Reflections on
Augustine's Spirituality
by
Donald X. Burt, OSA
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Reflections on
Augustine's Spirituality |
Friendship and Society:
Introduction to Augustine's Practical Philosophy
Chapter 4
FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY
I. Introduction
II. The Nature and Characteristics of Friendship
III. Authority in a Society of Friends
IV. Augustine and the Friendly Society
FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY
I. Introduction: The Human as Social Animal
It is a fact that humans spend most of their lives in relationships with others of their kind and these relationships are more than just being in the same place at the same time, like people gathered together in a subway train, moving in the same direction but unknown and uncaring about the other. The fact is that human beings gather in all sorts of societies: families, nations, and innumerable purely voluntary associations. When one begins to develop a social philosophy examining the features of the various organizations in which humans find themselves, the first question that needs to be addressed is whether such "gatherings" are natural to the human species. Are they expressions of what is best about human beings or the result of what is worst? Are they true "goods," goods which lead to the perfection of the individuals, or are they signs of human weakness? Are they goods which perfect or are they the lesser of two evils?
Certainly sociability is not characteristic of every species Turtles, for example, seem to have no intense interaction beyond the passing contact between male and female necessary to insure the continuation of the tribe. Tiny turtles emerging on some desolate beach from their incubating holes show little or no concern for their fellows as they make their mad dash for survival in the distant ocean. It is true that they are not especially aggressive towards each other. They do not eat their young or each other, as some other more violent species seem to do. They are just indifferent and there is nothing wrong with that.
Is the human a non-social animal of this kind? Some have said this and much more. Hobbes described the "natural" human being as an animal driven by self-interest, suspicious of and (where possible) aggressive towards others of its kind.1 Nietzsche maintained that anti-social attitudes are the best characteristics a human being, not the worst. Only the weak seek others in society; the strong relish isolation, coming together only to accomplish a joint action furthering their individual will to power.2 Society stands in the way of the purposes of the Superman and is best done away with to clear the ground for the truly superior human being to develop.
Of course many others have taken a quite opposite view on the human need for society. Those following in the traditions of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle have generally agreed that society for humans in a good thing. Without going so far as Marx or Hegel who suggest that the whole value of the individual comes from the collective, people like Aquinas and Locke argue that the full perfection of the individual physically, intellectually, and spiritually depends on a healthy relationship to others.
This is the view taken by Augustine. The life of the truly wise human being is social both on earth and in heaven.3 The sad paradox is that humans frequently do not act too social. In the words of Augustine: "There is nothing so social by nature or so anti-social by sin as a human being."4 But this sad truth does not belie the fact that humans are social; it only means that when they do not act socially they are being untrue to their nature. We humans live in society because we are driven to so live. Our social groupings are expressions of what is best in us; not what is worst. Augustine was convinced that the imperfection in all human societies is because of a defect in individual human beings; it is not a sign that living in society is unnatural.
Augustine believed that our social nature is a true good. We are perfected as humans by our love for other humans. We are made happy when that love is returned, and the most important expression of such reciprocal love is the love of friendship. As he declares:
In this world two things are essential: a healthy life and friendship. God created humans so that they might exist and live: this is life. But if they are not to remain solitary, there must be friendship.5
Friendship is the highest expression of a person's social nature; it is also the solid foundation for any society. The more a society becomes a society of friends, the more perfect it becomes as a society. But this is a hard task, certainly impossible for all (and perhaps any) society on earth. The difficulty becomes apparent once one begins to consider what is necessary in order to be a friend.
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II. The Nature and Characteristics of Friendship6
A. The Need and Value of Friendship
Augustine frankly admitted his need for friends throughout his long life. As a middle-aged, he remembered those early days of his life when he was consumed with desires for fame, fortune and sexual pleasure. He says of those days:
Without friends even the happiness of the senses which I then possessed would have been impossible, no matter how great the abundance of carnal pleasures might be. I loved these friends for their own sakes and I felt that I was loved in return by them for my own sake.7
He remembered the feeling of emptiness and despair he felt when he lost a dear friend in death, a friend whom he was desperately trying to convert from Christianity to his Manichean views. He finally was able to overcome his sorrow through the company of others who came to be with him:
The consolation of other friends did the most to repair the damage and give me strength after the death of my friend. The interchange between us captured my mind: conversations and joking, doing favors for each other, reading together good books, being foolish and being serious together, disagreeing without hatred almost as though I was debating with myself, sometimes falling into disagreement but thereby remembering in how many things we agreed, teaching and learning from each other, waiting impatiently for the absent to return and rejoicing when they did. These and so many other like signs coming from the hearts of friends are shown through their eyes and mouths and speech and a thousand little gestures. All of these expressions of friendship brought our hearts together like bundled kindling, making one out of many.8
The same depth of feeling for the loss of a love was reflected later on when, now as a believing Christian, he lost his mother Monica in death. Again he was paralyzed with grief, surviving only because of the Christian community of friends that surrounded him.9 Augustine believed that the loss of a friend was one of the terrible burdens of this life and having a friend present was one of the best supports for enduring such burdens. As an old man, looking back over the joys and sorrows of his life, he mused:
