Santo AUGUSTINUS: APAKAH AKU MEMPUNYAI SAHABAT?

Refleksi Filosofis dan Teologis tentang Persahabatan

Abstract

Friendship is nothing more than agreeing in human and divine affairs with benevolence and love. In friendship, persons are attuned to one another to a certain extent. That is not to say that one must agree in all particulars with another person, for that would mean that one surrenders one?s own personality, which would be the end of all love for another. Love in its most general sense, is the desire, the motivating force or energy that enables the seeker to pursue and eventually embrace an object of enjoyment. When someone seeks as an object of enjoyment the love of God and neighbor in accordance with divine commands, that person is said to posses a good will because of the character of his love, which is directed to higher rather than to lower good. Friendship consists of love that is reciprocal, it consists of giving and receiving love. Friendship exists only where love is reciprocal. Friendship must be founded on truth. Two human beings cannot be brought together as friends without some agreement about the goods they want, the goals that they have in common, and also some understanding of that person who is the "other”. According to Augustine, the true friend “is another self”. Only a true friend could make him lose „half my soul; and only yet more friendship would heal the wound.