Friendship: Part 3 - What is it?

“Jonathan lies slain on your high places.

I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan;

very pleasant have you been to me;

your love to me was extraordinary,

surpassing the love of women."

(2 Samuel 1:26 ESV) 

According to the American Sociological Association, "Americans’ circle of close confidants has shrunk dramatically in the past two decades and the number of people who say they have no one with whom to discuss important matters has more than doubled, according to a study by sociologists at Duke University and the University of Arizona."

• The percentage of Americans who had at least one confidant not connected to them through kinship dropped from 80% to 57%.
• A 2004 study showed that 25% of Americans have no one to confide in with matters important to them, more than double the number from 1985.
• Americans' dependence for close contact on a partner or spouse went up from 5% to 9%.
• Research has found a link between fewer friendships (especially in quality) and psychological regression.

As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.

(Proverbs 27:17 NKJV)

In his book "The Four Loves", C.S. Lewis writes...

Very few modern people think Friendship a love of comparable value or even a love at all.  I cannot remember that any poem since In Memoriam, or any novel, has celebrated it.  Tristan and Isolde, Antony and Cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet, have innumerable counterparts in modern literature: David and Jonathan, Pylades and Orestes, Roland and Oliver, Amis and Amile, have not.  To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue.  The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.  We admit of course that besides a wife and family a man needs a few "friends."  But the very tone of the admission, and the sort of acquaintanceships which those who make it would describe as "friendships," show clearly that what they are talking about has very little to do with that Philia which Aristotle classified among the virtues or that Amicitia on which Cicero wrote a book.  It is something quite marginal; not a main course in life's banquet; a diversion; something that fills up the chinks of one's time.  How has this come about?  The first and most obvious answer is that few value it because few experience it.

The Oxford dictionary defines a friend as follows:

noun
1) a person whom one knows and with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically exclusive of sexual or family relations.

I guess that does describe to some extent what a friend is, if even in a cold, emotionless manner.  I think, however, this definition leaves much to be explored.  The English language can sometimes leave something to be desired through the words it chooses to cover a wide ranging thing.  For instance, the word love means many things to various people, and, in fact can mean many different things to one person as they determine how their love is expressed and experienced based on the object of it.  Friend is another one of these words.  To some, it means nothing more than a person with whom they see semi-regularly or someone they associate with.  To others, it has a connotation of a person who they are close to, or share intimacy with.  A friend can be a person we risk vulnerability with in confiding in them those things we do not wish for everyone to know.  And at the same time, I have used the word when introducing someone who really is nothing more than a coworker or colleague.

Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.”

(1 Corinthians 15:33 ESV)

Aristotle, in his book "Nichomachean Ethics", defines three types of friendship: friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and friendships of the good.  A friendship of utility is one where each party in the friendship has something to gain by the association.  It may be a business partner, coworker, classmate, etc.  Friendships of pleasure would include love affairs, friends who enjoy similar hobbies, or friends who enjoy time spent together for whatever reason binds them.  Aristotle argues that these two forms of friendship are more likely to be temporary.  Because, he says, they are based on selfishness and self-love, once the object of the affection is no longer present, or the source of the pleasure has gone, the friendship will dissolve quickly.  These friendships are based on what you can get from the other person in meeting ever changing needs.  The need or interest changes and the friendship is no longer useful.

“This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

(John 15:12-13 NASB)

The third type of friendship Aristotle identifies is friendships of the good.  He describes this as the perfect friendship:

"Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other for good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good -- and goodness is an enduring thing...And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have. For all friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure -- good or pleasure either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly feeling -- and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both friends, and that which is good without qualification is also without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their best form between such men.

But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have 'eaten salt together'; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each."

Expanding on Aristotle's work, St. Augustine says friendship is "...a delightful bond of souls in unity." Augustine spent a lifetime searching for truth, and that included a search for friendships which were perfect and true and provided by God:

"Another change is the basis of commonality in friendship.  While it remains true that they are friends because of what they have in common, they no longer build their friendship on books or jokes or token acts of kindness.  Rather, now their commonality is God, and inasmuch as what they now have in common is greater, so their friendship now is qualitatively greater!"

Now, for [Augustine], the only true friendship is sent by God to those who love each other in Him.  This is the heart of Augustine’s conception of friendship and his great innovation.  It is God alone who can join two persons to each other.  In other words friendship is beyond the scope of human control.

"If your delight is in souls, love them in God, because they too are frail and stand firm only when they cling to him. If they do not, they go their own way and are lost. Love them, then, in him and draw as many with you to him as you can. Tell them, ‘He is the one we should love. He made the world and he stays close to it.’ For when he made the world he did not go away and leave it. By him it was created and in him it exists. Where we taste the truth, God is there. He is in our very inmost hearts, but our hearts have strayed from him."

-St. Augustine's Confessions 

Perfect human friendships seek the highest good: God. Augustine and Aristotle are likely right when labeling such friendships as perfect. What other commonality, interest, or activity can bond two men together in a deeper love more than a mutual pursuit of God? God tells us that those who seek after Him will find Him (Deut 4:29, Prov 8:17, Jer 29: 12-14). In this search for Him, we will find ourselves seeking good for our friend, and the friend seeking good for us. As growth and transformation through Christ grows in us, so to it will grow in the friendship. While these friendships may indeed be the only type that are perfect, we of course are not. But as we marshal each other toward God we will find God's values and laws being evermore evident in ourselves and in our friends. Love will grow deeper as step by step, we find our own self and our friend(s) closer to the only thing that matters, God.

As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. And Saul took him that day and would not let him return to his father's house. Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on him and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his belt. And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him, so that Saul set him over the men of war. And this was good in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants.  (1 Samuel 18:1-5 ESV)