By DONALD DeMARCO
Friendship is a paradox. Although it expresses a relationship between one person and another person, it requires a third factor. C.S. Lewis expands upon this third factor in his book, The Four Loves. In order for friendship to take place, two people must see the same truth. Only when the question “Do you see the see the same truth? is affirmed, according to Lewis, can friendship be formed. It is the truth that supplies the context for friendship. In friendship people meet, and this meeting is what embraces them and makes them friends.
When I board an airplane, I am a passenger. This modest status refers to my relationship not to another person but to the airplane that is transporting me to my destination. I may be sitting next to a complete stranger who is my companion. All this word means is that we are flying together. If we begin to converse, we might discover that we are both pro-life and are on our way to Washington to participate in the annual March for Life. At this moment, mutually affirming the truth of the inviolable humanity of the unborn, we have made the transition to being friends.
As far as this friendship in the sky is concerned, matters of age, sex, status, occupation, and so forth, are entirely irrelevant. Our friendship is formed solely on the basis of the truth that both of us see and affirm. We are rescued from our solitude by the truth that embraces us. We do not seek friendship as much as it is something that happens to us unbidden.
I have taken part in the March for Life. What I have found to be most gratifying and memorable is the fact that since all the marchers acknowledge the intrinsic value of the unborn child, that common denominator brought everyone together as friends. The atmosphere was joyful and relaxing. We felt assured that we could speak to anyone without reservation. Everyone was open to anyone, and no one feared criticism. We could throw caution to the wind and happily befriend whomever we happened to encounter along our celebratory peregrination. We had absolutely no fear of resistance, reproof, or rejection from anyone.
During Mass, worshippers gain a sense of friendship with each other because their very presence at Church is testimony to their collective belief in Christ. The “kiss of peace” serves to ratify this friendship. They are friends in the Lord. As history has shown, every civilized religion began with a small group of friends. Friendship is something to build upon.
Friendship is the most readily accessible form of love. It can be formed in the twinkling of the eye. But it does require two people sharing the same truth. In our cynical age of relativism, skepticism, and deconstructionism, many people doubt whether there is such a thing as truth. But without recognizing and accepting some truth, no friendship is possible.
We may think of friendship as a ground floor which supports other floors. Eros and agape, sexual love and love of God, are these additional stories. But without friendship, these additional floors have no support. Marriage becomes shaky when people marry for pleasure, convenience, money, or some other factor that has nothing to do with friendship. The union of a man and a woman in Holy Matrimony is a highly practical affair. If the spouses do not see the same truth, unresolvable quarrels become inevitable. Then, divorce seems to be the only reasonable solution to end quarrels that have no basis for resolution.
Venerable Fulton J. Sheen titled his book on marriage Three to Get Married. He identifies the third factor as God who is not only a source of grace and wisdom, but a unifying factor that transcends a couple as a mere juxtaposition of solitudes. But the attempt on the part of two spouses to love each other apart from that third factor imposes on them something that is not in their being to give.
Truth binds people in friendship. But it is also the factor that binds people in love. Deprived of both friendship and love, spouses treat each other as idols rather than as participants in a greater mystery. Consistent with what C.S. Lewis writes about friendship, the distinguished American essayist, Ralph Waldo Emerson, has remarked: “Do you love me? means Do you see the same truth?”
As a philosophy teacher, lo these many years, I sought to share the truth I saw with my students. Distrust, pride, reluctance to accept the responsibilities that truth demands, and other self-enclosed dispositions can be effective barriers against the reception of truth. Plato dealt with this problem in his famous Analogy of the Cave. For the great student of Socrates, cave-dwelling prisoners preferred looking at shadows, turning their backs against the truth that was available to them. Moreover, they did not trust the liberators who sought to enlighten them.
I experienced, sad to say, this universal problem of helping people to make the transition from darkness to light. Nonetheless, there were many times when friendships were formed.
Marriage must be preceded by truth and friendship in that order. The basic task of the philosopher is to make realistic distinctions and then place them in the proper order. Friendship is easily formed when people see the same truth. But it is an essential building block that supports all the higher forms of love. If there is no ground floor, there can be no penthouse.
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress