#18 - What Is Love, Anyway? Defining Eros—Part 1 with Kathryn Mogk Wagner

What does it mean to love your best friend? Is it the same as the kind of love you have for your spouse or romantic partner? How about the kind of love that God gives us, or that we can give God?

These are questions that people have been asking in the Christian tradition for millennia. Eros is one of the Greek words for love that people have argued about. In this episode, we talk with medieval literature scholar Kathryn Mogk Wagner about how people have defined eros, from Plato, to C.S. Lewis, to a recent conference podcast from pastor Robert Cunningham.

This episode is part 1 of 3.

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Timestamps

3:30 - What’s important about the word “eros”?

4:15 - Eros in C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves

6:55 - Summarizing Robert Cunningham’s 3 sermons on Eros

16:00 - Eros in Plato’s Symposium

20:00 - Does eros only refer to sexual love?

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Links and References

Kathryn Mogk Wagner's website: kathryn.mogkwagner.net

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis (listen to original audio on the Internet Archive; read a brief summary of the book)

Sermons on eros by Robert Cunningham at the Good of the Bluegrass Conference 2022 (listen at the conference website; listen to a shorter summary in another podcast from Cunningham at Every Square Inch)

The Symposium by Plato (wiki)

Eros and Agape by Anders Nygren

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