Although it might seem irreverent to say so, when it comes to meeting human needs, God alone is not enough.  We have his word on it.  Indeed, it's one of the first things He told us in the Bible.
            In the Genesis account of creation, we read that after the various days, or stages, of creation, that God often deemed that day's work "good."  In fact, when His creative efforts were complete, He judged the entire world "very good" (1: 31).   The finest and highest part of his "very good" creation was the man Adam, with whom God shared intimate, face-to-face fellowship.  As God's partner and picture, the unfallen man occupied a position of privilege and esteem.  To him, for example, God brought all the animals to see what Adam might name them.  Whatever name he gave them, that was the name they had.
            It's not that God could not have named the animals appropriately Himself.  Of course He could.  But He apparently had a lesson in mind for his newly created human image.  Having seen and named all the animals appropriately according to their nature and characteristics, Adam soon realized that for him none was a suitable companion.  While he might relate to them all pleasingly and well, with him none was capable of intimacy.   He realized that at the deepest and most important level he was alone.  He realized that he was unmatched and unmated -- somehow incomplete -- as his later exclamation at the presentation of Eve apparently indicates.  While all the other creatures had suitable companions of their own sort, or their own kind, companions made of the same stuff as were they themselves, he did not. 
            Regarding Adam's solitary condition, God then uttered what, to me at least, is one of the most surprising statements in Scripture, surprising not for what it says, but for what it implies:  "It is not good for Adam to be alone" (2: 18).
            Whenever I read that statement, I want to shout, "But he's not alone!  He's with You!"
            I want to shout because Adam had what no other man or woman except one ever had, namely intimate, continual, heart-deep fellowship with God Himself in the midst of Paradise, a fellowship with God that was unhindered by sin, by sickness, or by any other of the characteristic burdens of life in a fallen world.  Surely intimacy with the Eternal Spirit who made, sustains, and loves the universe is an inestimable privilege that banishes all defects and fills every deprivation. 
            But it does not.
            With all that -- blessings the rest of us can only hope to enjoy some day, if ever, -- with all that, God calls Adam "alone," giving divine voice to what apparently was Adam's realization at that moment, in light of the lesson of the animals.
Whatever rich and good things God was for Adam up to that point, in God's own word and in God's own infallible judgment, it was radically insufficient, so much so that God Himself declared Adam not just unhappy, but "alone." 
            In response to Adam's aloneness, God did not tell him to do what we normally advise ourselves and others to do when feeling alone:  God did not encourage Adam to get even closer to Him by prayer or by service.  Indeed, God did not turn Adam's attention to Himself at all.  Rather, God determined to meet Adam's need another way:  "I will make a suitable helper for him" (2: 18), He declared.  God went outside Himself for the solution to Adam's social and emotional poverty.
            Naturally, God was not wrong to do so.  God knows his business.  He knows who He is.  He knows who Adam is.  He knows what's best for Adam.  He knows perfectly well what will and will not remedy Adam's ills.  So, God made a woman.  He made Eve.  If something else were better for meeting Adam's needs, God surely would have provided it.  But not even God Himself was a better solution to Adam's needs than was Eve.
            Apparently Eve could be, and Eve could do, for Adam things that even God Himself could not.  To say so is not sacrilegious in the least; it is simply to follow God's own lead on the point.  When Adam is alone, God made for him a suitable helper, a woman who was to be Adam's defense against loneliness, a woman who was to be his support, inspiration, enlightenment, amusement, and companion.  In short, she was to be his second self, his other half.  Presumably what she was for him, he was for her in return -- which is the definition of a marriage.  If he were not, then Eve would be in the same lonely predicament as was Adam before her arrival.  God is not so foolish as to try to solve Adam's problem by re-creating it in Eve.  Their life together was to be a life of mutuality.
            When Eve finally did arrive, Adam could only exclaim, "At last!" which is a better English rendition of his words than the more staid KJV-ish "This is now bone of my bones" (2: 23).
            But if you think this brief essay is about marriage, it is not.  This essay is about theology and piety rooted in honorable, but mistaken and misguided, motives.
            Here's my point:  Sometimes Christians attach themselves to beliefs and practices because they sound pious and reverent, such as the statement "God is all we need."   For some Christians, the more pious a notion sounds, the more likely they are to advocate it, an inclination that has the effect of drawing them step-by-step to increasingly extreme beliefs and actions.  But of course the issue isn't what sounds good or what is most extreme.  The issue is what is true.  Even if it sounds more reverent to say that God alone is sufficient for all our needs rather than to say He is not, it simply isn't true, and the bottom line on all beliefs and in all principles of action is "Is it true?"
            I sometimes think that my Calvinist brothers and sisters find themselves immersed in an undeclared war over whose doctrine of sovereignty is the most all-inclusive.  To them, the more, the better.  Indeed, I once was warned by a Calvinist professor friend of mine that when he and I met later for lunch with another prominent Calvinist thinker, the late and honored D. James Kennedy, (whom neither of us had yet met) that almost certainly such an unspoken competition in Calvinist one-upmanship would break out.
            It did.
            We soon discovered who could out-Calvin whom.  It was fun to watch, though not entirely edifying.
            That story is my way of illustrating that proper spirituality and true doctrine are not identified by which version can ascribe the most to God, or who can take the most extreme position on any point of doctrine or practice.  Proper spirituality and true doctrine are identified by which can give the truest and most accurate ascription of things to God.  The competitive pressures that sometimes attach to piety and theology can lure us into extremist words, actions, and beliefs that are unwise and untrue.  Never forget that we are set free by the truth, not by the impression value of our beliefs and practices, or by their increasingly extremist drift.
            In other words, no matter how pious it sounds, God Himself is not enough.   But what God Himself provides us in addition to Himself most certainly is.  He has made us to need and to desire things in addition to Himself, not Himself only.  Seek God first, but not solely.

date modified:
5 July 2006