Without the Lowest . . .
Sex. In 2023 this is the most discussed topic in society, yet just reading that word probably causes some initial anxiety for the reader. If, instead, this paper were to discuss the ethics of transgenderism, homosexuality and the church, or celibacy in the priesthood, there may still be some anxiety regarding which stance this work would present. But, none of these hot-topic issues create that same unease as Sex. Just reading this word may invoke a knee-jerk response to look over one’s shoulder to see if anyone is around. Why is that? Could it be that it is because of one’s culture or upbringing? Is it because this is not something that polite people speak about? Maybe. Or it could be that all people know themselves, their passions, and their own animalistic desires, and it is this self-awareness that is invoked by that one little word.
Sex brings to mind both ecstasy and embarrassment, pleasure and pain, satisfaction and shame. How can this be? How can one word cause one to experience both the most positive and negative of reactions, and sometimes simultaneously? In this one act, man has the potential to either devolve into his base beast nature or to transcend the physical by becoming “one” according to God’s command. This work is going to look at what C. S. Lewis has to say about the erotic side of love by examining his discussion on Eros and Venus from The Four Loves, [1] briefly review the history of the ethics of sex and then try to discover the primary end (or primary purpose) of sex. This work will conclude with a rejection of the traditional view of the primary end of sex and an argument for Lewis’s Eros.
Lewis’s Eros and Venus
Unlike this introduction, Lewis’s work is genteel, and he writes in such a way as to not be considered vulgar. He rarely uses the word ‘sex,’ but his linguistic skills allow him to discuss such a delicate topic with a forceful clarity, while still not offending the cultural sensibilities of his day. The question of Eros, in its relation to love, first came to Lewis’s attention in 1934 “through a female colleague, Dr. Janet Spens.”[2] She had loaned him a copy of Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros: A Study of the Christian Idea of Love,[3] and he had apparently failed to return it. He tells of his intrigue in his letter back to Dr. Spens, explaining, “You will have begun to wonder if your Agape & Eros was lost forever! It is an intensely interesting book. I am inclined to think I disagree with him.”[4] From this interest, Lewis will eventually write The Four Loves.
Before turning to the chapter on Eros, it is beneficial to read the first two chapters. It is here where Lewis presents his overarching understanding of love before he begins to break down the different types of love. In his introduction, he establishes three concepts that will be of much use when he turns to Eros and Venus. The first is a distinction between “Gift-love” and “Need-love.” The second concept is man’s “nearness” to God. One can experience “nearness by likeness” or “nearness by approach.” The third concept, and the only one which needs to be understood for this work, is that of love itself. He describes his own understanding,
St. John’s saying that God is love has long been balanced in my mind against the remark of a modern author (M. Denis de Rougemont) that ‘love ceases to be a demon only when he ceases to be a god;’ which of course can be re-stated in the form ‘begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god.’ This balance seems to me an indispensable safeguard. If we ignore it the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God.[5]
Lewis, here, means for his reader to understand that if, and when, love, be that what he will call Eros or Venus, is elevated to a god-like status, it will be found not to be a god (blessing) but a demon (curse).
What then does Lewis mean by Eros and Venus? He defines Eros as “that state which we call ‘being in love;’ or, if you prefer, that kind of love which lovers are ‘in.’”[6] He further explains,
I am inquiring not into the sexuality which is common to us and the beasts or even common to all men but into one uniquely human variation of it which develops within ‘love’— what I call Eros. The carnal or animally sexual element within Eros, I intend (following an old usage) to call Venus. And I mean by Venus what is sexual not in some cryptic or rarified sense—such as a depth-psychologist might explore—but in a perfectly obvious sense; what is known to be sexual by those who experience it; what could be proved to be sexual by the simplest observations.[7]
Lewis takes roughly three pages to make clear his distinction between what he is calling Eros and Venus. For the purpose here, it will suffice to sum it up as “sexual desire, without Eros [meaning Venus], want it, the thing in itself [the physical act, regardless of the person with whom it is engaged[8]]; Eros wants the Beloved.”[9]
Lewis, having clearly defined his terms, then turns to the moral aspects of this discussion. The first concern he addresses is “that the spiritual danger of Eros arises almost entirely from the carnal element within it; that Eros is ‘noblest’ or ‘purest’ when Venus is reduced to the minimum.”[10] He explains that “the older moral theologians certainly seem to have thought that the danger we chiefly had to guard against in marriage was that of a soul-destroying surrender to the senses.”[11] Revealing a bit of cheekiness, Lewis reminds the reader that this is not the view of Scripture and comments that “with all proper respect to the medieval guides, I cannot help remembering that they were all celibates, and probably did not know what Eros does to our sexuality.”[12] In his experience, “it is marriage itself, not the marriage bed, that will be likely to hinder us from waiting uninterruptedly on God. . . . The gnat-like cloud of petty anxieties and decisions about the conduct of the next hour have interfered with my prayers more often than any passion or appetite whatever.”[13] He continues, “the great, permanent temptation of marriage is not to sensuality but (quite bluntly) to avarice.”[14] Lewis’s position is well understood by any who have been married for any period of time. It is far more often the mundane chores of everyday life that occupy man’s thoughts and time. Yet, this condemnation of Venus still persists.
