Last year much of my reading was related to the paper I was writing on neuroscience and theology. But that hadn't really been the topic at the front of my mind (until it was!). My MTh dissertation was about the Biblical basis of human friendships. The general topic of friendship is again being revisited from multiple perspectives partly because its retrieval is seen as vital in a culture now so marked by chronic loneliness and its deleterious consequences. The starting point for many are the ancient accounts of friendship to be found in Plato, but particularly Aristotle. Now Aristotle was a bright chap who said many interesting and helpful things, and who still exercises a profound influence over Western thought (and for all I know much more widely too). His thinking on friendship was mediated to the Roman/Latin world by Cicero, who in turn was a major influence on Augustine, who is one of the towering figures in Western theology. Long story short, if friendship is important for us, then we should find a basis for it not so much in Aristotle but revealed in Scripture. Now, this might not seem like a bold claim. But there have been those who have suggested that there isn’t much in Scripture about friendship, and indeed that it might actually be in conflict with Christian teaching. So because friendship always has voluntary and exclusive aspects it conflicts with the commandment to love even my enemies (etc, etc). I won't reproduce my dissertation here (because you can actually find it here), but I aim is to edit it down and tart it up and submit it in article form somewhere or other. Hence the need to update and extend my reading on the topic and the books on the pile relating to friendship.
In addition to theological accounts (Summers and Bequette), I thought I’d dip into some of Robin Dunbar’s work. Our paths crossed briefly in the University of Liverpool, prior to his move to Oxford. His is a scientific, evolutionary account of human relationships. He is perhaps best known for coining “Dunbar’s number” – the expected average number of stable relationships a human being can maintain (with various caveats). My reason for wanting to read such an account is simple. If relationships (including friendship) are fundamental to our humanity, then a completely naturalistic account of them should be possible. Their qualities, the effects of their absence, what makes for their flourishing, what causes their breakdown and so on, all of these are observable, and I’m assuming have been observed. Among other things it will be interesting to see if Dunbar’s stance is that once a naturalistic account has been given, there is nothing more to say. But as ever the science (as opposed to the smuggled metaphysics) will be fascinating. Whether any of this will be relevant to what I eventually write, we will see.
Given my background, I need to continue my education in the humanities and there are lots of classics that I have never touched. I have read a bit of ethics in my time, although usually secondary accounts for apologetic purposes. So I decided to continue my education with Macintyre's “After Virtue”. It so happened that N.T. Wright, in discussing the importance of ethics in Paul’s theology (although Paul would not have thought about it in our siloed terms) quoted his own “Virtue Reborn”. I decided these would make a nice pair to read back-to-back. Whether they in any way complement each other again, we will see.
So far, so good. But I might need some light relief. I decided to turn to a comedian for it. Marcus Brigstocke is both funny and clever (the two often seem to go together). I admit I came across “God Collar” in a charity shop, but it wasn’t just the bargain price the attracted me to this particular read. I spend relatively little time among atheists, certainly less than I spend with their writings. But I could perhaps be accused of holding the views I hold because I know little of the alternatives and rarely expose what I hold dear to scrutiny, even ridicule. As it turns out, this would be unjust. I often find the opposite to be the case. Many who think they have rejected God have never actually seriously encountered Him or sought to. In part this is because people like me are rarely who or what we should be, given what we claim to believe; we are terrifically bad adverts for those beliefs. But fundamentally we are not (or should not be) recommending ourselves as paragons or examples. I see nothing that indicates that any group of other human beings or the institutions they have built are worthy of worship (although some may have other important reasons for their existence and uses). It is God Himself who is worth listening to. And fortunately for us, God thinks so too. It turns out that the speaking God speaks! The problem is that He is often not heard, or even when heard, heeded. Anyway, we’ll see if Marcus is alive to such distinctions.
But finally to more trusted friends and allies. I have encountered some of the earliest Christian writers (after the Apostles themselves) in the writings of others. But (just as with God Himself) I can hear from the “men” themselves (or at least a few of them). So I picked up the Penguin Classics edition of “Early Christian Writings” (including writings of Clement, Ignatius and Polycarp). I have encountered Polycarp before thanks to reading Irenaeus’ “Against Heresies” (worth it for the riff on vegetables as names for the various Gnostic entities; 1:11:4). Context is everything though. So I decided I’d better read a bit about the context of the second century, hence Grant on the second century “apologists”.
This should be enough to get me going.
