So, oh, we're raring to go, I didn't even think, yeah, we even had him, I was just charging into him. Kieran, we'll be back tomorrow, and then next week we'll have our general discussion of formation group. Please, John-Michael, don't be passing messages to little Nicholas, today is the 19th, October 19th. So, these two types of love, now he's particularly interested in friendship love, this for him is the highest form of love, let us say the fullest form of love, that's where we got the discussion last time, because it is fully reciprocated, it's what we will experience in heaven, where everyone will be our friend, it's the bond that unites the members of the holy trinity, it is his deepest friendship love, that is total reciprocity, total equality, etc. Now, friendship, though, is an ambiguous term, there's no doubt about that.

[01:08]

You mentioned there's two types of friendship, worldly and spiritual. You're going to love in any case, you're going to love with, well, let's just put it that way, but it can be a destructive love, or it can be a love that saves. This is pure St. Augustine, he says there's amor, generically, this can be caritas, which is kind of a craving after uncertainty, are the key, because this is pure St. Augustine, who had tremendous influence on Aaron, well, Aaron takes this and just applies it to the same friendship, to the specific category of friendship love, their worldly friendships, here we're not using the term friendship in its proper sense, but it's an alliance, and

[02:12]

it's a concourse, not in virtue, but in vice, you know, kind of buddies of a, I don't know, a gang of robbers or something, then there's spiritual friendship, which is concourse, communion in virtue, and grounded on the love of God, and in the love of God, as we'll see, whereas worldly is outside the love of God. So, the term is ambiguous, but he's interested specifically in spiritual friendship, which is this higher, which is caritas, he has this lovely thing about where, this is in his tract, Mirror of Charity, which unfortunately has not yet been translated into English, he says, we're yearning for peace, we're yearning for rest in our life, where are we going to find this? He has a marvelous chapter that's typically monastic, we're not going to find it in just the satisfaction of earthly desires, we're not going to find it in bodily health, we're

[03:13]

not going to find it in riches, none of this can give us our deepest rest. Then he quotes the passage from Jesus, coming to me, all you who are weary, heavily laden, we sang it today at Vespers, and I will give you rest, for my yoke is easy. So, it's Christ's easy yoke that gives us rest. What is this yoke? And here again, I think exegetically, Ehret is right on, the exegetes say, out of the Jewish tradition, the yoke was this particular teaching of the rabbi that the disciples accepted, and often it was very heavy indeed, with all the prescriptions, etc. But Jesus gives us this new law, which is the two commandments, as Ehret says. So, what have we got? We've got rest through Caritas. In Christian love, we finally get our rest. We finally come to peace. And so, he says, this is our Sabbath. This is our Sabbath rest, which is Caritas. He says, if you look at the two commandments, it's a kind of threefold love, we're called

[04:16]

to. You shall love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. It was interesting, St. Gregory, in the homily we had just last night, talked about the twofold love of God and neighbor. But there is this other tradition that says, if you look carefully, it's a threefold love, God, neighbor, and self. And he insists on self-love, not in an egocentric, kind of me at the center of the world kind of thing, but a deepest soul. Truly, he who does not love his own soul will not be able to love the soul of another. This is in spiritual friendship, and he's more emphatic in mirror of love in this regard. So this is interesting. Someone like Nigren, we've been looking every now and then at this, Lutheran Nigren, who has a very austere theology. There's no possibility in true Christian love of self-love. We can't even love God, according to Nigren.

[05:19]

We can only love our neighbor. Love of God is too exalted for us. We can only obey, have faith in God. Nigren's problem here is that Christ commands us to love God, but he tries to get around that. But for Aaron, we can love God, we can love our neighbor, and we can love self. And there's a certain sense in which, well, there is a sense, the true love of self is the ground on which we're able to love neighbor and God. Many psychologists today would say that's right on. If there's a self-loathing, it's very difficult for us truly to love neighbor or God. There also becomes a potential difficulty in loving the neighbor as yourself. Just a simple example. If you love bologna sandwiches, you give all your neighbors bologna sandwiches. They don't necessarily like bologna sandwiches. That's just some simple level of saying you love solitude. So you say what all of your neighbors expect, and they love solitude, and that's not what

[06:23]

you want. I forget where I came across it. There was a whole couple chapters in the book devoted to that. You know, it's controversial, loving your neighbor as yourself. I think most of the people I've read say, what is this as yourself? Our love of self is rather fascinating, but if it's healthy, it's kind of ongoing, and it's lots of patience, and it's almost limitless. So according to the measure of our love of self is the way we should love neighbor. Not that the particular things we do for ourselves, because we like those things, we then want to impose on others. But the way I will, you know, day in, day out, kind of self-commitment, self-interest, self-kind of survival commitment kind of thing, that's the way I should be with others. You know, if I do some blunder, and I know it, I may anguish for a day or two, but then

[07:24]

I'm back kind of supporting self kind of thing. Well, that's the way, the measure, and the kind of style we should love others. Especially at this deepest level of the soul, that is as creatures of God. And as he says, love is basically benevolence, willing the good of the other, and willing the good of oneself as God wills that good. So I think at that level, you don't get into problems of imposing on others things simply because you like them. There's also another sense to love you as myself. You are my self. The boundaries between where I begin and where you begin, helps the way you are. You know, in our tradition, we have to have these boundaries. My other self. You are Christ. You are my other self. And not the separate entity, you know, the soul. And what I do to you, I'm doing to myself. That's a classic definition of friendship. Yeah, what is... Christ is in all of that. So, you know, that scene in Matthew, how you created the goats and the sheeps, and what

[08:27]

you gave me to drink, and the poem you gave to me, where Christ ends and the Christian begins, it's all one, you know, one and the only. That's right. That's one of the classic definitions of friendship that he picks up. What is a friend, he says, but another self, another I, who extends, as you say, my own. And the whole theology of the mystical body, that we are members one of another, and that's basic. So that there's an ultimate, not kind of just romantic as if thing to this kind of friendship love, but it penetrates to the deepest level, because it seems to the perspective of worldly friendship, I'm out on my own, and I got everyone else's rival kind of thing. We're little monads, basically battling against each other, and maybe sometimes making temporary alliances out of self-interest. But I think the deeper theology of we're all created one person, that whole mysterious biblical theology of first we were all in Adam, and now we're all in Christ.

[09:30]

So it can't be a love of self, that's the separate ego self. That's right. He says the soul, yeah, yeah. Which I then finally knew I had my true self in me. That's right. And that gives rest, that's the Sabbath. I think that's lovely. It's also hard work, he says, but at the deepest level, we're finally there. This, we're all the works of the law, self-justification, et cetera. This, this is a heavy yoke, but this is grace, this is freedom. And so I think it's rather lovely. And again, these two types of love, either built on God or not, either this concourse, this mutuality of virtue or advice. So we want to, so if we're talking about spiritual friendship, which is Caritas in its fullness, he has some miracle passages about that. When we go on and on in this course, sooner or later we'll get to the Easter tradition and what they say about prayer.

[10:31]

Well, they have passages about prayer that kind of parallels this passage praising friendship. That is, they're saying just pray and everything will take care of itself. Your vices will work out and your virtues will be strengthened and temptations will fall away, et cetera. Just pray. Well, he's saying just live authentically friendship. Now, he means that in the fullness. Friendship with God, friendship with Christ, friendship with neighbor. That's the royal way. For friendship bears fruit in this life and in the next. It manifests all the virtues by its own charms. It assails vices by its own strength. It tempers adversity and moderates generosity. As a result, scarcely any happiness whatever can exist among humankind without friendship. And a man is to be compared to a beast if he has no one to rejoice with him in adversity, no one with whom to unburden his mind if any annoyance crosses his path or with whom to share some sublime or illuminating inspiration.