Lewis will return to explain “the real spiritual danger in Eros,”[15] but at this point, he turns his attention to the scorned Venus. Here he says, “we have reached the stage at which nothing is more needed than a roar of old-fashioned laughter.”[16] But, of course, Venus is serious. Lewis admits this on a theological ground saying, “because this is the body’s share in marriage which, by God’s choice, is the mystical image of the union between God and Man.”[17] This is a serious matter, indeed, and one that will be addressed later. But, says Lewis, “she [Venus] herself is a mocking, mischievous spirit, far more elf than deity.”[18] By way of explanation, he rehearses an event familiar to all lovers;
when all external circumstances are fittest for her service she will leave one or both the lovers totally indisposed for it. When every overt act is impossible and even glances cannot be exchanged—in trains, in shops, and at interminable parties—she will assail them with all her force. An hour later, when time and place agree, she will have mysteriously withdrawn; perhaps from only one of them. What a pother this must raise— what resentments, self-pities, suspicions, wounded vanities, and all the current chatter about “frustration”—in those who have deified her! But sensible lovers laugh. It is all part of the game; a game of catch-as-catch-can, and the escapes and tumbles and head-on collisions are to be treated as a romp.[19]
Venus, if a god, is a trickster god, but Eros when deified is much more sinister. Lewis elaborates, “theologians have often feared, in this love, a danger of idolatry. I think they meant by this that the lovers might idolise one another. . . . The real danger seems to me not that the lovers will idolise each other but that they will idolise Eros himself.”[20] Eros, once made a god, is a most destructive demon. He “seems to sanction all sorts of actions they [lovers] would not otherwise have dared. . . . The pair can say to one another in an almost sacrificial spirit, ‘It is for love’s sake that I have neglected my parents—left my children—cheated my partner—failed my friend at his greatest need.’”[21] Yet, these, otherwise damnable acts, may be lauded because they were done “in love.” Eros, “whose voice seems to speak from the eternal realm is not himself necessarily even permanent.”[22] Time and time again, those to whom Eros has been made a god promise forever, only to be forsaken by that which is truly a demon. Lewis, however, brings some hope to those from whom Eros has proven fleeting saying, “these lapses will not destroy a marriage between two ‘decent and sensible’ people. The couple whose marriage will certainly be endangered by them, and possibly ruined, are those who have idolized Eros. They thought he had the power and truthfulness of a god.”[23] They thought he would be around forever. In reality, Eros is and can only be temporary, and “we must do the works of Eros when Eros is not present. This all good lovers know.”[24]
A Brief History on the Ethics of Sex
Earlier Lewis addressed the common concern among the “moral theologians” regarding the sensual aspect of Eros. One may wonder how Venus developed her sinful reputation. The focus of this work is on Eros and Venus, so this historical review will start with the civilization that produced these words, that being the Greco-Roman world. Between fifty and one hundred years before Christ, there lived a man named Lucretius. He was an Epicurean, maybe better understood today as a hedonist, and a Roman poet. The Epicurean philosophy is not one of pleasure at any cost, but rather one which seeks pleasure and an avoidance of suffering. If a pleasure now means suffering later, then the pleasure now was to be avoided. With this understanding, it should come as no surprise what Lucretius teaches concerning Venus. He says of sexual pleasure, “this pleasure we call Venus.[25] He continues that, “a man who avoids love is not without delights of Venus, but rather chooses those whose benefits bring no punishment.”[26] This “punishment” he speaks of is that which comes from falling in love with one person. Lucretius advises that one should find Venus anywhere other than in one person which one loves. Lewis, speaking of Lucretius, says “A great poet; but ‘Lord, what beastly fellows these Romans were!’”[27]
These “beastly fellows” were not constrained to the city of Rome, but at this time, Rome ruled most of the known world, including a remote area off the Mediterranean Sea called Judea. It was here that one hundred or so years after Lucretius was writing his poem, the Apostles would begin writing what is known today as the New Testament. Even though this was close to 2,000 years ago, Branson Parler, a Theological Studies professor at Kuyper College, explains that “the NT [New Testament] engages a similar environment to us and takes a clear position; same-sex sexual activity (and most forms of heterosexual sexual activity, we might add) . . . must be described in moral terms. And they univocally and categorically denounce same-sex sexual activity.”[28] Parlor is clearly focusing more on the issue of same-sex sexual activity, yet his inclusion of this and “most forms of heterosexual sexual activity” is an accurate description of sexual ethics in the New Testament. The New Testament, however, does not treat the subject of Eros or Venus. Even though the word Eros was available to the writers, they chose to speak of agape instead. Is this their way of rejecting Eros and by extension Venus? This would at best be an argument from silence. Although the New Testament writers may have been silent on Eros, later leaders of the Church were not.
