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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
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
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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.
The privileging of objective, scientific knowledge is certainly a cause. According to Newman, this privileging has its roots in the modern desire to be emancipated “from the capricious ipse dixit of authority,”1 while at the same time wanting to have an authoritative, objective means for ascertaining the truth. Newman narrates the pursuit of this objective means for finding the truth in a style that tellingly echoes the biblical story of the Tower of Babylon:
As the index on the dial notes down the sun’s course in the heavens, as a key, revolving through the intricate wards of the lock, opens for us a treasure-house, so let us, if we can, provide ourselves with some ready expedient to serve as a true record of the system of objective truth, and an available rule for interpreting its phenomena; or at least let us go as far as we can in providing it. One such experimental key is the science of geometry, which, in a certain department of nature, substitutes a collection of true principles, fruitful and interminable in consequences, for the guesses, pro re natâ, of our intellect, and saves it both the labour and the risk of guessing. Another far more subtle and effective instrument is algebraical science, which acts as a spell in unlocking for us, without merit or effort of our own individually, the arcana of the concrete physical universe. A more ambitious, because a more comprehensive contrivance still, for interpreting the concrete world is the method of logical inference. What we desiderate is something which may supersede the need of personal gifts by a far-reaching and infallible rule. Now, without external symbols to mark out and to steady its course, the intellect runs wild; but with the aid of symbols, as in algebra, it advances with precision and effect. Let then our symbols be words: let all thought be arrested and embodied in words.2
Notice the ambitious desire to “supersede the need of personal gifts by a far-reaching and infallible rule.” In Newman’s celebrated comparison of reasoning to rock climbing, he speaks of it as trying to reason “by rule” and he says that, in the last analysis, this is not how we reach the truth.3 Rather than the detached, impersonal application of rules, the pursuit of truth, especially sublime truths, requires personal engagement and certain personal qualities.
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
