On Male Friendship

In his book On Friendship Cicero said, “Human nature, indeed, is so constituted as to be incapable of lonely satisfaction; man, like those plants which are formed to embrace others, is led by an instinctive impulse to recline on his species, and he finds his happiest arid most secure support in the arms of a faithful friend.” Friends seek the physical, relational, cultural, intellectual, and spiritual flourishing of another. This is a true friend, not an acquaintance or distant classmate, but a man who knows who you are and who you ought to become. A true friend rightly understands his place in your life as one who encourages you to become the person you ought to be. So many times, the term ‘friend’ is degraded just to mean a colleague or ‘someone-you-knew-once’ when it ought to be reserved for those who seek your well-being. The first question to be answered is: what is a Friend?

         Most fundamentally, friends are those who relate to one another. They live near one another, they play on the same sports team, or they work at the same business. Two people who are friends must in some way relate to one another. This is the bare minimum of friendship. What does true friendship look like? Love, as understood by Western theologians and philosophers, traditionally summed up the ideal of what attracts one person to another. True friends love one another. They do not merely relate as passive actors who happen to exist together, but actively seek the prospering of the other, urging him to become the person he ought to be. Therefore, a true friend loves the other.

         What is love? To love another is to will another’s good It is the recognition of who that person is and who they should be that sets the guidelines for how a friend wills the good for him.  The inclination or the want to will the good for another fits with but is not essential to, love.

         The distinction between feeling love and loving another is the difference between action and inclination. To feel love for another is to want to will the good for the other, but to love another is to will the good for them because it is how friends ought to relate. A friend is a true friend even if his inclination is absent from the willing. He can seek the good of his friend and not have a “feeling of love.” Merely having the ‘feeling of love’ is not adequate for two people to be friends. If a person says that he loves another but does not encourage him to holiness, push him to be better, or support him when he is sick, then he does not love. It is a shallow feeling that has not sunk into his heart or manifested in his acts. One might feel love towards another, but if that love has not been acted upon or thought through, it is not love.

If friends are called to will the good for the other, what goods should they will? Do friends make every meal together? Do friends have to be workout partners? If friendship wills the good, then true friendship ought to know which goods take priority. Ultimately, true friends will the highest goods for the other. They see who their friend is, what they want, and who they should be,  then prioritize how they can most effectively help them toward that end.

         The highest good is God himself. Therefore, the person who seeks the good of a friend ought to ultimately push him and point him to God. Everything from the greatest good to what happens on Saturday morning should be synthesized in a hierarchy of goods that friends will for one another. Practically, this does not mean that every interaction needs to be Bible study, prayer, or preaching, but it certainly means that a true friend must not be a hindrance to holiness. The true friend must not be a stumbling block toward the highest good, and ideally, they help. Thankfully, for the Christian, pursuing holiness not only establishes a path towards the highest good but also fulfills the human longing for meaning and purpose. Friends, by pushing one another toward holiness, not only push their friends toward a good thing but push their friend to become more of the person they were created to be. And in becoming more of the person he was created to be he is being what he is, namely, a person made in the image of God. The happy life, that elusive thing every man wants but few have, must start with the understanding that becoming more of the person you ought to be is an essential step in the right direction..

         The other goods that a friend ought to will for another are intellectual, physical, relational, and cultural. Why these goods? First, and most fundamentally, man is mind, body, and spirit. These three things undergird the ultimate structure of what makes something human. Therefore, if a true friend wants to will the good of another and that person is most fundamentally mind, body, and spirit, then willing the good for the mind, body, and spirit must be included. For to will the good of the other and fail to understand who the other is, ultimately fails to will the good of the whole person. For an individual, to become the individual he ought to be his whole person must be rightly understood. This can take different shapes and sizes, but it must include the pursuit of spiritual holiness, physical health, and intellectual integrity. For if a friend fails to will the good in any of these three areas, he fails to will the good for the whole person.

         Finally, friends, to will the good for the other, must seek their cultural and relational good. If man is made in the image of God and relationship is essential to God, then to be a whole human is to be in relationship. This includes being a part of a family, going to church, living in a state, and voting in a country. Human beings are spirit, mind, and body, and those necessarily manifest in a particular family within a particular culture. Therefore, the other two necessary goods that a friend must will are those of relationship and culture. Relationship, because to be a human is to be a relational being. When more than two people relate over a period of time those relationships begin to reveal a distinct wait up speaking, acting, and relating. This, seen over centuries, this culture. True friends want a thriving relationship with the culture around them so that they are not untethered from art, beauty, and tradition. To be a flourishing human is to have a friend who wills your spiritual, physical, intellectual, cultural, and relational telos so that both parties might become the people they were created to be. If man is made in the image of God, and God himself is in relation, friendship is not an accidental bug, but an essential feature.