[11:34]

And then a quote from scripture from the Sapiential Ecclesiastes. Woe to him that is alone for when he fails he has no one to lift him up. But what happiness, what security, what joy to have someone to whom you dare to speak on terms of equality as to another self. There you are. As to another self. And this is a quoting from Cicero. One to whom you need have no fear to confess your failings. One to whom you can unblushingly make known what progress you have made in the spiritual life. One to whom you can entrust all the secrets of your heart and before whom you can place your plans. What therefore is more pleasant and so to unite to oneself the spirit of another and of two to form one. A friend, says the wise man, is the medicine of life. And this is from Sirach, the Ecclesiasticus. So this is much of his book. So if you like lyrical kind of poetry, this is for him the, as he says, the experience

[12:39]

of friendship. He's had friendships in the monastic life and they are for him this. It takes an effort. It takes a particular at the beginning, a real effort of discernment. One can't, one should again love everyone with agape love, with selfless love. But love and friendship is something else where you confide everything and where you can expect that mutuality, etc. At the beginning, it takes real discernment and we'll see what qualities he thinks should be in the other before you really take this radical step of entering into friendship, what virtues to look for, etc. But once it's made, also it takes effort to maintain a real kind of asceticism above. But he says, effort in great things is itself great, which I think is a lovely phrase. So for working at friendship, love, it's hard work, but it's an ennobling work. Then he's talking about, as we'll see, he'll be talking about what Trinity is, who Christ

[13:40]

is for us in this key of friendship. But he talks about what is the church supposed to be? And he reads those famous texts in the Book of Acts. They were one mind, one heart. They shared everything. So he says, what was this? This was a friendship community. Were they not strong in the virtue of true friendship, of whom it is written, and the multitude of believers had but one heart and one soul? Neither did anyone say that ought was his own, but all things were common unto them. How could they fail to have complete agreement on all things, divine and human, with charity and benevolence, seeing that they had but one heart and one soul? So he's saying this is a friendship community, which is an interesting understanding of what a parish should be or what a monastic community should be. But what I find exciting is that at least some extremely good exegetes say that he's right on. This is precisely what Luke was trying to get across in those passages of Acts. That is that the Christian community was a friendship community.

[14:44]

And Jacques Dupont, who's a Benedictine, one of the great New Testament scholars, he has a whole chapter on this text in Acts and the community of goods. All things were in common. He's saying, what is Luke really trying to get at here? Is this a kind of a primitive communism? Is it recalling certain texts in the Old Testament that says no one was needy in the community of the faithful or what? Then he starts exploring in the Greek tradition this highest value for them of friendship in Aristotle and Plato and some of the quotes about what is friendship. And the essence of friendship is panta koine. Your friend is the person with whom you share everything. So there was this kind of definition in the air at that time that your friend is the one with whom you share all things, panta koine. And this was the highest human value. So what Dupont says is what Luke is trying to say is that this highest value in the Greco-Roman

[15:47]

world of finding others with whom you can share everything was not suppressed or denied in the Christian community. It was fulfilled into his description of early Christian fellowship. Luke incorporates and transposes Greek and Hellenistic literary themes relating to friendship and that primitive community's experience of love, the ancient Greek ideal of friendship achieved upon unexpected new foundations, its own concrete realization. So I think this is very exciting. This is another case where Ehlert does an exegesis of scripture through his category of friendship love. And at least many scholars say he was right on. We saw the other word. He says Adam and Eve, Eve created out of Adam's rib. They were friends. What is this created out of the rib? A full equality. Some of the later fathers we mentioned said that means Eve is very subordinate, woman subordinate to man kind of thing. But the latest Hebrew scholars say, no, it's flesh from his flesh, bone from his bone,

[16:51]

equality. And that's, we saw the text in Ehlert. This is what it's all about. So you don't enter into a friendship for some goal to get something out of it. That's worldly friendship. I'll make friends with my boss and then I'll climb a ladder kind of early. If this is what friendship is, it's an end in itself. Spiritual friendship, which we call true, should be desired not for consideration of any worldly advantage or for any extrinsic cause, but from the dignity of its own nature and the feelings of the human heart so that its fruition and reward is nothing else than itself. So he's got a theology of creation and redemption about friendship. That is, we were created to be friends in the garden again. That's what Adam and Eve passage is all about. At first, as I see it, nature itself impressed upon the human soul a desire for

[17:56]

friendship. Then we fell, which is precisely falling away from the rules, the commitments of friendship. And then we were redeemed when Christ said, I call you no longer strangers, but friends. In that other key passage, greater love has no one than this than to lay down one's life for one's friends. So this totally selfless love, which is friendship love, characterizes our redemption. So experience increased that desire. And finally, the sanction of scripture confirmed it. So this is what friendship is on all these different levels. But it's not worldly friendship. It's not just going down and having a beer with the guys or something. So it's an end in itself because it's the way God created us to live and be. On the other hand, it's also because it illumines all the virtues. It eliminates all the vices, et cetera. It also means it's also ladder to heaven.

[18:56]

So remember Bernard, who's in some ways his teacher, had his ladder of love. So he has a ladder of love. But with him, it's specifically friendship love. Friendship is a stage bordering upon that perfection, which consists in the love and knowledge of God. So that a person from being a friend of his fellow human becomes a friend of God, according to the words of the Savior of the gospel, I will not now call you servants, but my friends. So if we're true to the inner dynamic of friendship, which of itself is self-giving and bonding with the other who is image and likeness of God, then through that, through Christ, we mount up to God. Questions? Comments about any of this? I think that, you know, using the terminology of friendship love, I think, you know, it's certainly one can do and has its validity.

[20:00]

I like that, you know, he finds himself a neighbor of God, and from my perception, it's in the redemption path of our Lord, where peace can truly exist, where there is, without the redemption, I don't think you can truly have a love of God. But I agree that we can have that desire, and we can come to some fruition in our lives, but nonetheless, you know, just like Augustine, you know, the reality of the original sin just, you know, could not allow the completion of the original. And so, I think that we being an image and likeness of God, without that word of redemption,

[21:10]

we really cannot truly have true love of ourself either. You know, if we don't have true love of God, can we really have true love of self? He would say absolutely not, you know, he would agree. I like the way in which he brings all things together, and I think that certainly he has developed a theology in which no friendship is something to God, what is typically in the framework outside of redemption. I would probably agree that he has a broader view of friendship, he has a broader view of it. And here, this is marvelous, a genitive, does this mean the love of God, that is, my loving God or God's loving me?