"What is there to console us in this human society so full or errors and trials except the truth and mutual love of true and good friends?"10
Love is the living force which unites friends or seeks to unite them.11 Augustine believed that we experience such friendly love from our earliest days. As he told his listeners one day, "The first thing a baby sees when opening its eyes are its parents, and life begins with their friendship."12 If we are lucky, family friendship is a reality that lasts a lifetime and we spend our days searching for others with whom we can find the depths of trust and caring and security that we experienced within our own family. When we find it, a new brilliant phase of our life opens up. Not only do we learn new things through the experiences of our new-found love, through love the old accustomed patterns of our life suddenly become new. We see them now in a completely different light as we show them to our loved one for the first time.13 If we can find a few such loves to be our friends in a lifetime we are truly gifted. Augustine describes their effect in a letter to his friend Proba:
These good people seem to spread no small comfort about them even in this life. For, if poverty pinches, if grief saddens, if physical pain unnerves us, if exile darkens our lives, if any other misfortune fills us with foreboding, let good people be present to us, people who know how to "rejoice with those who rejoice" as well as to "weep with those who weep"(Rom. 12.15), people who are skilled in helpful words and banter. If such people are with us then in large measure our bitter trials become less bitter, the heavy burdens become lighter, perceived obstacles are faced and overcome.14
Augustine was convinced that a human being in this life and in the next cannot enjoy the fullness of happiness if they are by themselves, if there is no one that they care about nor is there anyone who cares for them. Friends can get us through our days of sadness; they make possible our days of joy. As Augustine observes: "It is hard to laugh when you are by yourself."15
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B. The Characteristics of Friendship
Augustine agrees with Cicero that friendship involves both an intellectual and affective element. There is a substantial "thinking alike" on temporal and eternal affairs, on goals and values. But friendship does not stop with such bland consensus. There is also a true affection for the other and a benevolence (a "wishing well") directed to the other. Friendship is not just a meeting of minds. It is a union of hearts, a concordia.16 Augustine believed that this impulse to be driven together as friends had its roots in our origin. We are not simply members of the same species; we are family united by common ancestry. We are bound together by blood.17
The harmony that comes from friendship rests on order: "an arrangement of equal and unequal things which gives to each its
proper place."18 This is necessary because no two humans are alike. Order makes a "oneness of heart" possible even between the greater and lesser. Not only can we love things much above us and much below us, we can also become friends to them. This is so because friendship does not depend on our status. Our common understanding of the universe, our common desire for the same goals, and our mutual care for each other can bridge many gaps.
Order (and, by extension, friendship) does not preclude subordination and it is good that it does not because every friendship implies some relationship of greater to lesser. If I differ from you by characteristic "x", in that respect I am either "better" or "worse" than you depending on whether "x" is a perfection or imperfection relative to being human. If this is so and if friendship depends on a proper ordering, our friendship will demand subordination of lesser to greater. There cannot be order where the lesser is not subordinate to the greater and without such order there can be no true friendship between beings that are different.19 That friendship is an ordered concord suggests that Augustine did not demand (nor could he) that friends be exactly alike in all respects. Being somewhat different does not stand in the way of friendship as long as this is not a difference in hearts. This oneness in heart is the essential requirement for any peace in human relationships and is thereby the root of whatever happiness a human derives from life in society.
Concord between friends is more than simply agreeing with each other; it involves a caring for each other, a mutual desire that good should come to the other. It is based on an altruistic love, a love which values the good that is in the friend rather than the good that the friend can give.20 Such love is a matter of the spirit rather than of the body and consequently if the love is strong, the friendship can even endure lengthy physical absence. As Augustine writes to two recently converted Donatist priests who came to visit him only to find him absent:
Your coming to see me has given me joy, but do not let my absence cause you sadness. Even if my absence were as far as the most distant lands, we should still be united through Christ. If we lived together in the same house, we certainly would be said to be together. But how much more are we together, when we are joined together as members of the one body of Christ, the Church?21
Augustine's point is well taken. We humans can live in the same building but still be strangers to each other, not knowing or caring what is happening to the one next to us. On the other hand, when we truly love another and are joined to them by affection, they are never far from us in spirit though physically they may be distant, indeed even when separated by the chasm of death. Sometimes we are closer to departed loved ones than to the strangers we live with in one common house.
At the same time Augustine freely admits the sadness that grips our hearts when our friends are physically distant from us. When we love another with the depths of our being, absence does not make our hearts grow fonder; it cannot because our love is already at its most extreme. Absence only makes tears flow easier. Thus, Augustine writes to his absent friend Novatus that he suffers from "... pangs of longing which tear me apart because those who are fastened to me by the bond of the strongest and sweetest friendship are not here physically present to me."22 To another friend he writes:
My great and only joy is that I am unable to avoid delight when you are with me and I am unable to avoid sorrow when you are far away. My only consolation now comes from bravely accepting my sadness.23
Perhaps some of this romantic rhetoric can be written off as literary hyperbole, but there is little doubt that its source is the emptiness Augustine felt in his heart whenever he was separated from a loved one: his common law wife sent back to Africa for the sake of his career, his mother and son separated by death, the numerous friends of the next 40 years who were with him for a time but then moved on to new ventures.
