This distinction is important because human Gift-loves (those that already resemble God) can come to be mistaken for divine love. “Nearness” to God, on the other hand, is a spiritual quality that a person must actively seek. “Likeness” to God is something given, by virtue of the fact that human beings are God’s creatures. Lewis expands on the ideas of likeness and nearness to God-they aren’t the same thing. For one thing, human beings never lose their need for God, and this is the way God intends it to be. However, he soon realized that things are more complicated. Based on this distinction, Lewis planned to praise Gift-love and criticize Need-love. Therefore, he divided natural human loves into two types- Gift-love (which is God-like, because God is self-giving) and Need-love (which is unlike God, because God lacks nothing). When Lewis first set out to write about love, his thesis was “God is love” (as St.
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