[22:40]

Is it the famous objective genitive or subjective? It seems here primarily the subjective, that is, I must love God, and in my love of God, this is Christ's first commandment, I love neighbor and self. But it's also the objective, it's because God has loved us that I can love other, I can love self. And this is manifested precisely in Christ, who is our, our most faithful friend. So it's all one theology for him. He has, now he's talking marvelously theologically, spiritually, he's also talking very concretely pastorally for his monks, go out and be open at least to friendship. And so, but he gives suggestions there, look for certain qualities. This is an exhausting, a demanding relationship, don't just zip into the first. This is why this student of mine in school took this and worked out a whole pastoral project for teenagers, because again, friendship is a key value for teenagers or for kids below

[23:46]

the teens or for the elderly. It's this universal form that's so, but if you get in the wrong friendships, there's no doubt you can really get messed up. Various qualities that he suggests, right intention, discretion, patience, loyalty, again, and also concourse and virtue. And then you avoid a person who flips around into anger and outside, who's unstable, who's fickle, who's possessive, who's suspicious. So he has several pages on discerning. Now, you're supposed to love those people. The person might be up and down, anger, no anger, possessive, jealous, you still love them, but you don't open up friendship because you'll be chewed up, he would say. You wait for the kingdom in which then we can all be friends. And this is interesting. I think this is the kind of good advice, I think for monks or people out in the world or teenagers or whatever, rather discerning here, because with your friend, you're going

[24:51]

to share everything, you're going to confide your deepest, oh, faults and joys, et cetera, et cetera. So be very careful there. Once entered into true friendship, then you go on to the end, whatever it costs. A friend ought to be chosen with the utmost care and tested with extreme caution. This is right out of scripture. But once admitted, he should be so born with, so treated, so deferred to, that as long as he does not withdraw irrevocably from the established foundation, he is yours and you are his in body as well as in spirit, this most amazing language, so that there will be no division of mind, affection, will, or judgment. So it's an interesting little book because, again, it gives a whole theology of who is Christ for us, who is God for us, what the church is for us, what redemption is all about,

[25:54]

what creation is all about. But it is also a little guide about entering into friendship, maintaining friendship, et cetera. So God is the true ground of friendship. Why? Because God ultimately is friendship. There's this lovely passage, the whole treatise is written in the form of a dialogue, which is a classical form of Augustine-like dialogues. And, of course, this comes right out of Plato. And it's the most ideal genre for a treatise on friendship because here he is batting back and forth with his good friend, evil, what is friendship? And he throws out something and evil throws back something. And through this exchange, they both come to a deeper insight. And at certain points, evil has a deeper insight than he does. This isn't sometimes the Platonic dialogues are so irritating because Socrates just comes down with truth after truth and all these other people he's dialoguing with are just kind of these dumb idiots.

[26:55]

But here there's a real exchange. And sometimes evil leads the way. So at a certain point, evil is saying, why don't we say that God is friendship? And the kind of conservative editor says, well, I wouldn't say that. It's not in scripture. But then he thinks it over and says, well, in a real sense, yeah, because the fullness of love is friendship and God is the fullness of love. So evil says, what does all this add up to? Shall I say of friendship what the apostle John, the friend of Jesus, says of charity? Shall I say God is friendship? Here it says, that would be unusual to be sure. Nor does it have the sanction of the scriptures. Good, a basal answer, I think. But then he ponders it a while. Then he says, but still, what is true of charity, I surely do not hesitate to grant of friendship so that we can say of he that abides in friendship abides in God and God in him. So that this love within the Godhead, which is the love of the three persons,

[27:56]

this being friendship love, when we abide in friendship love, and we're talking again about spiritual friendship at its highest, this is an experience of Godhead. This is contemplative and mystical and all the rest. So what he's doing is spilling out an extremely high theology and spirituality of Christian friendship. And I think this is, usually when we pick up a treatise on the spiritual life, it's about solitary prayer, it's about fasting and penance and things. Rarely you'll find something in there about friendship is precisely the arena to encounter the Christian God and to grow in union with God. But this is his experience. Yeah, as we'll see, the primary friend here is God.

[29:10]

And here, this is, you know, telling Abraham is the friend of God. Also, when he just trusts in God all the way, ready to sacrifice Isaac, Moses is called the friend of God. So you could argue that these are key moments of the testing and purification of Jesus's friendship with God. Because Satan is trying to say, hey, be my friend, and I'll give you all kinds of goodies. And Jesus is saying, no, if it doesn't come from the mouth of God, or in Gethsemane, not my will, but thine be done. So I think Abraham wouldn't have a hard time arguing, no, that is the vertical friendship truly being deepened. So he's not talking about just always being with the game, you know, and watching the football game or something. He's talking about the ins and outs of interpersonal love at its fullness, which is reciprocity, and primarily in our bond with God. So Christ is our ladder.

[30:12]

There's that famous text we remember in John at the very beginning. Well, first of all, this is Jacob's ladder. And Jacob sees his ladder and the angels ascending and descending. And then remember, Jesus applies this to himself when he says, you will see the angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man. So Jesus is our living ladder. And so we ascend, and we ascend, and we ascend, and descend on Christ through friendship love. All this takes its beginning from Christ, this is your point, advances through Christ, and is perfected in Christ. Therefore, not too steep or unnatural does the ascent appear from Christ as the inspiration of the love by which we love our friend, to Christ, giving himself to us as our friend for us to love, so that charm may follow upon charm, sweetness upon sweetness, and affection upon affection. And thus friend, cleaving to friend in the spirit of Christ, is made with Christ, but one heart and one soul. That's, again, the definition of friendship. And so mounting aloft through degrees of love to friendship with Christ,

[31:16]

he's made one spirit with him. So this, again, is this theme of ladder. And it's Christ himself as our most faithful friend who is that ladder. I'm going to speak about, let's say, I guess defining friendship love. Well, friendship love is precisely agape. It's simply agape reciprocated. Agape not reciprocated is love of enemy, love of stranger. When that love is fully reciprocated, when it's agape with agape, that's friendship love. That's why he's saying it's the fullness of agape. Yes, except that there is also agape love where there isn't friendship. We've seen that. A love, Christian love, which is agape. Now it is fullness for him is friendship, that is, Christ and John.

[32:24]

It is non-fullness. But what very meritorious is, for instance, agape love of enemy. I don't love the friend for what I'll get out of it. I love the friend for the friend. I don't love the enemy for what I'll get out of it. I love the enemy for the enemy. That's the essence of Christian love. But when there is another over there who reciprocates this love in faithfulness, in steadfastness, that's friendship love. Friendship has a lower quality, which is the worldly quality, which, at which point, friendship is not the worldly quality. That's right. So again, we're always talking about this level. We could be talking about spousal love. It's the same thing. You know, Christ calls himself the bridegroom. That's not, you know, Johnny and Mary have a fling together and then get married. That's the sacrament of love carried to the highest level. So that's what's happening here. So I guess I just get back to this thing.

[33:24]

And I can see the elevation of what he is speaking of. That's right. Spiritual friendship. I think that one might have also used, at that point, terms of agape. Well, see, he's working with Latin, not Greek. You just bring in the Greek, which is fine. But what he means by caritas, or spiritual friendship, corresponds with agape. It's just, again, agape reciprocated. Yeah. That's where he adds a dimension, which I think is interesting. Yeah? Does he elaborate on love and then the highest level, some of the more reciprocated that, but it doesn't have the virtues? Yeah. He says that's where it's pure benevolence. That is, whatever they do to you, you will their good. You don't have to like them. You don't have to approve of what they're doing. But you have to will their good as persons, as created by God. Yeah, or he would say, because he doesn't agree. So that's for him, caritas, which is what we would call agape. Yeah.

