A Comparison between Human and Divine Friendship

A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP IT is a defined dogma of faith that between God and a man in.the state of sa~ctifying grace, there exists ~ru~ frie~d­ ship. The Council of Trent declares that by Justification man is changed from an enemy into a friend of God.1 Undoubtedly , the Council is here using the word "friend" in its literal sense, not simply as a figure of speech, a mere poetic metaphor. True, the term "friend" applied to God and to man is of necessity an analogous one, as is every term that is applied to both God and man. It must be remembered, however , that even an analogous predication is a true predication. Between friendship as it exists among men and friendship as it exists between man and God, there must be, therefore, a similarity sufficient to guarantee the literal truth of the statement that by justification man is changed from an enemy to a friend of God. Christ Himself did not hesitate to use the word " friend " according to its true and literal sense referring to the relationship of the Apostles to Himself: "Greater love than this no man hath that a man lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do the things that I command you. I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth. But I have called you friends because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you." 2 It is evident that Christ is here using the term " friends " in the commonly accepted sense of the word, the only sense in which it would have been understood by the Apostles, and the only sense in which it would have conveyed to them the idea which Christ was attempting to impress upon them. It is also evident that in calling His Apostles " friends," Christ is referring to a relationship between them and Himself, not only according to His human nature, but according to His 1 Session 6, Chapter 7 (Dtmz., 799) . • John xv, 18-15. 54 A COMPARISON BETWEEN HUMAN AND DIVINE FRIENDSHIP 55 divine nature as well, because He uses the term in reference to His work of Redemption, which He accomplished principally by reason of His divine nature, and in referenelto His right to command them in all things and to make known to them the Will of His Father, both of which prerogatives belong to Christ as God. In spite of the words of Christ and in spite of the declaration of the Council of Trent, there is still a strong tendency, on man's part, to think of friendship with God as some sort of vague, imaginative relationship having little foundation in reality. No doubt this is due chiefly to the apparently enormous difficulties which immediately present themselves when man ~ttempts to conceive of himself as a friend of God or of God as a friend of his in the literal sense of the word, since by " friend " he ordinarily understands an equal whom he can see with corporal eyes, whom he can know intimately, someone with whom he can converse familiarly, whose hand he can shake occasionally . Perhaps it is humility which prompts him to say," How could two extremes so infinitely distant as are God and man possibly have enough in common to be truly friends of each other?" Much that has been written on the subject, by ignoring the difficulties and failing to give the basic foundation for the postulation of such a friendship, has tended only to foster the impression that the predication of friendship between man and God is simply a pleasant bit of sentimental hyperbole, instead of the profound and ineffable reality that it is. It would seem to be to good advantage, then, to face squarely some of these difficulties and to consider the reasonable foundation upon which rests the declaration of Trent that by grace man truly becomes a friend of God. There is, moreover, a practical advantage to be derived from emphasizing the fact that a true, personal friendship exists between God and the just man. Owing...