In David Moss’ discussion of Friendship, he assumes an early church understanding that theoria arises from friendships rooted in love and mutuality, one for another. Theoria is a concept that was introduced in the ‘Great Tradition’ of the patristics. Moss defines theoria as “the proper contemplation of the transcendental properties of Being itself: goodness, truth and beauty” (pp.128). He posits that such an understanding as held in the ‘Great Tradition’ would do much to counteract the influences of secularism and post-modernist nihilism that plague the world today. He believes that the practice of an Anselmian understanding of friendship is one way to “begin to address a current obsession in ‘high theory’ today with the status and absenting presence of ‘the Other’ (p.128).
Moss quotes Cicero in giving us the classical definition of friendship as ‘the complete identity of feeling about all things in heaven and earth: an identity that is strengthened by mutual goodwill and affection’ (p.130). Moss goes onto say that implicit in such a definition is the concept of “interiorisation” (p.130), an exchange of sorts that happens, one with another that results in the friend beings image becoming real and present within the other. The friend is more than just a being, but as friend the friend becomes somehow an interior part of the other as “lover and beloved” (p.132). It is through such exchange in love one for the other that “an interior presence of the friend” (p.132) manifests itself within the other. He unpacks this theory of interiorization in his discussion of Anselm.
For Anselm, the core of friendship is love (p.132). Among friends the love is both mutual and conscious (p.132). This love produces an “interior presence of the friend”, or put another way, “an inscription of image-likeness in the ‘heart’ (p.133). In as much as both persons are created in the image of God, this inscription is both an image of the person, and more importantly, God. The image takes its form as spiritual rather than physical, and with it comes a “unity of love” (p.133), one for the other. This he calls infallible intuition (p.133), a blessed assurance of sorts. Anselm holds that this vision that manifests itself in the interior of the friends is dulcedo (sweetness). A sweetness that is emblazoned in the heart evokes the senses in new ways and within the friends there is an exchange that occurs. The image of the one becomes a real image that can be seen and heard within the other (p.133), and these senses awaken and are exchanged for the senses of taste and smell (p.133). This exchange results in knowledge (p.134). All this said, Anselms’ concept of friendship is rooted in the key concept of radical orthodoxy, participation (p.134).
Moss writes, “Anselm’s notion of friendship always moves in a circle thus: to be a friend I must have a friend, and to have a friend I must be a friend in an exchange ever motivated by love as the recognition of virtue, and of virtue as the fruit of love” (p. 135). Moss contends that this movement in friendship is analogous to the “movement of faith” (p.135), and transcends the realm of friendship to theoria.
Moss gives us a good question to begin with. He asks, “ if the convolution of friendship with theoria resides in an exchanging of sense which raises speculation to the heavens, then what of an exchange in which God offers himself in friendship to His creation in the unheard of descent of the Logos?” (p.139).
How does the Anselmian approach to friendship work in corporate structures/alliances? Does it work or is this concept only applicable to personal (1:1) friendships? Where does the church come into play?
Where does authority have its place in friendship?
What about false friendships that present originally as authentic? These seem to be more the norm than the exception?