Each year, I take some time to do a little philosophical exercise with my students where I offer them a deal. I tell them that they can have anything they want: a mansion, a car, technology, games, whatever food they want, whenever they want it, and all of their needs will be met for the rest of their lives; the one exception is that they will never be able to interact directly with another human being again. I ask them, “Would you take that deal?”

Over the years of posing this question to my students, the overwhelming majority have said that they would not take that deal, and that majority has only increased since the time of COVID, where we experienced something a little too close to the scenario I propose.

Even the philosophically uninitiated have a deep sense of what Aristotle taught: that human beings are social creatures. One of the most common objections to my proposal is simply that they would not be able to be with their friends. Probably without ever having thought of it before, they have an intuition, a sort of natural, lived knowledge that friendship is important, even a necessity. And they are right.

Friendship is one of those common human experiences that is hidden in plain sight. It is so obvious that most of us never stop to consider its nature. What is true friendship? What is it for, why do we seek it, and what does it say about us that we seem to need it? Does friendship point us to any higher meaning in life, or is it merely an end in itself?

One of the marks of a good philosophy is that it does justice to common sense and to these overwhelmingly obvious and ignored aspects of life; it explains them instead of explaining them away. Such is the philosophy of Aristotle, whom I have heard called the master of common-sense philosophy, and he does not neglect these questions about friendship. Cicero also wrote his own treatise on friendship, and Christian saints and scholars have not ignored the question either, especially Aelred of Rievaulx. In our own time, the philosophy professor John Cuddeback has taken these reflections and made them accessible in his book True Friendship, a book that should be read by anyone who wants to get the most from the great good of friendship.

I was first made aware of the book by Father Steven Dufrene, local servant of the friary where novices are formed for the Community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and where I am an associate. He told me that the friary had read it together. I figured that any book they took the time to read together as a friary was worth reading, and I was not disappointed.

Cuddeback clearly and concisely explains the ethical foundations of virtue and the various types of friendship, because not all friendships are the same. There are friendships of utility, friendships of pleasure, and then there is the highest kind of friendship: true friendship, where friends join each other and help each other in earnest pursuit of real joy.

Friendships of utility and friendships with pleasure have their place, but they are not the kind of friendship that will lead to true happiness. Friendships of utility are those we maintain for work, for services, and for getting along in the world. We maintain friendships of pleasure because those people are enjoyable, because we like to be around them. The highest and best kind of friendship can only be enjoyed by good people who are trying to become better and to help each other become better. True friendship is marked by the pursuit of the highest good and the mutual desire for the good of the other, that they might achieve the highest good together.

But this highest friendship cannot be maintained by just anyone. Obviously, these friends must desire what is good; they must desire to be virtuous and to help one another in their pursuit of virtue. If someone is plagued with the vices of dishonesty, selfishness, pettiness, complaining, or any other bad habit, they will not be the best friend that they can be; they themselves will get in the way of their own relationships. Only virtuous people can enjoy true friendships, and those who are approaching virtue together approach true friendship together, and they also approach true happiness together. After all, true joy is love, goodness, and strength of character, and these increase as we share them with others. Is it any wonder that saints sometimes come in groups and pairs of friends or family?

Such considerations lead to a point that Aristotle and Cicero could not appreciate: friendship with God, the ultimate goal for which our earthly friendships prepare us. This, of course, is not friendship in any kind of casual sense of the word, but it is the final purpose of all other friendships. And while it may seem that some holy people in the Church accept the deal I offer my students when they become hermits (minus all the comfort and pleasure of the senses), they enter more deeply into a true spiritual friendship than anyone can imagine. And through that union with God, they become true friends to all men, willing and striving in prayer for their good, though we know it not.

As with all things, what seems like an ordinary, obvious, everyday good is sublimated to the highest levels of possibility in the context of the Christian religion. Friendship is enhanced and given nothing less than divine significance when seen with the eyes of faith.