The essential element in friendship is a concordia, a oneness in heart manifested in some harmony in thinking and a warm caring for the other. But for such "oneness in heart" to exist, friendship must possess a number of attributes. The first of these is reciprocity. We can love many things without any return of love, but to be a friend to someone demands that they also be friends to us. When love ceases to be reciprocal, friendship ceases.24 To have such reciprocity demands some sort of equality in our love. We love the other as ourselves and neither more nor less than ourselves. The eyes of friendship neither look down nor look up to a friend; they look at the friend. Like a delicate rake caressing soft sand, the love of friendship has a leveling power, smoothing out the differences which come from our being unique individuals. We must love both ourselves and our friends in the same way, not as ends in themselves but as means whereby we can together each achieve our one eternal good: God himself.25
Characteristic of friendship is benevolentia, wishing our friend well, but this will always be incomplete unless we wish above all for their salvation. Wishing all the best for the friend implies wishing them to be united to God and praying that this will happen. Just as we truly love ourselves only when we strive to be one with God, so our true love for neighbor is shown in our desire to bring them to God.26 The purest friendship between humans occurs when we love the other because of the good we see in them, the good which is the reflection of the good God who is the exemplar for each of us. Augustine expresses it this way:
He truly loves a friend who loves God in the friend, either because God is actually present in the friend or in order that God may be so present. This is true love. If we love another for another reason, we hate them more than love them."27
Augustine's point is that love cannot be present when we cease to respect our friend's place in creation. Only God can be enjoyed in and for himself. We must enjoy our human friends for the sake of God, "loving the love of God in them."28 For the fullness of friendship to be realized, there must be some agreement on matters divine, a common conviction about the nature of God and about the necessity of seeking union with God.29 As Augustine says: "To love the neighbor in the right way demands that we act towards them in such a way that they come to love God with all their heart, soul, and mind."30 True friendship depends on God being the glue that binds friends together. This is the reason why one can speak of the universal friendship of the heavenly city. We are joined together there because we are all "glued" to God and through him "glued" to each other. We lose ourselves in God, become drunk with his fullness, and thereby destroy the boundaries that separate one from another.31
A sad necessity of friendship in this life is that we must be always prepared to bear the burdens of our friends. In the ideal state friendship is the enjoyment of the other in good times where we move towards the other not because they need us but because we rejoice in them. As Augustine remarks, "Love is more precious when it issues from the richness of beneficence than from the burning arid desert of need."32 This is so because a love based on the richness of our friends is not tempted to subordinate the them because of their need for us. It simply rejoices in being with them because of the good that they contain, most especially the special presence and the image of God found in them alone. In this life, however, the ideal state where there are no needs among friends does not last very long, if it exists at all. Bad things happen and it is then the love of friends is tested. As Augustine observes, the love that we shower on friends in good times is proven in bad times.33 Friends may be delightfully sunny and breezy in good times but if they go away at the first threat of a storm, they are not true friends at all.
Accepting the moments of strength and weakness that we share with our friends is an aspect of another essential quality of friendship. Friendship must be based on truth. Two human beings cannot be brought together as friends without some agreement about the goods they want, the goals that they have in common. Their love can overcome a difference of opinion on minor issues but in important things, the nature of reality, the demands of love, obligations towards each other, they must be bound together by the truth of the matter.34 At very least their friendship must have some understanding of the reality of the person who is the other. There is no such thing as anonymous friendship. If I do not know the reality that is my friends, if they do not know the real me, there is the danger that the friendship is a fantasy based on a fiction. Friendship cannot be established on ignorance or error. As Augustine says: "A person must be a friend of truth before they can be a friend to any human being."35
To achieve this mutual truth about each other there must be frankness, a frankness which enables us to dare to pour out all of our plans and gives us the freedom to tell our friends what bothers us about them.36 Such frankness is necessarily imperfect in this life. I may be able to experience the physical presence of my friends but I cannot see that inner core of spirit where their friendship has its home. This is not strange. We do not even know ourselves too well, much less others. Each individual is a well of darkness surrounded by thick walls and these walls cannot be pierced completely by love nor can they be scaled by words. In speaking about his lifelong friend Alypius, Augustine observes:
Since I do not know myself, what shame can I possibly inflict on a friend when I say he is unknown to me, especially when ... as I believe ... he himself does not know himself?"38
He makes a similar point writing to his somewhat abrasive friend, Jerome:
How unreliable is knowledge based on sentiments of present friends when there is no foreknowledge of what they shall be in the future. By why grieve over this; I don't even know my own future."39
In his letter to the gentle and saintly Proba, he returns to the same theme:
Nothing is friendly to us without friends. But where on earth is such a one to be found, one whose mind and character can give such a security? We don't even know where we shall be tomorrow, much less the whereabouts of someone else who is now our friend.40
Thinking about the difficulty in distinguishing friend from foe and in even understanding those who are true friends, Augustine cries out almost in despair:
How confused it all is! One who seems to be an enemy turns out to be a friend and those whom we thought our good friends in fact are our worst enemies."41
Because the mystery that is present in all humans and especially in that "other" that we meet for the first time, we must be cautious about too quickly judging strangers to be friend or foe. But at the same time we must not be overly wary, refusing to accept anyone as a friend until they prove themselves friendly to us beyond a shadow of a doubt. The paradox is that we can never be completely sure of the heart of another, but the only way to truly know another is by opening our heart to them as a friend.42