One example of Christian teaching between the fourth and fifth centuries AD can be found in Chrysostom. Chris De Wet, professor of New Testament at the University of South Africa, explores Chrysostom’s thoughts concerning human birth and the spiritual rebirth. In this, he grants an insight into Chrysostom’s views concerning sex. He records that in Chrysostom’s view, “the modus operandi of God’s creation before the Fall, whether from the body of the earth or Adam, is considered ideal, while postlapsarian reproduction through the female body is seen as an abhorrent deviation from God’s original norm, because it implies sexual intercourse, passion and the pain of labour.”[29] So, for Chrysostom, postlapsarian reproduction is abhorrent because it implies sexual intercourse and passion. One can see that Venus’ reputation is fully sullied by this time. Thankfully, not all Christian teachers espoused this particular view of reproduction and Eros. Daniel Heide, of McGill University, in his study of Pseudo-Dionysius, the Areopagite, noted “one of the most striking developments in Dionysius’ Divine Names is the identification of God as Eros (ἒρως). Whereas previous thinkers, following Plato’s lead, employed ἒρως to describe the soul’s yearning for the Beautiful, Dionysius takes the (possibly) unprecedented step of applying this spiritualized ἒρως to the Beautiful itself.”[30] One of the ways Heide says that Dionysius used ἒρως in relation to God is as a “unity, the solitary all-embracing power by which beings are held together and perfected.”[31] Elaborating on this unity, he says it is “a power which binds the things of the same order in a mutually regarding union.”[32] Lewis might not agree with calling the Christian God ἒρως, but he would be more likely to side with Dionysius over Chrysostom’s view of procreation.
The doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church become better formulated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and much more rationalized under the systemization of St. Thomas Aquinas. He taught, concerning marriage and childbearing;
Therefore matrimony, as consisting in the union of a man and woman who intend to beget and educate children for the glory of God, is a sacrament of the Church: and hence it is that the bridal pair receive a blessing from the ministers of the Church. And just as in the other sacraments, something spiritual is symbolized by external actions, so in this sacrament the union of husband and wife signifies the union of Christ with the Church.[33]
Aquinas’ understanding of the union of husband and wife as symbolic of the union between Christ and the Church brings the issue much more in line with Lewis’s understanding of the concept of marriage. This view also, legitimizes the sexual act between the husband and wife as a good for the Church and the Kingdom of God, as opposed to it being some necessary, but abhorrent, act as Chrysostom would have one believe. Aquinas has helped to wash away the sinful reputation of sex (baptizing it one might say), but it does come with strings attached. With marriage now being a sacrament of the Church, the Church will feel the need to make sure its members understand just what is the purpose of sex and under what conditions it is not a sin.
Why Sex: Procreation or Intimacy?
As one can see from Aquinas’ position from the previous section, he teaches that there are two purposes of marriage: (1) “to beget and educate children for the glory of God,” and (2) to signify “the union of Christ with the Church.”[34] The question has changed from “Is sex morally good or abhorrent?” to “For what purpose, or end, can sex be said to be morally good?” Can either of Aquinas’ two purposes be said to be the “End” or primary purpose for lovers to engage in sexual activity? Dr. Edward Feser says yes. He argues that “sex exists in animals for the sake of procreation, and sexual pleasure exists for the sake of getting them to indulge in sex, so that they will procreate. . . . The obvious conclusion is that the natural end of sex is (in part) not just procreation but abundant procreation.”[35] He later stresses that “whatever else sex is, then, it is essentially procreative.”[36]
Feser does not ignore nor down play the unitive end of sex, but he is clear that sex is primarily procreative. Addressing the moral implications from a natural law perspective he teaches;
A human sexual act is a seamless unity of the procreative and the unitive, directed at the same time toward both biological generation and emotional communion.
