I'm going to give this to you unvarnished, straightforward, full on.

I'm very excited with my topic.

It's one of my favorite things to teach.

Of all the things that I teach, honestly, I think it's what changes people's lives more than anything else.

I'm basically going to be using Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.

I'm going to begin by telling you something from Aristotle.

What we're going to be looking at is a couple points, a major theme in moral philosophy.

Aristotle at one point says, why study moral philosophy? And it's in moral philosophy. Aristotle at one point says why study moral philosophy? And his answer

is interesting. You don't study moral philosophy simply or fundamentally for the sake of learning

something. He says the end of studying moral philosophy or ethics is not knowledge. The end of

studying moral philosophy or ethics is not knowledge. The end of studying more philosophy or ethics is action.

He, in fact, rather pointedly says at the beginning of the Nicomachean ethics,

there is really no reason to study ethics unless you are studying it so as to change your life.

Why else would one study ethics? It's not just an exercise.

And, well, here's how some people have thought that perhaps we should live in Aristotle's mind,

in any case, it's a matter of certain truths of how we should live if we are going to be well by nature we should be

so in any case i tell you right up front that i'm going to be presenting you the thoughts of aristotle and st thomas

so i'm also going to be very direct i think they have much that we would do well to listen to, and that's

precisely why I'm happy to share it with you. So the topic that we have before us is a fascinating

one, and I've framed it as the role of human friendship in Christianity or in the spiritual life.

So basically taking for granted that one as a Christian,

how important is it or not to have friendship in one's life?

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