C. S. Lewis famously proclaimed,

“Love ceases to be demon only when it ceases to be a god.”

He was quoting M. Denis de Rougemont. But just two sentences later, Lewis writes the following in his own words:

“the truth that God is love may slyly come to mean for us the converse, that love is God” (The Four Loves, p. 7).

In one sense, I agree – as do scores of Christians who assert some version of the following: God is love, but love is not God.

For instance, A. W. Tozer:

Equating love with God is a major mistake which has produced much unsound religious philosophy and has brought forth a spate of vaporous poetry completely out of accord with the Holy Scriptures and altogether of another climate from that of historic Christianity.

Or (after a quick Google search), the “Fierce Marriage Podcast,” which describes an episode like this:

“God is love… but, love isn’t God!” In this episode we’ll look at the wonderful, counter-cultural, biblical idea of love.

The idea here is that we often make an idol of what we call “love”—as defined by feelings of romantic ecstasy, emotional attachment, sexual desire, or a piercing (almost painful) longing for another creature—whether it’s for a boyfriend, a child, or a Labrador Retriever.

There’s truth to this danger, especially because most of us—whether we know it or not—are more children of Romanticism (e.g., Rousseau, Byron, Shelley, Keats, Disney, Nicholas Sparks, Taylor Swift) than we are of a cold and sterile Rationalism. What’s more, the danger is not that we would love too much, but that our loves become misdirected and disordered, so that we chase endlessly after a particular feeling, and end up worshiping created things instead of the Creator. Ironically, to do so may also destroy the objects of our love (and ourselves) because created things cannot possibly bear the weight of divine expectations.

In response, Lewis, Tozer, and “Fierce Marriage” have this to say: God is love (1 John 4:8), but love is not God.

AUGUSTINE’S REBUTTAL

It may surprise us to learn, however, that the greatest theologian in church history disagreed, at least in one sense.

Saint Augustine wrote this in reflecting on 1 John’s claim that “God is Love.”

“[V]ery Love is God: for openly it is written,
‘God is Love.’”
~ Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 98.4.

If his assertion seems flimsy, Augustine then returns to 1 John (and other texts) for additional proof: “whoever abides in love abides in God” (1 John 4:16). For Augustine, it’s crucial to note that Scripture is not here describing a flowery human emotion, but a divine person (more on that in a moment).

Hence, if (1) God is Love, and (2) abiding in Love is abiding in God, then it follows inescapably that (3) Love is God. On one level, the argument may be read somewhat like a math equation. You cannot say 2+2 = 4 without also affirming that 4 = 2 + 2. If Deus (God) = dilectio (love), then the converse is true. And that fact does not care about your feelings.

LOVE AND TRINITY

But… (and we must not miss this “But”) Augustine’s argument then takes a turn that makes it very different from a pop song, fused with a Nicholas Sparks novel, drizzled with a sugar-free glaze of suburban spirituality.

He begins to think about the Trinity.

His question is as follows: If God is Love, and if Love is from God, and if abiding in Love is abiding in God as God abides in us (all of which are taught in Scripture), then which person of the Trinity ought to be identified as the divine Love that simultaneously fills us even as it links us both to God and other people?

Augustine’s answer is the Holy Spirit,

“by which the begotten is loved by the One who begets him and in turn loves the begetter.”
~Augustine, De Trinitate, 6. 7.

After all, Augustine’s favorite Bible verse was Romans 5:5:

“God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” ~Romans 5:5

WHO IS RIGHT?

So, should we side with Lewis or Augustine?

In the end, it depends entirely on whose definition of “love” you’re willing to accept, and which god you’re talking about. Augustine writes of Love’s divine origin, Lewis speaks of creaturely echoes. One is the pure spring, the other is the creaturely river that flows invariably through tainted soil. Lewis thus explains:

Every human love, at its height, has a tendency to claim for itself a divine authority. It’s voice tends to sound as if it were the will of God Himself (The Four Loves, emphasis mine, p.7)

In the end, Lewis, Tozer, and “Fierce Marriage” all defer (in differing degrees) to a fallen and culturally-defined account of the word. Hence, they speak of it as a “demon” when it assumes the place of a “god.” I get this move. And I’ve probably made it too.

But it comes at a cost, not just because it risks sounding like illogical nonsense (2+2=4 but 4 ≠ 2+2), but because it means we’ve settled(?) for a fallen definition in place of the real thing. Dare I say, for “mud pies in a slum because [we] cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

Augustine defines Love in light of the Trinity, so “demonic” definitions are ruled out from the start.

Of course, that’s no defense of twisted, selfish, or sinful expressions of what we call “love” down here. (Augustine knew that better than most.) Instead, it’s an invitation to let God define the word that is itself definitive of God’s holy character, poured out by the Holy Spirit, into our hearts.

In other words: Love is God, but maybe not like you think.

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