[34:25]

The only thing— And this is pure, so tell him, so acquaint us. He says, what is love, but amor benevolentiae, willing the good of the other? Yeah, the only thing for me, I'm just sort of wondering, the word reciprocity, what you're saying. Normally, I think I'm quite sure you're doing the best with the word mutuality. Good. But is there mutuality between me and God? Well, absolutely. You've got to really— Well, I wouldn't say that. That's the most radical claim. I don't feel it's mutual, unless you really define those terms. It's not equal. I feel overwhelmed by God. It is how God loves me. It's not the same as how I love God. That's why someone like Nygren would say, we can't even say we can love God. Well, in some ways, I can understand that. You're a Lutheran. If you nuance that, there are some moments when I'm experiencing God's love, that I feel so tiny, that I feel my love doesn't even begin. I don't even know how to begin to love. And then what about the deeper idea that I don't generate any love for God, but really,

[35:31]

it's simply God loving himself? But that's the point. So this is the— Yeah, there you get mutuality and equality. It's got a hinge on his definition of the Trinity. That's right. And what we call my friendship with God is really God's friendship with himself. Yeah, I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me. If it is Christ loving the Father through me in the Spirit, and that's what John of the Cross says, at the highest moments of contemplative love, it's God loving God through me. At that point, it's this radicalness of friendship, love, or spousal love. Yeah, I guess I prefer that. I'm more a spousal person. Well, and I think this is— That's Bernard. What I think you have— Other people are more the filial. It's the same thing. You can take spousal, you can take friendship, you can take filial. You know, we have father and son relationships that are multiplying every second as fathers generate children, and that's a key model for our relationship to God. But you can have lots of father-son relationships that are in no way worthy of being models

[36:35]

of our relationship to God. Some people have such a horrendous model of— It's the exact opposite of friendship. Absolutely. Absolutely. But for that reason, we can't set aside the model of friend any more than we can of spouse or of father. It shows how careful you have to be. Absolutely. And he does. He does. And I think—I'm sort of going back to last week again. I can't believe that. You're retrogressing? No, no. We came around to it again. We brought up three types of love—spousal, friendship, and filial. And I think that one could see all three as coming together to help round out this mystery of love, which is God's nature, I think, being incarnated in us. The work of the Holy Spirit, the Christian body, as they said, of one mind and one heart,

[37:40]

was the work of the Holy Spirit in a profound way. And he's got a whole pneumatology that we'll see. But to, let's say, just center things on friendship and reflect, spousal and filial may not be the best thing. Maybe that one should accept all three and recognize that all three do, in fact, bring us to a fuller, I guess, realization of God's love. He would certainly agree with that. That is, he would say that different models of love—we have to explore all of them. It's description. If you go with one and say, that's it, that's partial. But how many treatises have you read that have explored at all friendship as a model for our relationship with God? So I think what he's seeing is he's filling out a need here. But he has some texts, as we'll see, that's pure canticle. It's pure Christ's spouse. So he feels that's a neglected area. Well, yeah. There's no doubt about it.

[38:42]

Well, and also, you see, some of the logistics that you've been discussing with him, this is the path for them. This is the path. They're expressing their experience. This is his. This is New York. This is New England. This is New York. Hmm? But he also is aware of these other models, isn't he? The spiritual kiss is characteristically the kiss of friends who are bound by one law of friendship. And then he drifts into this canticle of canticles. This is the spirit of God. It is the kiss of Christ breathing upon his lovers, that most sacred affection, so that there seems to be in them, as it were, one spirit in many bodies. And they may say with the prophet, behold, how good and how pleasant it is, good brethren. The soul takes delight in the kiss of Christ alone and rests in his embrace, exalting and explaining, his left hand is under my head and his right hand shall embrace me from the canticle. So he weaves in and out of this. And indeed, you know, theologians, C.S. Lewis will say, lovers in the passion of love, that's

[39:47]

also a modality of love that can grow into friendship. This is the way some people say it. Or the relation of father and son. What happens when the son grows up and is no longer the little kid? That can still be paternal filial, but in this bond of equality, or if you like. But anyway, I would agree that no one model is sufficient, and I think he would too. It's just that this is a model, as Nicholas says, that is extremely helpful for him because of his warm experience with friendship. Sometimes we encounter, pastorally, people whose relationship with their father is a disaster. So to speak of God as your loving father, this just does not help. At that point, to explore other models, you know, God is your spouse. Some people have a religion of a spouse that's a disaster. You avoid that language. But just pastorally, I think scripture provides many models because not one is adequate. So I would agree with that. Who is Christ? Christ is lamb of God. Christ is good shepherd. How do you put those together logically? Christ is our king.

[40:48]

Christ is the suffering servant. Christ is teacher. Christ is Savior. Yeah, yeah. Now some people will take one of these models and just explore it all the way. Yeah, I think the balance, though, is you should acknowledge all the models. Absolutely. Now some, again, this book by Ramsey is fascinating. Some models are more important. Who is God for us? The Old Testament just piles model upon the Seventh and Psalms. Sometimes God is our mountain. God is our rock. God is mighty warrior. God is the fuller. God washes us out. God is loving spouse. Now some of these are fuller, richer models to say that God is rock. It illumines one dimension of the mystery of God. It's not quite as full as to say God is friend or God is spouse or God is father, obviously, because there's all kinds of different. Anyway, another image he has of Christ. Christ is our faithful friend. Christ is our spouse. Christ is our mother. To see how playful he is with these models.

[41:49]

And this is suggested already in scripture with, you know, Jesus says, how many times Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I would have gathered you is, and it's already in Anselm and Julian Norwich will see it. But anyway, it speaks of the maternal breasts of Jesus. His naked breasts will feed you with the milk of sweetness to help you. Here he's writing to his sister who's a recluse. So he's trying to really get into the maternal. Now some people just love this. So anyway, he works poetically and he's also a poet with all these different models. Finally, this will find its fulfillment in heaven. And then we can end with A.R. Redd. John Michael, please. Then we can end with A.R. Redd and go on to William of Cythera, another rich theologian.

[42:49]

But not before next time. And we're going to bring our insights and our gratitude for the formation program and our praising one of another. And then our constructive criticisms of one of them. But what we have here is a whole little summa. Who is Christ? He's our faithful friend. Who is God? God is this trinity of persons bound in friendship, love. What is Christian life? It's returning to God through friendship, love. What is the church? Community of friends, et cetera. What is the kingdom? It's just going to be this fullness of friends where finally no one will be my enemy. No one will be the stranger. We'll all just be united in that fullness of mutuality, of reciprocity, of trust, of faithfulness that is of the deepest friendship. With salvation secured, we shall rejoice in the eternal possession of supreme goodness. And this friendship to which here we admit but few will be outpoured upon all and by all outpoured upon God. And God shall be all in all.

[43:51]

So that was the end of God. Good. And good night to Kieran. Now, what is this Caritas? And what is friendship, love? How does that fit into this? In one of his great tracts on the mirror of love, he has an analysis of the key moments of love that I find extremely helpful and illuminating. See, the objection to the whole theme of friendship, love is you can't do it as a Christian because what you're doing is playing favorites. The Christian with this disinterested pure gift love should love everyone. Jesus says that. You should love your enemies. You should love those who don't do good to you, etc. So what's this friendship stuff? Some austere theologians, a certain Nygren, he says there's no such thing as Christian friendship, love. The whole idea of friendship is pagan, is pre-Christian. Because again, pure Christian agape never plays favorites.

[44:54]

In the friendship thing, we have this particular thing going, and you're compatible with me, and I'm compatible with you, and we have all these common interests, and that's just great. But that has nothing to do with the gospel, where you get beyond all that. That's pure nature, fallen nature, and favoritism. Now, Ered says, be careful here. Ered wants to create a solid Christian theology that acknowledges that we're to love everyone. But creates a space for Christian love, noting that it's also in Scripture and the whole tradition. So this is what he's trying to do. This is the objection that is often raised against friendship, particularly in a place like a monastery. So three moments for the fullness of love. His whole point is these three moments aren't always there in all caritas. But if the fullness is there, there's an inevitable attraction to the other. This can be at the exquisitely spiritual level. This can be intellectual level.

[45:55]

It can also be physical level. But there's something about that other person that I really feel drawn to, and I think we've all had that experience. And often it isn't physical, or often it isn't intellectual. Just something very mysterious. But it's not just kind of like the piece of metal being pulled by the magnet, because that's kind of in the level of physics or in the level of determinism. We have to get to the point where the free movement of personal responsibility enters in. And that's number two. I not only feel myself attracted, but I say, yes, I'm going to pursue this relationship at a deep and intentional level. And then this occurring, and then in the reciprocity, there's the fruition of the joy of the bond of love, et cetera. And obviously this has different expressions, whether it's filial maternal love, or spousal love, or friendship love, or love of enemy, obviously.