Since we cannot know what is going on inside others, friendship must be based on trust. Only in heaven will we have perfect knowledge of others. Only there will "we see the thoughts of others which now only God can see. Only there will no one seek to conceal their thoughts because only there will there be no evil thoughts.43 Just now we must make do, knowing as best we can and trusting for the rest, realizing that our inability to communicate perfectly is no one's fault. In order to have a friend we must first believe in them and in order to keep a friend we must continue to trust them. We must take chances on others and friendship is too important to human life not to take such chances. It is bad enough to betray a trust, but it is worse still to refuse ever to trust again. In Augustine's view such caution, far from being prudent, is hateful.44
It is a fact that true friendship is rare. There are many obstacles to the trust that is needed, perhaps the most pervasive being our fascination with earthly things. Even though we may be believing Christians, we still spend much of our time fighting about things of earth, "wishing to be earthy."45 This difficulty in being open to and trusting others led Augustine to the conclusion that in this life one can achieve perfect friendship only with the help of God. Friendship is a God-given gift, realized only when humans are glued together by the charity poured into their hearts by the Holy Spirit.46
Despite our troubles in having even one good friend, Augustine forbids limiting our friendship to a select few. Our openness to friendship must be universal, including all those to whom our love is due. Since love is due all members of the human race, we must be prepared to be friends with anyone who shares our common nature.47 There are obvious practical problems in achieving such breadth. We can love all (desiring that good that is present in every human) but can we realistically be friends with all humans? What we love is somewhat within our power to control, but we cannot "make" friends. Love does not depend on similarity or reciprocity or intimate knowledge of the other or a common love of God, or a trust that supports a mutual "baring of soul." Friendship does.
Augustine must have realized this practical impossibility, and therefore his contention that friendship must be universal can mean only something like the following. Although we cannot actually be friends with everyone just now, we can still desire such universality as a goal and work towards it. Though the reality of friendship with all will occur only in heaven when we will be able to see the fullness of the presence of God in ourselves and every other human, the desire for it and the effort to extend it as far as possible can begin here. We will not meet every human in a lifetime, but we can strive to make every human we meet a friend. We can avoid rejecting out of hand anyone who offers to be our friend. At very least we can deem them worthy of our friendship and try to bring them to a point where mutual, truthful, frank, and trusting friendship is possible.48 We must love all humans, some because they are friends, others in order that they might become friends. Indeed, Augustine goes so far as to claim that when an enemy is loved in this fashion, fellowship has already begun. We love them as friends not because they are our friends just now; rather it is because that is what we hope they someday shall be.49
We must love all humans and we are meant to be friends with all humans and we can have the beginnings of this friendship even with those who are quite different if we share a common purpose, if there is a concordia regarding goals. In fact, if two humans share the common purpose of serving God and loving God, there is already present a solid foundation for the fullness of friendship.50 All other reasons for friendships (being of the same age, experience, interests, and so forth) are not as important as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in each. What a friend loves in a friend is the divine in them. And this presence of the divine is given by God to every human who tries to love. In the words of Christ, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt 18: 20) This becoming one with each other in Christ will only be realized in heaven but it is certainly a worthwhile goal for humans still living on earth. Working for it before death insures its realization after death.51
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III. Authority in a Society of Friends
Augustine's dream for the human race was that we would be related to each other as friends in every society that we form. The problem is that in the various societies we form on earth there always seems to be an authority, one who is set apart and given the power to rule the others. In the city of God existing in heaven there will of course be the ultimate divine authority, God, ruling all in love. But when humans take up a position of authority in earthly societies, it seems that their exalted position contradicts the equality that is the core of a friendly relationship. We can look up to or bow down to authority, but how can we be truly be friends with them? How can you be a friend to someone who has the power to make decisions that must be followed. If authority stands in the way of friendship, then the effort to make society a society of friends is a useless task. Augustine did not believe that authority and friendship were mutually exclusive and it was possible, at least in some degree, to make every society based on friendship. In order to explore his contention it will be helpful to begin by saying something about the nature of society and the various functions performed by authority in society.
A useful description of society is that it is a moral union of two or more persons striving for a common good by cooperative activity. It is a stable union of rational, free beings and is based on a choice to work together for a common purpose. In fact every society has in place some system which distinguishes the leaders from those led, the ruler from those ruled. The basis for the distinction is the existence of authority. It is certainly possible (but by no means assured) that members of a society will arrive at an unforced consensus on a common goal and a common means to achieve it, but it seems highly unlikely that this will happen all the time and perhaps will happen none of the time if the society is large and complex. When agreement does not follow discussion, in order for the society to move forward there will be a need for someone to take charge, someone who has the power to say "This is the goal and this is the way in which we shall achieve it." But is such authority necessary in every society? Is the need for authority based on a defect in the members of a society, or is it rooted in the very nature of all societies?