Hence there is no such thing as a sexual act that of its nature is merely unitive and in no way procreative, any more than there is such a thing as a human perceptual experience which of its nature is merely conceptual and in no way sensory.[37]
Here Feser confesses that the two are “a seamless unity” and then proceeds to unstitch the two in order to prioritize the more natural purpose, i.e., the one that is more animalistic in nature. Following this same rationale, he casts that same old shadow over Venus saying, “sexual pleasure has as its own natural end the getting of animals to engage in sexual relations so that they will procreate. . . . Pleasure has its place, but it is secondary.”[38]
According to Feser, Venus is “unruly” and of a lower sort that must be channeled by Eros “in the monogamous and constructive direction that the stability of the family requires.”[39] Feser sums up his discussion of the passionate side of love, declaring “Eros is the perfection of Venus; mere Venus is a deficient form of Eros.”[40] Here Feser ought to remember what Lewis often reminds his readers, “the highest does not stand without the lowest.”[41]
In Feser’s review of Lewis’s The Four Loves, he ends with this high view of Eros elevating the “unruly” and “deficient” act of pleasure by channeling it through itself, which “at its most noble. . . make[s] it an especially fitting model for the sort of love we are to have for God.”[42] Lewis might here ask Feser to reread his work to the end and see what an elevated Eros will do. Feser could accurately respond that he has not created a deity out of Eros; he has only placed Eros and Venus in their proper relation to each other in order that the erotic experience of mankind might be constrained within the moral guidelines of the Church. As long as the lovers understand that their sensual desire is not an end for itself, but a means to drive man at his base, animalistic nature, to engage in the procreative act within the marriage covenant to produce and raise children for the glory of God, then all will be orderly and pleasing unto God.
Intimacy: The Primary End of Sex
Although Feser admits to the unifying nature of sex, his treatment of Eros and Venus potentially leads to the whole intimate endeavor becoming as sterile and passionless as artificial insemination. Lewis speaks of this precise understanding: “one author tells us that Venus should recur through the married life in ‘a solemn, sacramental rhythm.’”[43] Does this represent the union that Christ has for His Church? Did not the Lord cry out over the stiff-necked city who would not receive him? Did He not agonize in the garden over the price of man’s sin? Did He not, in excruciating pain, plead for the forgiveness of those sins? Do these sound like solemn, sacramental rhythms, or passionate, love driven actions? When contemplating this love shown to man by God and on the beauty of His creations, can one not see why Dionysius could recognize God as ἒρος, as Beautiful itself? This same God who created all things, loves passionately, jealously, one could almost say irrationally. Why would a God who has no need for man love him even when man does not love Him back? With a finite understanding, one might be excused for thinking this irrational. Yet, it is with this love that Christ loves and died for the Church.
According to Aquinas, in an analogous way to Christ and the Church, the husband and wife are to be unified via the marriage covenant. This analogy has nothing to do with creation or procreation, it has to do with unity, being one. It has been the long tradition that the primary end of sex is procreation. Lewis admits in Mere Christianity that “the biological purpose of sex is children,” [44] but should the biological purpose be the primary or highest purpose? Jesus taught “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:27-28).[45] Jesus is teaching that the spiritual, the intent of the heart, is more important than the biological or physical engagement of the act. Is it not the purpose of the physical to lead one to the spiritual? Is this not what John is testifying to when he says, “for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannotlove God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20b)? Dr. Philip Blosser, Professor of Philosophy at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, thinks Aquinas would agree. He says that Thomas “would insist that the marriage of baptized Christians elevates a natural marriage contract to the order of grace. This elevation means that a husband and wife not only become symbols of the union of Christ and the Church; they actually enjoy a real participation in that supernatural union.”[46] Here, again, the physical is teaching of, if not leading to, the divine.
Lewis speaks of the drama and poetry of this interplay between Eros and Venus and man which elevates the finite to the realm of the divine. He writes, “pleasure, pushed to its extreme, shatters us like pain. The longing for a union which only the flesh can mediate while the flesh, our mutually excluding bodies, renders it forever unattainable, can have the grandeur of a metaphysical pursuit.”[47] Where is this metaphysical experience, the participation in that supernatural union, if sex is nothing more than a mandated solemn, sacramental rhythm? Jesus prayed to the Father for those who would believe in Him, “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us” (John 17:21a). This is the unity that God desires between mankind and himself. This unity is experienced most intimately in the fulfilling of God’s design: “a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). Yes, biologically, procreation happens via the sexual union, but, again, is this not a participation in the divine? God is the Creator, yet through God’s design, mankind, when husband and wife become one flesh, participates in that creative power which only God possesses.
