading of the New Testament in Greek quite an adjustment. Regards, CSLD

[@nedebitus]

@@CSLewisDoodle Thank you for answering my question and thank you for all the hard work and hours you must put in to make these videos and upload them. May the grace and peace of our Lord be with you to continue to grow in the faith. (Eph 4:12-13) Amen.

[@Anteater23]

10:56

[@wicklunda]

What is the song you close with?

[@CSLewisDoodle]

'Born Again' from 'The Witness' Musical by Jimmy and Carol Owens. kzbin.info/aero/PLDA3A01C151ECF610

[@arock155]

Thank you for this.