Yves Simon defines authority as an active power of a person which is exercised through a command and is to be taken as a rule of conduct by the freewill of another.52 The following points seem implied in this definition.
1. Authority can reside only in moral or physical persons since the exercise of authority involves deliberation and choice.
2. Authority is exercised through a command, a categorical imperative. It depends only on the will of the legitimate authority. It does not merely "recommend" a course of action. It forcefully "directs" action.
3. Authority may use persuasion or coercion to get the subject to follow the direction. Of course it is also possible that neither of these is necessary. Those subject to authority may accept and follow the command freely as soon as it is understood.
4. Authority and its exercise through command do not destroy the freedom of the individual. If autonomy means only that individuals take responsibility for their action, then there is no contradiction in asserting both that each person is free and that there is an authoritative command. The action of authority does not determine action; it guides it. To preserve freedom it is enough that the individual be able to obey or disobey commands. It is not necessary to be free of all commands.
5. Authority implies some type of subordination of subject to superior. Otherwise it is difficult to justify the claim that some persons in a society can impose their will on the others. It would seem that if I can impose my will on you so that I can "command" you to "do x", then in that "x" aspect of your life at least, you must be subordinate to me.
There are two ways in which such subordination can come about. Subordination that is de facto flows from the nature of things, as in the authority of parent over the young child. In the parent/child relationship the authority is based on two facts: (1) the act of generation or adoption whereby this adult acquires responsibility for this child; (2) the inability of the child to care for itself. This second fact suggests that the full exercise of parent over child (telling them what to eat, when to go to bed, and so forth) will not be forever. It will cease as soon as the dependence ceases. Parents of adult offspring may have continuing right to their love and respect but they have no longer any right to impose their will on their children. Even in the case of the child who is a minor, the authority of the parent is limited. It does not cover every aspect of the child's life. A parent has no authority to decide whom the child will marry, what career they will pursue, what they will believe in.53
The second type of subordination is de jure, established by a quasi-contract between the ruler and ruled. The authority of the ruler to demand certain acts from the subjects is freely given by the subjects themselves. The rule of leaders in such voluntary societies as fraternities and sororities would be an example of such de jure authority. Once individuals form such a voluntary society they bind themselves to the rules and methods of governance agreed to by the group. As individuals they cannot change those rules. If they become disenchanted, they have only one legitimate option: to exercise their freedom and leave the group.
The first form of subordination implies an inequality that is in the nature of things. The second is a form of subordination created by people who are equal by nature but who have chosen to make themselves subordinate for the sake of a goal which they themselves have determined. The resolution of the question about conflict between friendship and authority, whether there can ever be a true society of friends, depends on whether either or both of these forms of subordination clash with the equality that is present in any true friendship. Of course the problem is solved if "authority" (and the subordination implied) is not a necessary element in society, if it is possible to have a complex society in which truly "everyone is free" and "no one is in charge." But is this possible?
Here again the analysis done by Simon is helpful. He identifies two general functions of authority in society.54
At times authority performs a substitutional function when it substitutes for some deficiency present in the one that is ruled. But also authority in society has certain essential functions which do not imply that the subjects ruled have some defect in knowledge or ability to make decisions that would make their direction by others necessary. Simon lists various instances of these two functions.
There is the substitutional function exercised by authority in the order of theoretical truth: for example, the authority of teacher over pupil. This function presupposes a lack of knowledge in the pupil, a lack which the teacher makes up by instruction.
There is the substitutional function exercised by authority in guiding immature and/or will-defective individuals towards their proper good. This is an exercise of quasi-parental authority over those who do not have the sense or do not have the inclination to choose "well" on their own. Thus a parent exercises authority over a minor child who as yet is not able to make sensible decisions about everyday necessities: what to eat, when to go to sleep, where to play, and so forth. Other examples are the medical professional's exercise of authority over an institutionalized severely retarded adult; the civil ruler's exercise of authority over criminals who perversely choose to break the laws of the society.
There is the substitutional function exercised by authority in the unification of action towards the common good when the means to the common good is in fact uniquely determined: that is, there is only one way to achieve the common goal. If all humans were perfect in intellect and will they would automatically see that there is only one way to the goal and would freely choose that way. But in a society of imperfect humans, authority must sometimes substitute for a stubborn lack of agreement and an unreasonable unwillingness to choose the one and only way to the goal to which all have committed themselves.