. . . The Highest Does Not Stand
St. Thomas establishes two purposes for marriage and, by extension, sex: children and unity. According to natural law, sexual intercourse is for procreation. According to divine law, it is a sign of the union of Christ and his Church. As Aquinas says, “the natural instinct of the human species is that the union of male and female be indissoluble, and that one man be united to one woman. . . . the divine law adds a kind of supernatural reason taken from the representation of the indissoluble union of Christ and the Church.”[48] The question at hand is which of these two laws is primary? If by primary one means the most basic, then procreation is the primary end of sex. However, if primary means that which is most important, then the primary end of sex is the union that comes from the intimate blending of man and wife. It is true that Eros and Venus, when made a god, become a demon. This is why God instructs mankind to contain these two would be deities within His framework of a marriage covenant. And here is the secret untold when the focus is on procreation, Eros without Venus is just as wicked as Venus without Eros: “The highest does not stand without the lowest.”[49] If Venus is the lowest, then she is the root that helps Eros to stand. Marriage without Eros and Venus is a business contract that may produce children, but will never experience that passion that causes two lovers to truly become one flesh and, therefore, never fulfill the divine law for which marriage is intended.
[1] C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves, in The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics (New York: Harper Collins, 2017). Hereafter referred to as FL.
[2] Jason Lepojärvi, “Does Eros Seek Happiness?: A Critical Analysis of C. S. Lewis’s Reply to Anders Nygren,” Neue Zeitschrift Für Systematische Theologie Und Religionsphilosophie 53, no. 2 (2011): 208.
[3] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, rev. ed. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953).
[4] C. S. Lewis, Collected Letters, vol. II, ed. Walter Hooper (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers, 2004), 153.
[5] Lewis, FL, 746-747.
[6] Ibid., 803.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid., 805.
[9] Ibid. Emphasis in original.
[10] Lewis, FL, 806.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Ibid., 807.
[13] Ibid., 806-807.
[14] Ibid., 807.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Lewis, FL, 807-808.
[18] Ibid., 809.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid., 816. Lewis’s spelling of idolise is an accurate quotation and not a misspelling.
[21] Ibid., 817.
[22] Lewis, FL, 818.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Ibid., 819.
[25] Lucretius, “On The Nature of Things.” Johnstoniatexts (blog). Last modified 2017. http://johnstoniatexts.x10host.com/lucretius/lucretius4html.html, Lines 1507-1508.
[26] Lucretius, 1530-1532.
[27] Lewis, FL, 805.
[28] Branson L. Parler, “Worlds Apart?: James Brownson and the Sexual Diversity of the Greco-Roman World,” Trinity Journal 38, no. 2 (Fall 2017): 193.
[29] Chris L. De Wet, “Human Birth and Spiritual Rebirth in the Theological Thought of John Chrysostom,” In Die Skriflig 51, no. 3 (2017): 2.
[30] Daniel Heide, “Divine Eros: The Providential and Perfective Ecstasy of God in Dionysius’ ‘Divine Names’ IV,” Dionysius 37 (December 2019): 44. Emphasis in original.
[31] Ibid.
[32] Ibid., 54.
[33] Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 4, trans. The English Dominican Fathers (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1929), 267.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Edward Feser, “The Role of Nature in Sexual Ethics,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 71.
[36] Ibid., 73. Emphasis in original.
[37] Ibid., 75. Emphasis in original.
[38] Ibid., 71.
[39] Feser, 74.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Lewis, FL, 748.
[42] Feser, 74.
[43] Lewis, FL, 807.
[44] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, in The C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, 1-177. (New York: Harper Collins, 2017), 84.
[45] All Bible quotations are in the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
[46] Philip Blosser, “Sex in the City of God: Why God Made Sex and Marriage,” Lutheran Forum 39, no. 2 (Summer 2005): 45.
[47] Lewis, FL, 810.
[48] Thomas Aquinas, The Summa Contra Gentiles, Book 3, Part 2, trans. The English Dominican Fathers (New York: Benziger Brothers, 1928), 116.
[49] Lewis, FL, 748.