[46:58]

Now, his point is that if you have all three elements to a high and spiritual level, that is precisely what friendship love is. And that tends, unfortunately, in this fallen world to be more the exception than the case. Very often there isn't the attraction to the other. Indeed, sometimes I don't like the other at all. You have different backgrounds and sensitivities and personalities, et cetera. And often there isn't the fruition. But the Christian at this deepest level of intention, this is the level of freedom, responsibility, the deep will, the deep heart. At this point, the Christian is developing a relationship, and of the enemy, and the person you serve. And this is an ongoing movement, et cetera. So what Aaron is doing is saving the universality of love and saying, Nygren, you're absolutely right. Pure agape love is for everyone. It doesn't play favorites. Indeed, you invite the person to supper who won't then invite you to his fancy feast.

[48:02]

That whole radical teaching of Jesus. But this doesn't exclude that there are moments when, in fact, there is the attraction, and there is the fruition. And this isn't bad. This is a foretaste of the kingdom, because that's the way we'll be related in the kingdom. In the kingdom there aren't enemies. In the kingdom there aren't people I dislike. And so friendship love is foretaste of the kingdom. And so friendship love is our highest example of what heaven is all about. Can you buy that? Can you go with that? Absolutely. Amen. Ah, good fight. OK. First off, let me ask you a few questions. Oh, we haven't gotten there yet. Leave that. Oh, I thought we touched on that. Have we touched? No. No, we're over here now in three minutes. OK. I'm following that. As usual, I'm going through life backwards.

[49:10]

I perceive, in this pass of eternity, that we will be more likely there to have stronger hopes for us, individuals, in whatever way than simply because hopefully in the kingdom we will be free. Whereas here is kind of the stepping stone to that. And I guess I'm coming from, in my mind, the premise that being fully human somehow transforms into the spiritual. So this attraction is a stepping stone at the very beginning. But to be really human we have to bypass it. You have to move beyond it.

[50:13]

Eric would agree with you. To be fully human you have to, he wouldn't say bypass it, because it's in our nature. It's part of God's good creation. Go beyond the bypass. I don't mean skip it. I mean move beyond it. That's right. Including it. So you have the attraction and then you push it into the intention. That's right. And that's decisive, to be fully human, as you say. And if I understood you right, you said once we get into the kingdom, then we have this love of everybody equally. I wouldn't say equally, but I would say certainly with everyone there's attraction, intention, and fruition. It's a great mystery how we love in the kingdom. But it might well be that we would love, say, St. Francis of Assisi more than we would love Adolf Hitler in some miraculous way. He makes it kind of thing. OK, because I thought you were trying to say that there we would love everyone equally. And now we already have favorites. And I see that as a break in that chain. What I meant to say is that in the kingdom with everyone, there'll be attraction, intention, and fruition.

[51:14]

OK, then I misunderstood what you just told me. Can you say once again what you just said, from the intention? From the intention, I intend truly to relate to that person. When the fullness of love, that's fully reciprocated. They intend to relate to me. And it just blooms with all the joys of, pardon me? Reciprocating. That's right. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And but Ehret, I think you're absolutely right here. The danger of this whole ideology of romantic love, it so dominates. It's the only higher value in contemporary society, in any argument. If you go to a movie and you try to get deeper, it's not about business and getting more money and stuff people do. But you have two people falling in love and all that. But often, this is the ideology of romantic love. And it's you're being swept off your feet. And there's nothing you can do about it. And you're just wildly attracted to the other. That doesn't move to this level. With the freedom that comes out of the intention, that is not necessarily reciprocated.

[52:24]

That's what you're saying. You can't. Absolutely. That guy might hate your guts. That's right. That's right. There can even be fruition there if it's not fully reciprocated. You know, the mother's love of the child. Even when the child doesn't reciprocate, there's some. But obviously, there's a full fruition and there's a full reciprocity. Yeah. Well, this is the basic debate. Yeah, because Nygren, this famous Lutheran who wrote this huge book about agape, he says no relation between, again, friendship love and agape love. Agape love has no interest in attraction. That's fallen humanity. And no interest in fruition. It's just pure, self-giving, sacrificial love. Yeah, lay down your life.

[53:27]

Yeah. Well, number two is that. Number two is the pureness of agape love. I intend to love that person, again, whether there's attraction or fruition. Number two, in this sense, in this fallen world, is autonomous, unconditionally. I'm to offer that to everyone. Well, OK, now. Now, that's pure agape love. You're going to do that. Then, in that framework, then that cap, or whatever it is, is incomplete in that one-third of this complete. Well, and yeah, the cross is incomplete because, you know, there'll be no crucifixions in heaven. But it's radically incarnate.

[54:28]

In this fallen situation, Christ lived love to the nth degree. Now, with some, this is Ehret's argument against Nigren, Jesus obviously enjoyed friendships. You know, John is called the apostle that he loved. He so wept over the death of Lazarus. And people say, look how he loved him. And so, obviously, there's friendship in Jesus's life. And in the key paschal moment of John, he says, I call you no longer servants, but friends. So, Nigren has a rough time making this case that there's no, and indeed, the term philia, which is the Greek term for friendship, love specifically, is used in John. So, if Jesus, for instance, Jesus loves, what's his name, Judas, and this isn't reciprocated. You're right. That's not complete love as it'll be in the kingdom. But that's not because Jesus is failing. That's because Judas is failing. Jesus's heroism is, you know, to go embrace.

[55:31]

So, what he is doing now is offering a theology that I think saves the radicalness of agape. And so, if you get into friendship, the thing is that doesn't mean that you just set aside the seriousness of the commitment to love everyone, also the people who are not your friends, the people who, you know, you and your friend don't get along with and all that. This is extremely important. Otherwise, it gets a little too cozy, closed. All the stuff that someone like Nigren would say is to be avoided because it's just pre-Christian. I can see what you've done and I think, or in a sense, in some ways, you have some of the similar feelings that Joseph has that, you know, this is, you know, this is to go beyond the birth, it's to get stretched out of the human existence. You certainly have to go beyond attraction and you have to go beyond fruition in the

[56:34]

sense that I've got to love that person as Jesus says explicitly. Without thought of what reward I'm going to get for it. And I've got to like, I've got to love that person without consideration of whether I like that person, whether there's all kinds of, you know, convenient compatibilities there. So, in that sense, you're absolutely right. And so, he'll push intention. He says, the substance of love is benevolence, that is, willing the good of the other. And that comes out of the depth of the will. Because the other two are kind of frosting on the cake, if you like, and not at that deepest level of freedom and responsibility and self-giving. The essentialist just has these two, basically. I like that person and we enjoy together, you know. Why do you like the human number? Well, because they're sequentially precisely, I think it's brilliant. First, there's attraction. If there's just the attraction, I'm being, you know, then at a certain point, I have

[57:36]

to engage and say, hey, am I willing this or not at the deepest level? And then at that point comes fruition. And after the fall, unfortunately, maybe one of these can go right or go wrong. So, I can be attracted to the other person for the wrong reason, really attracted. They're very wealthy, you know. If I marry her, I'll be set for the rest of my life. Or, you know, sensual body or something like that. And then the intention can be for the wrong reasons, you know. And maybe the person's married and I don't care, you know. And the fruition could be. So, at each one of these points, things can go very wrong or very right. And also, we have to look at the other then. I can have a love of self that's right in all of these regards. You're also, differs with Nygren. Nygren's horrified by the idea of love of self. But, or it can go wrong in all these levels. I can be attracted to myself for the wrong reason. I can intend self-love in the wrong way. It can be a wrong self-fruition. I can love a fellow human being wrongly or rightly in all of these dimensions.

