Theologizing Friendship. Nathan Sumner Lefler

Theologizing Friendship - Nathan Sumner Lefler


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      Theologizing Friendship

      How Amicitia in the Thought of Aelred and Aquinas Inscribes the Scholastic Turn

      Nathan Lefler

      With a Foreword by Austin G. Murphy, OSB

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      THEOLOGIZING FRIENDSHIP

      How Amicitia in the Thought of Aelred and Aquinas Inscribes the Scholastic Turn

      Copyright © 2014 Nathan Lefler. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

      Pickwick Publications

      An Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers

      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

      Eugene, OR 97401

      www.wipfandstock.com

      isbn 13: 978-1-62564-104-5

      eisbn 13: 978-1-63087-491-9

      Cataloging-in-Publication data:

      Lefler, Nathan.

      Theologizing friendship : how amicitia in Aelred and Aquinas inscribes the scholastic turn / Nathan Lefler ; with a foreword by Austin G. Murphy, OSB.

      xvi + 178 pp. ; 23 cm—Includes bibliographical references.

      isbn 13: 978-1-62564-104-5

      1. Aelred, of Rievaulx, Saint, 1110–1167. 2. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?–1274. 3. Friendship—Religious aspects—Christianity—Early works to 1800. 4. Spiritual life—Catholic church—Early works to 1800. I. Murphy, Austin G. II. Title.

      BX2349 L234 2014

      Manufactured in the USA

      From Connor, Elizabeth, OCSO, trans. The Mirror of Charity by Aelred of Rievaulx. © 1990 by Cistercian Publications, Inc. Excerpts used by permission of Cistercian Publications, Inc.

      From Laker, Mary Eugenia, SSND, trans. Spiritual Friendship by Aelred of Rievaulx. © 1977 by Cistercian Publications, Inc. Excerpts used by permission of Cistercian Publications, Inc.

      From Southern, R. W. Medieval Humanism and Other Studies. © 1984 by Basil Blackwell. Excerpts from Chapter 4, “Medieval Humanism,” used by permission of Blackwell Publishing, Inc.

      To three friends,

      Aelred, Thomas, and Annie,

      Who have helped me in their various ways

      out of a dark wood.

      Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum, habitare fratres in unum.

      Ps. 132:1

      Foreword

      There is a certain irony to the modern university. On the one hand, a university has the advantage of bringing scholars together into a community. One scholar need only walk across campus, or simply down the hall, to converse with another. The exchange of ideas is immediate, lively, personal. Many of us have experienced this as students or teachers. Meeting in the lounge, in hallways, over lunch, or for coffee, we speak, often as friends, sharing our thoughts and growing in insight as a consequence. But on the other hand, the fruit of university scholarship is so often impersonal. Hard scientific knowledge, Wissenschaft, is privileged, and subjective detachment encouraged in the interest of objectivity and a supposed neutrality. The fruit of intellectual inquiry is often impersonal, as a result, and also insipid. Ironically, the lively exchange of ideas among a community of scholars leads to the production of texts that are detached and impersonal.

      Ultimately Newman finds Aristotle’s phronesis useful for describing the matter. Aristotle correctly noted that the exercise of right moral judgment cannot be reduced to rules. No system of moral precepts automatically (and impersonally) produces correct moral decisions. The person must discern the right path in ways more fluid and subtle than can be articulated in prescribed rules. Moreover, to do this well one needs a personal attribute called phronesis (that is, the virtue of prudence). Newman argues that, likewise, correct reasoning about the truth is more fluid and subtle than can be delineated in the premises and conclusion of a syllogism. The rules of logical inference cannot completely map out for us the way to the truth, but we must rely on personal gifts and qualities—intellectual, moral, or otherwise—to get there.

      But Newman’s critique of reasoning by a priori rules is not unsympathetic of their value. The rules of logical inference, like moral precepts, are useful. This makes the ironic tension of the modern university hard to resolve. There is indeed an indispensable personal and also communal dimension to the pursuit of truth, but the value of objective, methodological thinking cannot be altogether dismissed.

      Nathan Lefler’s study touches upon this tension. It explores a most personal subject, friendship, and it considers how two personally gifted thinkers in the Catholic tradition, St. Aelred and St. Thomas Aquinas, sought to understand friendship. Friendship is not peripheral to either thinker’s system of thought. Aelred finds it to be a perfection, through grace, of inter-human relations and Aquinas defines the highest of all the virtues, charity, as friendship with God. Therefore both speakers, albeit in different respects, place friendship at the heart of the moral project. Human life, and in a sense all of reality, is ordered toward friendship. This is surely a very personalist view of things. Lefler examines how such a view manifests itself in each thinker’s writings and also how the thinker’s understanding of friendship relates to community, the Trinity, the eschaton, and the reading of the Bible.

      Aelred and Aquinas


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