There is the essential function exercised by authority in the unification of action for the common good when the means to the common good is not uniquely determined. Simon argues that this is a common phenomenon in complex societies. Even if there is a consensus in a state that all should work for prosperity and peace, it is unlikely that there will be common agreement on the best way to reach this goal. There usually are a multitude of ways of proceeding and all of them are possible. Even if all citizens had the ability to understand the situation and were all gifted with the prudence that moved them to choose the best way to achieve the common good, they would still disagree precisely because there is no one best way. All would look at the problem from their own particular point of view which is formed by their peculiar personality and history. The fact that I cannot see a problem as you see it does not imply that there is anything wrong with either of us. It just means that we are different persons. Such a diversity of persons suggests that there will always be a difference of opinion on the way to achieve the goal of society. Even in the best society there is a natural basis for divergence in prudential choice about means. Thus when authority steps in to say "We shall go this way!" this is an essential function demanded in any society where agreement cannot be reached. It does not imply a deficiency in the members of the society. It simply reflects that the society is made up of different, free, rational beings who are likely to see a complex problem in different ways. I suspect that even Adam and Eve might have disagreed about the best place to go on vacation from paradise.
Finally there is what Simon calls the most essential function of authority in willing the common good materially considered: that is, the common good viewed "as a whole." We will the common good formally when we will a particular good which serves to foster the common good. Simon explains the difference through the example of an efficient and productive school. In such a school a teacher of Latin wills the success of the whole school program by willing to teach Latin as perfectly as possible. The "whole" concentration of the teacher is on their particular subject and by that fanaticism contributes to the good of the school. The common good is willed materially when it is willed independent of any particular good. Thus the principal of the school wills the good of the whole school apart from any special interest in any special subject or aspect of the school. The Latin teacher wills the common good in and through a particular viewpoint of the common good, the common good seen through the eyes of a Latin teacher. The principal wills the common good as a whole, taking into account all aspects of that good. Simon argues that a society would not be well served if all its members were concerned about the whole. It is better that they perfect their own little contribution to that good and leave concern for the totality to those who govern the whole and whose primary function is to take the universal viewpoint. The common good is furthered better by each individual dedicating themselves to one facet, one occupation in a society. In so doing they are still willing the common good but only formally, by willing to do their particular job as perfectly as possible. If each one had to will the common good materially the result would be mediocrity. The individual functions would not be performed with the attention that would insure their perfection. A school will not prosper if the faculty is more concerned about governance than about teaching their discipline; nor is it well-served by administrators whose interest and attention is directed at one aspect of the school only. The ideal in any society is to have a band of experts being guided to one end by one who is a non-expert in their fields but who has skill in directing the efforts of a diverse group of experts towards a common goal. As Simon writes:
No part of the land will be thoroughly tilled unless each laborer has a distinct field to plow. And no function will be exercised with thoroughness unless my function (say, that of teaching Latin) is distinct from any other function and is thereby particularized. But if my function is a particular one, if, in other words, the good with which I am concerned is but a particular aspect of the common good, then it is necessary that there be above me, a person or a group of persons properly concerned, not only formally but also materially, with the whole of the common good."55
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IV. Augustine and the Friendly Society
Augustine agrees with Cicero that some subordination of one to another is natural. It is just and proper that the soul rule the body, that God rule humans, and that the civil ruler have sovereignty over a community when such authority serves the good of the community.56 Unnatural subordination among humans occurs when the ruler seeks to make everyone and everything serve himself, denying the natural equality among humans and pretending to be God Almighty.57 Augustine maintains that when the subordination of one human to another occurs within the context of friendship, its harshness is softened. In its exercise it respects the equality and dignity and goodness of the other that is demanded by the social bond. Although true authority is present, an authority that assumes some sort superior\inferior relationship, there is no denigration of the subject. As Augustine observes:
Where charity is not present, the command of the authority is bitter. But where charity exists, the one who commands does so with sweetness and the charity makes the very work to be almost no work at all for the one who is commanded, even though in truth the subject is bound to some task.58
We are called to love each other as friends not in order to consume each other, losing our identity in our attachment, but in order to enjoy each other as separate but joined individuals. When some inequality is present, for example between teacher and pupil, the rule of the superior should be a loving rule. In truth, there is a real inequality in knowledge present, but the friendship must flow from the equality and goodness shared by all members of the humans race because of being equally images of God. The authority is exercised in the context of such leveling love seeks to remedy the accidental inequality of the inferior and therefore is more a service to the ruled than privilege of the ruler. Augustine believed that the teacher who wishes that the student remain always as a learner and never achieve equality in knowledge is not truly a teacher. A parent who wishes that a child never become mature is not truly a parent. A king who relishes sovereignty for the joy of being in charge is not worthy of the name "king".59
But is there not a conflict between authority and friendship at least in those situations where the exercise of authority is substitutional? Can, for example, a parent treat a child as a friend without ceasing to be a good parent? Does trying to be "pals" conflict with being a parent? Augustine would likely respond in the following way. First, friendship in this life will always be imperfect. It will be a matter of degree since in fact it will depend on conditions (e.g. reciprocity, frankness/truth, equality) which will be verified only "more or less" in any relationship. Only in heaven will these conditions be realized perfectly. Only then will there be perfect frankness/truth between humans and perfect reciprocity of love in the fullness of God's presence perceived present in the other.