[58:39]

And I can even love God rightly or wrongly. You know, God's going to give me all kinds of special graces and power and et cetera. Please do. My understanding of God, it is the highest level of love. My understanding of love on an emotional level is the lowest level of love. So, how can the lowest level of love be compatible with the highest? It's like His... I don't think they're fitting together. Well, let's hope they do, he would argue, in terms of a good theology of creation. Because the God who created our will created our emotions. Emotions aren't bad. You know, if I'm attracted to, let's say Sister Ishpria. I don't think there was that much Eros there.

[59:41]

But for me, she seemed like a deep woman, wise. And she was English, my God. So, there you are. Now, that's not bad. That's glorious. And hopefully, it's tremendously compatible with then my intention. I'm going to dialogue with her more. I'm going to enter into a deeper relationship. When it gets to number two. Without two, you're absolutely right. Absolutely no. Precisely. Yeah. You could almost say it's like, you know, breakfast and then going to Eucharist. These are entirely different levels. But they're not incompatible. Again, this has a qualitative... This renders it Christian. And this alone is Christian without these. But, in the fullness of cremation, redemption, we experience all of these.

[60:45]

In the Kingdom, there'll be all of these. I can follow them in that step. And in that sense, I can see the top step is leading to God's name. Maybe for God's blessing, you might. But, here's the first step. And the highest step is intentionality. And then, you go down to the fourth dimension. Okay. It brought out another question, which may be dangerous. We were talking about Jesus had friendships in all of history. That is, of course, out of the way, but what I was saying is that is a presupposition that Jesus was always functioning from the highest level. If one accepts that, then one is kind of touching and denying his humanity. There are some key problems there. This gets into very subtle problems of Christology.

[61:46]

I'm not sure that's exactly... We can get into it a little, but this is extremely... No, it's a key issue. It's extremely discussed, debated among theologians today. Various Christologies. There's the so-called Christology from above that begins with Christ's divinity, and then wants to affirm also humanity. There's Christology from below that says, hey, we got to start from that. This is a human being, and he has his ups and downs, moments of darkness, tiredness, and discouragement, and anger. So, this is a vast area. It's not directly related to A. Redd, who doesn't go much into Christology. This isn't to set aside. It's just to keep a certain... In any case, I think this works. Certainly, in the minimum, it would be argued that, in the decisive moments of Jesus's life, we would argue he operated out of a deep commitment to selfless love, as you know, on the cross, something like forgiveness of those who crucified him,

[62:49]

and this kind of thing, and receiving the embrace of Judas, etc. This is what violence is all about. You don't just bash those back, who bash you, kind of thing. Good for you. Absolutely. This would work on the natural level, but also on the supernatural. The basic principle of St. Thomas Aquinas is that grace doesn't destroy nature, but fulfills it. So, at the purest supernatural level, you've got to have human freedom, or there's no...

[63:49]

But certainly, it's not sufficient to have human freedom and will. It must be fully informed by and transfigured by grace. So, that would work there. This intention, at this point, is moved by or illumined by a higher intention, which is grace, which is God's adopted. So, I really don't know how well... I don't know if it's really informing these three very... For him, five times I've had this kind of... I really don't know what's working. I have been getting the sense that friendship, love, and everything is really talking more on the human plane. He would... No, he would... We'll see that. The only foundation for authentic love is the love of God, he'll say. We'll see that. God's love. And he means specifically supernatural. The later scholastic distinction between a realm of pure nature and a realm of pure grace, they don't even know in the Middle Ages, or the patristic, or the scripture times, because for them,

[64:50]

it's all the order of creation that's then graced by Christ. The order of pure nature is a philosophical abstraction, because, in fact, there was never an order of pure nature from the beginning. All things are created in Christ and for Christ. So, in that sense, what can sound naturalistic, and this is Migrant's objection, you know, just two buddies getting along and then join a bottle of beer together and they both like the rams or something. That's not what he's talking about. He's saying the only foundation for this is God's love. And he's saying, you're going to love in any case. You're going to love rightly, which is caritas, or you're going to love wrongly, which is cupiditas. Loving wrongly takes you right to hell. Loving rightly takes you to the kingdom. This is pure Augustine. And it's precisely this difference. You are able to love in a non-Christian way. And that's a total destruction. That's just, you know, avaricious wanting to get things for people.

[65:51]

Yeah, I can see how some people, some services, you may take those three categories and perceive that you're filling these categories, and yet the interaction of God and the Holy Spirit may not really be a part of it. You know, it's like interpreting it in a non-Christian way. But it's an interesting theological issue here, because you have the famous line in, you know, the Epistle of St. John, whoever abides in love abides in God, because God is love. So it can be argued theologically that if there's a true friendship love, the Holy Spirit is there. It might not be acknowledged consciously, but one person can't truly open one's heart to another, be prepared, you know, to give for the other, et cetera, without the Holy Spirit being profoundly there. Yeah, I think that's something to consider.

[67:13]

I don't know which way to take it. Yeah, just a quick adjustment. Well, this is a key moment. Of course, it's extremely important for Eric. This is Christ's primary gift to us from this whole key Paschal moment of the Lasser, is the gift of friendship. That is the capacity to experience the fullness of love, at least little fortis, from Christ, from God, who are, Christ is our supreme friend, as we'll see. Also, if the other is the presence of God, if the presence of Christ is in the other, and it's the friendship there, then you've got God of God at a certain level. That's it. And also you've got mystical body. Yeah, if the person is the image and likeness of God, you know, how can you say you love God if you do not love your neighbor? No one can love the God who he doesn't see, says Saint John, if you, this little John, if he doesn't love the neighbor, this kind of thing. So yeah, for 1 John, which is our classic theology

[68:15]

of agape in the New Testament, there's no pure love of God that isn't mediated precisely through love of other who is the image of God. You can never really separate God from the image of God. And of course, you know, yeah. Anyway, think about this, and we can also discuss it next week as there is time, we're happy. But for me, as I say, it provides the foundation for a solid and broad theology of the different forms of love. So basically, there's two categories. There's love that has not yet attained the fullness of friendship, and that's love of enemies, love of a person you do not even hate, but I just feel the attraction there that there is this great thing. But then there's the other thing, it's this. And we are obliged again to love everyone. As St. Edward says explicitly,

[69:17]

all friendship is love, but not all love is friendship. There's all kinds of forms of love that are not friendship love, and you've got to work on that. But that doesn't exclude that there is some friendship, though, which is a fullness of this. So what he's wanting is that we not toss out all the willies and say, I'm not gonna be charitable to anyone who's not my friend. That's certainly not the Christian way. Nor is it to say, I don't want friendship, because that's not gospel. But you're saying love of friendship, that friendship love is the fullness. That's right. So I'm hearing you saying that that is higher. Oh, indeed, higher in the sense that it's closer to what we have in the kingdom. Well, I'm hearing you say higher, and I'm looking back again to this intention thing. That love, not friendship, that is the intention.

[70:18]

And when we are in those three moments, I thought you were saying intention was the pure love. But I need the reciprocity, this is what you're talking about. Yeah, reciprocity, also attraction, et cetera, that is, it's the most heroic love, let's just put it that way, is the love that comes with pure intention, and there's no attraction, no fruition. And this is the sign of the cross. So you don't put preconditions again. I'm not going to love you unless I get something in return, unless you like me, et cetera. This is the radicalness of the gospel of love everyone. I'm hearing you say that it's important, though it's not absolutely, because you can have attraction without any reciprocity, and you can have some fruition without reciprocity. Oh, absolutely.

