Jen Nguyen (Harvard University), "A True Friend Stabs You in the Front: Astell’s Admonisher Conception of a Friend"
2022, Journal of Modern Philosophy
Christians seem to face a problem when it comes to friendship. On the one hand, there is the famous injunction to love God or, as the Bible puts it: “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” (Matthew 22:37). On the other hand, there is the injunction to love our neighbor. For the injunction that immediately follows reads: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39). Many interpret this commandment as saying, among other things, that Christians have a duty to extend the love that they have for themselves to their friends. No other commandments, the Bible continues, are “greater than these” (Matthew 22:40).
Looking at these two Biblical injunctions side-by-side, it is hard to resist the impression that there is a tension here. For if the Christian is meant to give God all their love, then it would appear that the Christian has no love left over for their friend. So is the Christian unable to love their friends after all? Even if the Christian can love both God and their friends, might the fact that a Christian is required to love their friends diminish their friendships? After all, friendships are typically thought of as voluntary, as is the love that we find between friends. All of which raises an intriguing point of reflection: can a Christian be a good friend (Lippitt 2013)?
For an interesting perspective on this question, we can consider the 17th-century English philosopher, Mary Astell. As a devout Christian, Astell was well-aware of these two Biblical injunctions, as well as their apparent tension. As a philosopher, she spent more than a decade trying to convince her readers that these two injunctions are not just consistent; properly interpreted, they actually support one another. As Astell sees the matter, the Christian who loves God in the way the Bible requires will be able to love their friends all the better. Likewise, the Christian who loves their friend in just the way the Bible commands will be in a better position to love God.
In taking this stance, Astell ends up reimagining what a friend is along the way. And Astell seems to be especially inspired by the Bible’s idea that true friends admonish one another for the sake of moral growth. Proverbs 27:6, for example, teaches: “better are the wounds of a friend than the deceitful kisses of the enemy.” Likewise, Astell shares in her Christian Religion: “the faithful wounds of a Christian friend, do only let out our corruption in order to health and beauty” (2013, 168). The similarities are clear. But what is so fascinating about Astell is that she puts the idea of admonishing right at the heart of her conception of a friend. Or so I argue in my article: “A True Friend Stabs You in the Front: Astell’s Admonisher Conception of a Friend.”
Works Cited
M. Astell (2013). The Christian religion, as professed by a daughter of the Church of England, edited by Jacqueline Broad. Toronto, ON: Iter.
J. Lippitt. (2013). “Can a Christian Be a Friend? God, Friendship and Love of Neighbor” in Thinking about Friendship, ed. Damian Caluori, (London: Palgrave Macmillan).
All those questions are well and good, but it is interesting to look at the admonishment component of Christian friendship. There is something very similar in East Asian Buddhist meditation practice since the 11th century CE, both within the monastic establishment and the kyolsa groups of that era. The concept was established of a 'Spirutual Friend' usually a senior practicer who carried on a dual role of admonishment and encouragement.. vital functions in the spiritual life.
Lovely synopsis. Many questions arise. What is meant by "neighbor" in the Bible and why is this rendered to "friend" here? That's a significant narrowing of the scope that may need some unpacking. Also one can ask why is this biblical sense of love rendered as a depletable or zero sum attribute? If, in a family, one loves sister Alice, does that lessen somehow the love available for sister Betty? That sense of love makes the latter, resemble water in a bucket- only so much to go around or ladle out. And what about then, all the other loves one is simultaneously possessing, such as for country, for mountains, for justice, for fictional characters? Perhaps the philosophy of love shows a complex phenomena operating? Lastly, we should look at what is the mind doing when love occurs? Is it filled with nothing but the experience of love or is love a background, horizonal condition that intensifies and recedes, is it a matter of focus? If one "has" love "for" some object, how then does one ever "lose" it? So many question!
The Bible is a recording of events, actors, and things said, not a philosophical treatise and so its language is terribly imprecise. Its writers assumed a general understanding of the terms used but when we examine them closely there are more questions raised than answers.