Secondly, if another person (for example, a child) is in fact dependent, it would be an unfriendly act on the part of the parent to treat them as if they were not. The truth of friendship demands that we recognize in the friend that which is equal to oneself and that which is unequal. A teacher must recognize the ignorance (and perhaps lack of motivation) in the student in order to "love them so that they might become friends." A parent must recognize that their child is equal in being an imago dei but must also recognize that the child needs a lot of help if they are to reach a stage where they can stand on their own two feet in this life and know how to go successfully into the next. The burden of being a parent is precisely the obligation to recognize the inequality of the child and to help them get beyond it. Similarly, it is the duty of the sovereign in a state to recognize the fact that a complex community of free beings is not likely to reach consensus on many things on their own. Nor is it likely, in a society made up of somewhat cracked citizens, that everyone will always joyously obey every law promoting the common good. Sooner or later the sovereign will need to intervene to remedy the discord. Someone must make a decision if the common good is to be achieved and it would be a severe disservice to the community for the ruler to refuse to exercise that authority. In any society the friendly love of the superior must sometimes be expressed through command; in such a society the friendly love of the subjects is found in their obedience out of love to a directive that is for the good of the community but which here and now is not their preference.
How Augustine's ideal of a society being a community of friends applies to the family and the state will be addressed in the chapters that follow. As we shall see, he considers both what is ideal and also what is unfortunately too often real in the efforts of humans to get along in these two premier societies. In both family and state, one may dream of the heaven of Jerusalem only to find that day by day life is filled with the turmoil of Babylon.
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NOTES
1. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 13.
2. Friedreich Nietzsche, The Genealogy of Morals, 18.
3. "By the very laws of nature, a human seems to be forced into fellowship and, as far as possible, into peace with fellow humans." (The City of God, 19.12). "The life of virtue, that is the best life for a human now, is a life united to others in society. It is only through this drive to society that the ideal state for the human race, the city of God, becomes possible." (Ibid., 19.5). See also The Good of Marriage, 1.1; Commentary on Psalm 54, 9.
4. The City of God, 12.28.
5. Sermon 299D, 1.
6. For a comprehensive study of Augustine's views on friendship, showing its roots in classical literature and the modifications coming from his Christian faith, see Carolinne White, Christian Friendship in the Fourth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 185-217.
7. Confessions, 6.16.26.
8. Confessions, 4.8.13.
9. See Confessions, 9.11-13.
10. The City of God, 19.8.
11. The Trinity, 8.10.
12. Sermon 9, 7.
13. See Catechizing the Uninstructed, 1.12.17.
14. Letter 130, 2.4.
15. Confessions, 2.9.17.
16. Against the Academics, 3.6.13; Letter 258, 1.
17. The Good of Marriage, 1.1. See R. Canning, "Augustine on the Identity of the Neighbour," Augustiniana, 36 (1986), 3-4, pp. 182-83.
18. The City of God, 19.13.1.
19. Free Choice, 1.8.18. That such subordination is not antithetical to friendship is suggested by Augustine's assertion that, "In heaven we shall be friends with our bodies" even though our bodies will still be subordinate to us as persons of soul and body. (Sermon 155, 14; see The City of God, 22.30.1). Again, it seems likely that the God who walked with humans in Eden was a friend to them despite his infinite superiority. When humans rejected that friendship, that same God went so far as to become friends again with them in order to rescue them. As Augustine says: "When Christ was far away from us (as is an immortal and good Creator from mortal and sinful creatures), he bridged the gap by coming down to us as a neighbor." (Sermon 171, 3.3; see Commentary on Psalm 118, 12.5; see Canning, op. cit., p. 187). There is no question that God is always far superior to every human being but despite this distance a concordia, a "unity of affection and knowledge" is possible between them. Indeed, such union is the goal of human life and the essential condition for eternal happiness.
20. The Trinity, 8.10.
21. Letter 142, 1.
22. Letter 84, 1.
23. Letter 27, 1.
24. The Trinity, 9.4.6. See Faith in Things That Are Not Seen, 1.2.4; Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, 1.1.
25. Christian Doctrine, 1.22.20-1; Soliloquies, 1.8. See Marie McNamara, Friends and Friendship for Saint Augustine (Staten Island, NY: Alba House, 1964), p. 286.
26. Christian Doctrine, 1.27.28.
27. Sermon 336, 2.2.
28. Against Faustus the Manichean, 22.78.
29. Letter 258, 2.
30. Christian Doctrine, 1.22.21. In a letter to Marcianus, recently converted to Christianity but not yet baptized and described by Augustine as "my oldest friend," after quoting with approval Cicero's definition (Laelius de Amicitia, 6.20) Augustine writes: "Thus it happens that there can be no full and true agreement about things human among friends who disagree about things divine, for it necessarily follows that he who despises things divine esteems things human otherwise than as he should and that whoever does not love Him who has made man has not learned to love man rightly." (Letter 258, 1-2). See J. McEvoy, "Anima una et cor unum: Friendship and Spiritual Unity in Augustine," Recherches de Theologie ancienne et mediévale, pp. 76-77.
31. Confessions, 4.47. See Commentary on Psalm 62, 17; Commentary on Psalm 35, 14. Another reason for basing our friendship with our human loved one's in Christ is that it is only in Christ that our friendship can be eternal. Even as members of the city of God in heaven we remain temporal, contingent beings. Our only security
is still in that one who is eternal and who supports our contingent existence through his loving power. See Against Two Letters of the Pelagians, 1.1.