[71:19]

At that point, reciprocity, yeah. Friendship of its definition is two people who are indeed communicating and mutually feel attraction, intention, and fruition. Yeah, in that sense. I think that one thing that I'm sensing that may be a problem here is that, he's taking love, and he's defining it with the terms of friendship, as if friendship is the higher form. Let's say the fuller form. I wonder that as if it's the highest form of the best definition. Let's say the fullest form. I'm trying to sense that he may have things reversed. Friendship, to me, that kind of love,

[72:21]

we, being human, which is good, can experience as human. Okay. But love goes behind our human knowledge, because love speaks of the essence of God. But can there be for you a supernatural friendship, an exquisitely Christian friendship? Okay, now I can see what we're doing is, we're stretching things. Now, friendship becomes super friendship. And the next time I come... Well, we're not stretching things if Christ authorizes us to go this way, or scripture. For instance, when Abraham is described as the friend of God, or when Jesus again says, I call you no longer servants, but friends. Now, is he stretching it? Okay, now, I don't think he is, at that point, defining the importance of love. I think he is defining a more... a new relationship, okay?

[73:26]

It's like man is no longer distinct with sin, he is reinstated into that communion with God that he must have. Right, mutuality. Right. Exchange, because Jesus immediately goes on, because I have shared with you everything in my heart, etc. Okay, now, you know, in the Gospel of John, first of all, God is love. That there is a profound realization here of love and God. That love, you know, is not just a heroism, you know. Right. Maybe it is exquisitely what he'll say is friendship, in the Trinity. Isn't there all three moments in the love of the Father, the first person of the Trinity, with the second, say, or the second with the third. This is precisely what it is. Full reciprocity, full attraction, full fruition.

[74:27]

It sounds like he may have a different definition of friendship. I think you're using the words with a different understanding, and so you're not communicating. But what I'm... That's what I'm getting around to. To me, friendship has connotations of it, like I was saying before, of love. And it can be, you know, I think he is defining a purer friendship than we normally have. And Jesus is. No, let's say it just has the connotations of love as you have on a given plane. Well, he doesn't mean that, obviously, and neither does Jesus. Can we use the sense that Jesus means when he says, I call you friends? Okay, now can you... Okay, let me take another quote, which he says, you know, Father, I pray that if you want it, you and I are one. Amen. Okay, now... Now, that's friendship love. Full reciprocity. See, I think... Do you mean exclusivity? The friendship that's exclusive, weird, and there's no... That's a different kind of friendship. Well, what I'm saying is,

[75:29]

I think that friendship, just in itself, just the, let's say, the words, okay, have connotations of a human love. Now, what I'm trying to do is... I don't think it's a good use of words. Okay, now, that's the thing. Agape may be a better choice. Okay, but I think what he's on to is right. That is, you, frankly, have a rather low theology of friendship. You see it as a human thing, I think, kind of like buddies, or, you know, we get along well, but agape goes quite beyond that. And indeed... But, again, my only answer is, you've got to look at the biblical sense of friendship, not the kind of palsy. And that's what I'm bringing up. Okay, now, if you look at what Jesus means, yeah, I call you friends. Maybe he wanted you to know that. Oh, good. Or when Jesus says, I call you friends, this isn't just human. This isn't... You would want to see what is in there in the gospel,

[76:31]

but... Or when Abraham is called the friend of God, or when Moses is called the friend of God, this isn't just human buddy-buddy. This is supremely supernatural. And, again, if these elements characterize friendship at its supernatural, this is what characterizes the relation of the first person with the second. It is the highest form of love. So I think what you've got to do... You're afraid I'm stretching friendship into some Christian, but my concern is you're reducing friendship to something merely human, when that's not the way the scripture uses it. Okay, that's not what I want to do. But what I want to do is allow friendship to grow in statute. Oh, it certainly does that. I'm not so sure that friendship should be the word that defines the ultimate relationship of love. But when Jesus, again, says, I call you no longer servants but friends, maybe we'd better have only one keep coming. It might be that he's getting to that ultimate.

[77:32]

Or when Abraham is called the friend of God, maybe it's getting to that ultimate. It's not just the palace. When I'm here, can you come up with another word? Well, I think that... Okay, you're saying that that's love. We're using the word love, okay. Philia. There's three terms in the gospel for love. If God says God is love, is he using the word philia? No, he's using agape, but in some passages, he uses them interchangeably. Remember when he's saying, Peter, Peter, do you love me more than these? Peter, do you love me? Once or twice, it's agape. Once, it's philia. And the exegete, certainly, Raymond Brown says, it's the same thing for John. That is, the fullness of agape is the fullness of philia. It sounds also a little bit like Christ. Because you keep saying it's human. Yeah. You have nature here and you have God here, and we don't seem to need much except this way. But that seems to me to be a very recent development. It wasn't there for Christians. It wasn't there in the Ethiolian circle.

[78:33]

It wasn't there for Christians. Yeah. I certainly agree with you. Friendship has to grow. Yeah. There are lower primitive levels to friendship, granted, and it has to grow. Our only thesis is, it can grow right up to the highest form of love. Indeed, it is the highest form of love. Chris made the comment that I'm hearing, and I'm related to this, because Nicholas rang my bell once when I was stoned. Kieran rang my bell once when I was stoned. But I'm hearing Chris with you from the start, saying that Albert was stretching the meaning of friendship. Perhaps what is happening is, Albert stretched Chris's meaning of friendship. Ah, wow. Chris's meaning of friendship is not necessarily fulfillment, and I'm hearing you speak of friendship, which is, again, what Kieran said. Muriel, Nicholas said, friendship from a different point. So we have your idea of friendship being stretched,

[79:34]

simply because it's a little different than Robert's model. Also, we don't have to be convinced of it. I mean, we're just being exposed to what Albert said, but we don't have to be convinced that he's right. Yeah, I understand. Well, I'm not. But I'm not saying that he's, what he's meaning is wrong. I think that friendship is not the right word in saying that what is the ultimate, like love, you know, the ultimate love is friendship. Okay, but you also have to argue that when Jesus says, I call you now and we're servants but friends, this is not the ultimate level of love, or as exegetes are suggesting, this was, he really wants to open to a final, or when he uses agape and philia interchangeably, that's my thesis. Agape absolutely at its highest, and that's what philia is. I think we all agree that the highest part of love

[80:36]

will be the communion that we share together. Amen, which will be reciprocated. Certainly you acknowledge that. I agree. And it will be this fruition and attraction. Right, and I think that, the problem I have is when you say, the highest form of love is friendship, I think that friendship has all kinds of connotations to means of death, which we can recognize. And I think that, like when Jesus says, your father gave you one and you and I are one, there's something transcendent in that. And friendship, unfortunately, doesn't carry or lead with all kinds of connotations of that transcendence of union. That is a very personal. I would agree with you, again, that there's very lower forms of friendship, but I think meant to ascend, and even the highest. Our friendship is limited because we are finite.

[81:36]

Yeah. He is infinite. Yeah. There's a tremendous difference. That's right. So God's friendship is unlimited. All the connotations of finite could be, even as high as it goes. Okay, now we've got to hear John Michael. I wonder about this definition for friendship, because there seems to be another model that's talked about spiritually, and who are models for that, by the way? I think we've seen that. No, that's a key moment. Could you go on? Because a key model for our relationship with God is also paternal fealty of love. Now, how does that relate to friendship love? Now, again, or spousal love. Often, scripture uses a spousal love model. God is spoused, et cetera. Now, what Ehlerich would argue, and I think many psychologists go along with it, that is, the hope is that the son and father become friends. That is, that there be this full attraction and fruition. It's not just, you could be a father just at the biological level.

