Creation of Woman

We have talked about how Original Solitude prepares us for that ultimate communion relationship, both with the other sex, and most importantly with God. This solitude prepares us, as we get to know who we are through our experiences with the rest of the world.

However, as Christopher West puts it so perfectly, "Man is not fully human - his creation is not complete - until he emerges in his 'double unity' as male and female."

Man, as a whole, is not complete unless he has someone to share the experience of being human. This goes back to the idea of the "two in one flessh" principle. Humanity, man, is incomplete unless he has someone to share in that union of humanity with.

Here enters woman.

Man seeks to experience that total oneness of being human, but knows it is not possible without someone to share that with. Man needs a helper in order to be fully himself. Adam needs someone to share in his work, so that with the total completeness expressed by the utter distintiveness and equality of both sexes, man in his completeness is able to fully do the work that needs to be done.

In order to understand this creation of woman, let us first and foremost take a brief look at the idea of Adam's "deep sleep". This speaks, again, to that deep and personal experience that Adam has, and this experience expresses and divine and objective truth.

It is not a state of dreams, of sub-consciousness, but is rather a passing from conscious to un-consciousness. This sleep a "return to non-being" according to JP II. What does that mean? He is stating that Adam is not taking part in the activity of the creation of the woman. As we have stated, in order to be, one must have activity that is conscious, for it is that activity that brings about our personhood in a very real way. Man falls into sleep in order to awaken to find man in his completeness through the union of male and female in a unitive and loving communion. Man is fully realized when Adam awakes from his deep sleep to see Eve standing in front of him, Adam and Eve see in each other, through their experience of each other in their bodies the completeness of man.

The rib is a bone, and it is the bone that represents a person's very intimate and personal self. It is the stuff that they're made of. It can be likened to how people view the heart nowadays, it is the center of what makes us human. By creating Eve out of Adam's rib, the Bible is showing us the sharing of humanity that men and woman have. The rib thus indicates that they are equal in the eyes of God, and that they share that dignity which each and every human person shares.

Masculinity and femininity, thus, express in two different yet equal ways that solitude before God. In a more real way, that solitude of man is still very real after the creation of woman, in that man as a whole is still the only creature who is self-willed. It is the masculinity and femininity that complete what it means to be human, and what it means to be male and female. They complete each other in that loving communion that they share. They are very different, and yet, this difference is completely complementary. God creates Eve as a helper for Adam. Adam does not need another man to be his helper, but a woman, Eve, so that through such difference which is apparent to the other through the body, this perfect harmony is created in which these differences are completely complimentary. It is sin that will create tension between the differences.

The bone, too, expresses for the Jews the human being. So when Adam exclaims "Bone of my bone", he really means "being of my being", someone who he sees as another person, and he recognizes it immediately. Notice, too, that Adam does not name woman, but it is a title given to her from God. This declares her total unique dignity as a human person.

Now that woman is created, the idea of Original Solitude reaches that new meaning as I discussed earlier in this post. Original Solitude is completed through Original Unity. Man is completed through the communion of male and female in a very unique and profound way, and it is through this communion that man fully realizes his utter uniqueness in the world as a being who has a self, who has the will to choose or deny love, and has the will to fulfill the meaning of his very person through the total love between him and another. Man is fulfilled in communion, and his uniqueness is at its peak, because it is only through this willing and loving communion that man can come to realize for himself his true uniqueness in the most intimate way through the one flesh union.

-Harrison