Philosophy and Theology

Volume 18, Issue 2, 2006

Mathematics and Supernatural Friendship

Simone Weil wrote in her notebooks that “Friendship, like beauty, is a miracle.” This paper investigates her discussions of friendship in the larger context of her understanding of the mediation of opposites, modeled on the Pythagorean and Platonic models of mathematics. For Weil, friendship was not only miraculous, but also a key to understanding the relationship of the divine to the human. Convinced that friendship and love create equality between parties where none exists naturally, Weil concluded that friendship “is full of marvelous meanings with regard to God, with regard to the communion of God and man, and with regard to men.”