Love thy neighbor, but don’t trust him

              When most people reflect upon their lives, family and friends comprise a large portion of what is reflected upon. Human beings are surrounded by other humans from the moment of birth. As a children, we are taken care of by our families. In the schools years, we are surrounded by our peers and form relationships to foster our growth. As adults, we start families of our own and repeat the cycle. Humans are constantly interacting with each other and our experiences both influence and are influenced by other people in our lives. When thinking back on good memories, most people’s memories will be of experiences with friends or family. However, because we are constantly in contact with others, bad experiences and memories are often derived from interactions with friends and family as well.

                Most people weight the positive outcomes of friendships more than the negative outcomes.  Otherwise, people in society would shy away from friendships to protect themselves from the negative outcomes. In The City of God, St. Augustine argues that the danger of worldly friendships outweigh the possible benefits that can be gained. He states that because family and friends have such a close emotional relationship, they can be easily harmed and deceived by each other. Due to the closeness of these relationships, one can be harmed before he even realizes and devoid of a means to protect oneself as a result. St. Augustine thus warns to be cautious in these relationships (Augustine, 858-859). By taking this stance on the issue, he is assuming that humans are inherently bad and sinful. Because he is promoting the utopian nature of the heavenly city in contrast to the imperfect nature of the earthly world, conceding the value of human relationships on earth would lessen the improvement from the earthly world to the heavenly city.

                Since St. Augustine is basing his ideas for the ideal world on the bible for what awaits in the heavenly city, it would be intuitive that he would align his arguments with the principles of the bible. However, one of the most widely known messages of the bible is ignored in this argument above. In his argument, St. Augustine somewhat deviates from the message from Jesus to love thy neighbor. While he is not conveying the exact opposite message, his ideas still stray from the general message. He encourages people on earth to be suspicious and guarded on actions with family and friends. If one was to truly love one’s neighbors, he would not be worrying about the wrongdoing that could be experienced as a result. This fact diminishes the support for his claims about how to approach relationships with family and friends in the earthly world.

                Even regardless of the quality of support for St. Augustine’s argument, he proposes an earthly life that lacks pure enjoyment. If every person has to constantly doubt the intentions of other people, then relying on others and working together seem impossible. A life consumed by paranoia does not seem like a life that could also be full of happiness and enjoyment. Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, I believe that everyone can experience a happy and fulfilling life and it seems dystopian to take away a means to achieve that.