“Love of friendship” in the Christian life

Abstract

Theological reflection on friendship, as a particular form of Christian love, emerges in Holy Scripture and continues to be elaborated in the Christian tradition. However, in recent moral theology, it has not been given the proper treatment it deserves. From a theological perspective, “love of friendship” is at times absorbed into the other traditional understanding of love, namely, “love of God and of neighbour.” After a philosophical-historical study of the Greco-Roman roots of friendship in moral reflection and how this was appropriated in the Christian tradition, this dissertation illustrates the novelty of the Christian understanding of friendship that emerges in the Fourth Gospel and how, through the interpretation and systematic reflection of theologians through the centuries, it reaches its acme in the synthesis of Thomas Aquinas’ treatise of the theological virtue of caritas in his Summa Theologiae. The insights acquired through this theological study are then utilised to show how, in practice, a theology of friendship can enrich the life of an authentic Christian and contribute to the renewal of the theology of the Christian life called for by the Second Vatican Council (see Optatam Totius, no. 16). In particular, traditional themes in moral theology, like marriage and society, can be enhanced by studying them through the lens of a theology of friendship.