32. Catechizing the Uninstructed, 1.4.7.
33. Faith in Things That Are Not Seen, 1.1.3. Augustine uses an interesting analogy to make his point. Referring to an experience that was no doubt known well by his North African readers, he points out that when a herd of deer crosses a rushing stream, each one will take their turn at the head of the pack to break the force of the water for the others. When finally exhausted, the leader then goes back to rear where it can benefit from the protection of the others. So too for humans, each one is sometimes called to bear the burden for others, but there will also be a time when they need the support of those others. See 83 Diverse Questions, 71.1.
34. 83 Diverse Questions, 31.3. See Faith in Things That Are Not Seen, 2.4.
35. Letter 155, 1.1.
36. 83 Diverse Questions, 71.6. See Letter 82, 36; Sermon 87, 12.15; Commentary on the Letter of John to the Parthians, 7.11.
38. Soliloquies, 1.3.8. Other passages that make the same point about the difficulty in truly getting to know ourselves and others include the following: "In this journey of our earthly life, each one carries his own heart, and each heart is closed to every other." (Commentary on Psalm 55, 9). "Humans can speak. They can be seen to move their limbs and their words can be heard. But who can penetrate their thoughts; who can see their heart?" (Commentary on Psalm 16, 13.). Speaking about the difficulties in teaching and learning Augustine remarks: "Not even love itself is powerful enough to tear apart that massive fleshy darkness and touch that eternal light from which even passing things receive their sparkle." (Catechizing the Uninstructed, 1.2.4). "I do not know what you are thinking and you do not know what I am thinking. Only our own spirit (and the Holy Spirit of God) is witness to our thoughts, and indeed God knows things about us that even we do not know about ourselves." (Commentary on the Gospel of John, 32.7.5).
39. Letter 73, 3.6.
40. Letter 130, 2.4. See Carolinne White, op. cit., p. 205.
41. Sermon 49, 4.4.
42. "A man is known only through friendship." (83 Diverse Questions, 71.5). "If someone wishes to know the will of a person who is not a friend, everyone would scoff at his impudence and foolishness." (Commentary on Genesis against the Manicheans, 1.2.4).
43. Sermon 243, 5. See Sermon 306, 9.
44. Faith in Things That Are Not Seen, 2.4. See 83 Diverse Questions, 71.6.
45. Sermon 359, 1-2.
46. Confessions, 4.4.7. McNamara comments: "For him, 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." Marie McNamara, op. cit., pp. 220-21.
47. "It (friendship) must include all those to whom love and affection are due. It may go out more readily to some, more slowly to others, but it must reach even to our enemies for whom we are commanded to pray. The conclusion is simply this: there is no member of the human species to whom love is not due, either because they return our love or at least because we are united to them through our common nature as human beings."(Letter 130, 13).
48. 83 Diverse Questions, 71.6. Augustine goes on to say that we should not be dismayed by the apparent bad qualities of others nor should we be overawed by their good qualities. We should be prepared to reach out in friendship to those who perhaps do not dare to approach us because of our supposedly "lofty" position. The strong must put up with the weak and not take themselves too seriously. The weak must not think too highly of the strong nor think too little of themselves.
49. Commentary on the Letter of John to the Parthians, 1.9; 8.10.
50. Ibid., 6.10.
51. Ibid., 10.3.
52. Yves Simon, The Nature and Functions of Authority (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1940), p. 7. My discussion of authority depends heavily on this work and other works of Simon contained in the bibliography.
53. Augustine maintained that the command of every lawful authority was based on the authority of God Himself. Thus he says that "A father's word must be listened to as God's word." (Commentary on Psalm 70, 1.2). This view seems consistent with his belief that the only subordination of humans rooted in the nature of things was that of humans as created beings subordinate to their Creator.
54. See Yves Simon, Philosophy of Democratic Government (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1951) p. 61.
55. Ibid., p. 47. Aquinas seems to be saying the same thing as Simon when he observes that no society can endure unless it possesses some principle person or group whose main duty is to provide for the common good. (On the Rule of Princes, 1.1).
56. The City of God, 19.21. Speaking about the family specifically, Augustine lays down a rule which he clearly believed was applicable to any society. He writes: "In the home of the religious person, those who command serve those whom they appear to rule. They rule out of concern and compassion for those for whom them must care." (Ibid., 19.14).
57. Ibid., 19.12.
58. Commentary on the Letter of John to the Parthians, 9.1. In another place Augustine writes: "Whatever is burdensome in a command is made light to one who loves." (Commentary on Psalm 67, 18).
59. Augustine writes: "As long as he, the student, is slow, he learns from you. You seem to be the superior, because you are the teacher; he the inferior, because he is the learner. If you do not wish him to be your equal, you wish to have him always a learner. But if you wish to have him always a learner, you will be an envious teacher. And if you are an envious teacher, how can you be described as a teacher at all?" (Commentary on the Letter of John to the Parthians, 8.8.). For Augustine's description of the ideal civil ruler see City of God, 5.24.
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