[82:38]

You've generated some kid. And then that can grow into paternal fealty of love, but that comes into a fullness, if that can be friendship. And the same with husband and wife. Many say marriage will work if that becomes friendship. What do you think? But then the goal is to be adopted as sons. That's right, yeah. That is, it's pure greatness. And so that really happened, even though it wasn't friendship love. The ideal of friendship, that relationship, I mean, you can call it paternal fealty of love. It's that kind of relationship, but that's not very supreme love. I mean, that's part of, I think, what's available to say. Because I know people who've been married for 50 years, they would tell you that what they have now is a friendship from their first five years, which is old-fashioned. Their relationship now is a little bit of one in that friendship. But the reciprocal relationship is much more profound than the fact that it's just one. But there are certain things that I want to get out of it. I wish I could do it on my own.

[83:39]

You could, I suppose, I'd have to do it. I haven't heard of somebody who's done it. No, I think you have to be a son first to be a friend. Well, at least naturally, that's the progression. You'd have to think through the other way. But first, you're the son of the father, and then that might or might not grow into real friendship. But I think Peter, from the very beginning, was God's son. But again, it's a long journey of faith, and then it's that decisive moment of grace when Jesus says, I call you no longer servants but friends. And why? Because, how does he put it? The friend knows what's in the heart of the other. The uniqueness as well. This is a radicalness of friendship love. It's the love of equality. So to call Abraham the friend of God is just radical. To call Moses the friend of God is radical. As there's a certain equality in spousal, but the filial paternal stresses subordination. I think any of these models has its own limits, et cetera. But is Jesus a friend of God?

[84:42]

Well, that's an interesting thing to look up. It's presupposed that he's the friend of God in this meeting of what we mean by friendship. This would be my objection, for instance, paternal love, or filial love. We should love God with filial love. I think that's absolutely true. We have the same problems with friendship love. Filial love starts from a very human, and also defective and limited level. But the argument would be it has a potentiality through grace to go to the infinite. As with filial love, or with spousal love, same thing, very human levels of spousal love. So with friendship love. And Christians have no monopoly on filial love, or spousal love, or friendship love. I heard this asked earlier. Yeah. Do you see God as your friend? Yeah. Doesn't that last a whole new round? OK, now. Do you see the finite limitation of friendship?

[85:47]

No. This is an ideal, though. It's not saying no friendship, no idea. But you see, he just described two other halves. Filial and spousal. Spousal, right. And those are valid halves. Absolutely. Now, if you look at, I think, Teresa of Napa, and I think, doesn't he describe a spousal thing? Absolutely. And certainly, does that not become transcendent? Absolutely, yeah. And I have no problems in looking at all these as being valid ways, or systems, or methods of looking at things, and they are correct. The problem I have is when you're saying the highest form of love is friendship. You could have said the highest form of love is spousal. And you would have said Teresa of Napa. Absolutely. That can be argued. And you see, right, they can do all these. But it's not valid, I think, to argue against that.

[86:50]

No, the highest form isn't spousal, because spousal is simply human. But I think full friendship, everybody's saying. Yeah, that's what I was wishing to pull back. Fullness, yeah. See, I come to say that the highest form of love is God. It is the intrinsic form of love of God. Now, I think that it is just as God is infinite, and beyond our understanding. So that highest form of love is infinite, and beyond our understanding. Absolutely. And therefore, I have problems in saying that the highest form of love is friendship, and that friendship intrinsically has human connotations. As does love. You know, you've got to give love some content. But I agree with you. It does. But that's why we did, like, a copy of love, OK? OK. And we have God is love, which I'm sure is a little difficult, because that's English. And probably no one is reading Greek.

[87:52]

One would probably have greater understanding. We're getting into fascinating issues. These people are getting antsy about it. But there's no time. You can mark this and read it. But I think you're right that God is so totally other than any friendship we know, or any marriage relationship, or any father-filial relationship, or any love, whatever. It is the case, as the radical theologians say, you can say that God is our father. But you also immediately have to add, God is a father unlike any other father. So it's almost more true to say, God is not father. This is Eckhart. Or this is the whole apophatic way, which is legitimate. But if you're going to use that to critique friendship language, which you can, you also have to critique spousal language, or the filial parental language that this is the substance of Scripture. Scripture uses these human experiences. And they say, yeah, it's not what's called univocal language. God isn't friend to us the way my buddy is my friend.

[88:53]

But this relationship gives me a little glimpse, at least, into this total otherness of God's love. And it's a better glimpse than other ways of talking. God is a rigorous banker. That's a human experience. It's a lower model. What we're saying is, if we understand by friendship love, that love which involves attraction, intention, and fruition is a matter of definition in a certain sense. Then the ineffable love just leads us to silence. But if we do try to talk about it, the love between first person, and second person, and third person is precisely this. You could say it's precisely spousal love, though that gets messy. You could say it's precisely the love of father and son, somehow in the spirit. That's messy. Or perhaps in some ways, theologically, it's easiest to say it's friendship love. And that's what he'll argue. God is friendship, he'll say explicitly. But we better, we can continue next week. But one last thing. I feel really good about what you said. In that, yes, looking at how is Jesus,

[89:58]

using some of these terms. Or, spiritually, in the tradition, and that even though you can always say that he is God's father, but he's not father. In a sense, really, God is father, probably is a better image for us to come to that fuller understanding, or let's say, growing in that understanding that God didn't say God is not father. And even though it's inherently limited. And so, I think that, certainly, friendship is good. But like in Jesus, spiritually, was friendship used as the highest description of that relationship? And I take the position that when he's saying things like, they become one father, it's even higher. Is a higher description of that relationship than when he's saying to his apostles, you are now friends.

[90:58]

Well, it might be. But if, by definition, when he says, you are now my friends, and I want, and it follows directly. He wants them to be related to him the way he's related to the father. And this is friendship. This is where there's the fullness of, but anyway, we can discuss for hours. He does say, you know, father, you are my friend. Okay, and that's an important thing to. He doesn't say you and I are one, but he's saying that we are one by law. Well, you see, oneness, okay. Oneness in diversity, though, in personal diversity. Now, how do you bound that? That's what friendship does. Friendship so radically recognizes the diversity of the other at a level of equality. So, it can be argued fairly rigorously. He's in terms of father, Paul. Oh, good, sure. Not with the frequency. Actually, the Aramaic is dead. If you're going to literally translate the Aramaic. No, we're getting at all kinds of fascinating theological issues. Then this is the last. Then we have to, good.

[92:00]

If we go back to the tradition, where do we get these terms? Then what would they say? What's the tradition? What is this relationship? Son, spouse. What, is there a hierarchy? Is there a difference? No. Yes or no? Certainly, there's all kinds of currents. There's a marvelous book out that I would recommend, by Ramsey on models, theological, the language of models. And here, something like the sciences helps us also. We're not directly in contact with reality. All we have is models that give us moments of insight, moments of working with the reality. And what scripture does, is take models from the deepest interpersonal human experience. So, Jesus calls God, Father. Jesus calls God, or refers to God indirectly, or refers to himself as spouse, refers to himself as friend. The church is bridegroom, the church is ship,

[93:03]

the church is a flock. There's this whole multiplication of models. Each has its own limits. Each has its own fecundity. So, certainly there's a primary, no doubt about that. Jesus's primary theology of God is in terms of Father, Son. That's the case. Sometimes he uses spousal to give some real oomph to it.

[93:26]

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