Articles

BLINDED BY LOVE

by Mark Vernon

Opinion polls repeatedly show that the love which people desire and value above all others is friendship. This is encouraging, given the omnipresence of images of romantic love and sex in advertising and on TV. And you might think that church leaders would take comfort in the fact too, as they negotiate the treacherous waters of moral leadership.

     Which is why I was surprised and disappointed to find that friendship is almost wholly absent in Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love). If you turn to the encyclical to find a steer on the theology of friendship, you will find nothing.

     In fact, friendship is mentioned only twice and in passing --in section three: "Let us note straight away that the Greek Old Testament uses the word eros only twice, while the New Testament does not use it at all: of the three Greek words for love, eros, philia (the love of friendship) and agape, New Testament writers prefer the last, which occurs rather infrequently in Greek usage. As for the term philia, the love of friendship, it is used with added depth of meaning in Saint John's Gospel in order to express the relationship between Jesus and his disciples."

      Friendship makes no indirect appearance either. Love is mostly described in terms of eros and agape, that is desiring love. "Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee," wrote St Augustine. This is the model of love that the Pope has in mind. He integrates such an understanding of divine love with the love between husband and wife, placing the love of marriage above affectionate connections that might be formed in the context of family, work, and neighbours: Other loves "fade in comparison" with this "very epitome of love." When it comes to the commandment to love your neighbour, the encyclical describes it in terms of the imperatives of charity --not say civics, which is sometimes called friendship.

     Now, I am no Vaticanologist, nor an expert on the theology of Benedict XVI. Neither, of course, is the Pope a follower of opinion polls. But it seems to me that there is a fair amount that can be read into this absence, and contrary to the general reception that the encyclical received, what that suggests is not encouraging.

     Some theological background helps to contextualize the sidelining of friendship for it frequently has a rough ride in Christian thought. The fundamental problem comes when it is regarded as a particular and selfish love: One chooses one's friends and while much can be given in friendship, much is taken too. This makes it seem antithetical to the universal and selfless love of agape, and indeed self-emptying love --as eros is portrayed in an ideal of marriage.

     But against this strand in the tradition is another that finds its roots in John's Gospel and its strongest statement in Thomas Aquinas. In John's Gospel, friendship is positively endorsed: Jesus calls the disciples friends as an expression of the trust he places in them and the demand he makes of them. There is evidence that some groups of early Christians called each other "friends" and this could be the group for whom John is writing. (This endorsement contrasts significantly with the Gospel representation of marriage: It is merely acknowledged, almost in passing, by Jesus' presence at a wedding, one time.)

     Thomas Aquinas offers a highly nuanced theology of friendship, focusing particularly on the ambivalences around egoism and altruism inherent in it. Far from being a disadvantage, he argues that this is the advantage of friendship since it both acknowledges the neediness of love, and nurtures its positive, selfless aspects. It is a pragmatic account of love, rather than an ideal one. The implication of Thomas' thought is that friendship is a school of love, the love that is most capable of nurturing the best virtues in people.

     The related theme of God as friendship is the understanding developed most fully by Aelred of Rievaulx. He thought that those who live in friendship live in God, and God lives in them --neatly glossing the quote from John's letter (the quote, incidentally, with which the Pope's encyclical begins).

     All in all, the absence of friendship in an encyclical on love raises the question of why? Several possibilities suggest themselves. I understand that Benedict XVI is simply not a fan of Thomas, perhaps because of the scholastic appreciation of human beings as capable, rational creatures. He prefers the Augustinian tradition with its more Platonic imaginary of human perfection only in the mind of God.

     This resonates with the emphasis the Pope places on the ideal of marriage. It is what the Dominican theologian Fergus Kerr has called "nuptial mysticism" --a theological anthropology within which the distinctiveness of the male and female genders is key and the marital relationship is defining. Biblically, such nuptial mysticism finds its greatest expression in the Song of Songs. Ecclesiologically, it is manifest in the "impossibility" of women priests (since the Eucharist is pictured as a wedding feast with roles specifically prescribed); the ban on contraception (since physical barriers are taken as barriers to self-giving love); and the intrinsic evil of homosexual relationships (since they undermine the specificity of gender roles and perversely call it love).

     To put it more simply, to give friendship an important place in the theology of love would be to put it in competition with the primacy the Pope wants to give to eros: Friends, after all, do not marry (as, indeed, Jesus himself did not --surely something of a paradox for the encyclical). Such a celebration of friendship, in turn, would suggest that marriage may not have exclusive rights as the quintessential manifestation of God's love, but that friendship might be as good a case of divine love too.

     Worst still, as far as the Pope is concerned, any account of friendship rapidly leads to issues around self-love and same-sex love. Self-love, which the ancient Greeks and modern psychology recognize as essential to any realistic account of love (insights that again the encyclical sidelines for all that it draws on these traditions) muddies the ideal of self-giving agape. Same-sex love quickly leads from friendship to gay relationships --choppy waters that the Pope perhaps did not want to have to navigate in his first encyclical, at least.

     Perhaps it is not so surprising that all this conservative Catholic teaching is implicit in the encyclical. Would it be too cynical to suggest that the almost universal praise that Benedict received for it --not least in liberal quarters-- is another sign of his intellectual brilliance, because he apparently managed to blind people to the darker indications the document provides as to the direction of his Papacy? For in God is Love he offers the foundations for a theological agenda that liberals would otherwise abhor.

Mark Vernon is the author of The Philosophy of Friendship (Palgrave Macmillan). His article "Friendship is Taboo in Modern Organization" appeared in the February 2006 Issue of The Social Edge.