Philia love is spontaneous and easy. You don’t usually have to work at it. It occurs instinctively between people who have a natural bond between them.
C.S. Lewis makes the point that this is why people who are friends rarely talk about their friendship as such.
Lovers say much of their love for each other. Friends do not. They are friends, they like being friends and they continue to be friends. It is simply a spontaneous, easy thing that occurs between them.
This aspect of friendship is the natural part of marriage. Husband and wife are good mates, not only in the biological sense but in the sense of being friends, as well.
It is worth dwelling on the point of having special friends, for some people feel there is something wrong with this–that by doing this we are playing favourites. But the reality is that we cannot feel equal affection for everyone.
My wife would be very dismayed if I felt the same level of affection for every other woman I meet as I do for her!
There is a way I can love everyone equally, but this is not it!
Jesus said, ‘You are My friends… Love one another (John 15:9-17).
To read more on this topic see Living in the Image of God, Barry Chant (Miranda: Tabor, 2012 available in eBook and Paperback) from which this edited extract is taken.