They were fascinated with all the psychology involved when the marital act is seen as being open to the transmission of life, even in the infertile days. Only yesterday, in a group of moms who were far from Catholic, I found myself at the end of the presentation explaining the basics of humanae vitae, as usual. It will help me so much in my own teaching of the Billings Ovulation Method. Many thanks for printing the letter from that dear Archbishop on natural family planning/humanae vite. Don't forget to check out our study of John when it launches in January 2003. It'll make you a terrific student of Scripture.

Perhaps he means to communicate Peter's ongoing struggle with human weakness that continues to need Christ's merciful grace. John is an incredibly careful writer and the difference between Jesus’ “agape” question and Peter's “phileo” answer is probably pregnant with significance. I don't know what the theological suggestion there might be, but I would suspect you are right to think there is one. You are right Jesus uses a variant of “agape” in the first two questions to Peter and then changes to a variant of “phileo”.

Lewis wrote a wonderful book called The Four Loves on this theme. There are actually four words for love in Greek: agape, divine love eros, erotic love phileo, friendship and storge, affection.Ĭ.S. How are we to interpret this dialogue between Peter and Jesus? Was there something about Peter’s response that Jesus was not fully satisfied with? Did Peter respond with the wrong form of love man should show to God? What else can we gather from understanding the dialogue in Greek? I appreciate any insight you’re able to give me. Is it true there are three types of love having three distinct Greek words that refer to them? In the gospel of John (21:15-19), when Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves Him, does not Jesus ask the question the first two times using the highest kind of love?

Cs lewis 4 kinds of love