Theological Tidbits

God said to Adam and Eve: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). He asked our first parents to form a family and to work. He asked our first parents to form two loving communions of persons—one familial communion and one worker communion—in imitation of the love in the trinitarian communion of Persons.

The invitation to form the two human communions is, in a certain sense, logically included in the creation of human persons in God’s image. Since we are like God, we should act like God—i.e., we should love. When we love, we form loving unions with other persons. When God invited us to enter these two communions, He not only confirmed His creative act, but He gave each of us an opportunity to become more and more like Him. Every act a person does is “contained” in his consciousness. Every conscious act shapes us. Consequently, through our conscious acts, we can shape ourselves into more and more perfect images of God or into more and more imperfect images of God. Since we are images of God, we should always try to become more and more like Him through repeated God-like acts. Conversely, repeated ungodly acts shape us more and more into distorted images of God. The invitation to form the two communions of love—i.e., to imitate God by loving in the family and in the workplace, is an invitation to shape ourselves more and more into images of God. In other words, by acting as God acts, we become more and more what we already are: images of God. It is this concept that allowed Pope St. John Paul II to ask families to “become what you are” (Familiaris Consortio, 17).

Of course, the familial communion is more fundamental. The familial communion mirrors the divine communion more profoundly than the communion of workers. The familial communion imitates the trinitarian communion more closely in the limitless self-gift. In the family, as in the Trinity, each member gives all that he or she is, while each person in the worker communion gives all that he or she has.

Adam knew that Eve was to be loved. Adam knew that a “person is a good towards which the only proper and adequate attitude is love…. This norm, in its negative aspect, states that the person is a kind of good which does not admit of use and cannot be treated as an object of use and as such the means to an end” (John Paul II). Human beings have a value far superior to the rest of God’s earthly creation. The extraordinary worth and value of persons gives each of them a right to be treasured for their own sakes. To put it another way, persons call forth love from other persons. The very existence of persons is an invitation for others to love them. One might even say that the existence of persons demands love from other persons. All this was known by Adam and then by Eve.

Adam and Eve knew from their own experience that they were to love one another. God invited them to put this knowledge into practice when He said to both of them: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Gen 1:28). In this invitation, God asked our first parents to form a family and to work. Human beings demand love from one another. In inviting Adam and Eve to form a family and to work, God was inviting them to act together and to love each other. When people love each other, they form a communion of persons. Therefore, God asked our first parents to form two loving communions of persons—one familial communion and one worker communion—in imitation of the love in the trinitarian communion of Persons.

Human love must be founded on a knowledge of the truth about the value and dignity of the one to be loved. Based on our own self-knowledge, each human being knows that he is different from the animals. Adam discovered this wonderful mystery in naming the animals. Each of us discovers it in growing up. Even a three-year-old knows that he is different from the animals. In other words, we know that we are unique—i.e., we know that we are enfleshed spirits with bodies created to be physical images of God.

Knowing our own dignity and value is the foundation of our knowledge of others’ dignity and value. We experience ourselves intimately—but we cannot know others nearly as well as we know ourselves. Still, we see that other human beings are like us in many respects. The obvious and only conclusion is that they too are persons. They too have a value, worth, and dignity because they are created in God’s image and likeness. Adam came to this conclusion when he first saw Eve. Knowing his own value, Adam met Eve and realized that she was like him. In other words, he realized that she, too, was made in the image and likeness of God. At the sight of Eve, he cried out, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen 2:23). In Eve, Adam recognized an image of himself. Adam perceived in Eve the dignity and value he had discovered in himself.

With the recognition of Eve’s dignity, Adam had the knowledge necessary to love Eve in a God-like way: to give himself to her through a will-act that was total—i.e., permanent and limitless. He knew that Eve was to be loved.

God’s love is most perfectly present within the mystery of the three Persons in one God. Each divine Person knows the other two and, on the basis of that knowledge, chooses to give Himself to the other two. This choice is total—i.e., it is permanent and limitless. It is permanent because the Trinity was, is, and always will be. The love of each Person in the Trinity is limitless because each Person gives Himself completely—i.e., each Person gives His very Being, His very life, to the other two. Divine love is therefore identified with life. In God, there are not two realities called love and life, but rather only one: love which is the same as life. It could also be put the other way: in God there is only one reality, life, which is the same as love. The love of God the Father is an example of the permanent and limitless character of divine love. God the Father’s love of the Son and the Holy Spirit is an act of His will founded on a perfect knowledge of the truth about the value and dignity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. God the Father never ceases to love the Son and the Holy Spirit. He would never decide to stop loving the Son and the Holy Spirit. Nor would He ever decide to “leave” the Trinity. Further, the Father’s love of the Son and the Holy Spirit is a total gift, a gift of His very Being. If human persons want to be true to their very selves as beings made in the image and likeness of God, they will love as God loves.

In a sense, Adam could not love without receiving the gift of love from another bodied person—i.e., Eve. In addition, Adam could not love without Eve because his love would not have been life-giving.

Made in the image and likeness of God, human persons are called to do what God does. God loves. Clearly, human persons should love as God loves if they are to be true to the kind of beings they are.

There are many who are uncomfortable with the unity and duality of man. Rather than acknowledging the mystery, they try to eliminate it. One very common means of trying to remove the unity-duality mystery is to make the body a thing—almost a machine that a human person inhabits. In this view, the human person is pure spirit—and the body is not part of human life. Given this false opinion, the human body is merely a machine that is necessary here on earth. It is important to note that while this mechanized view separates the body from the person, it does not make the body something evil.

How often do people refer to the human heart as a ticker? Food is many times called fuel as if the body were an engine. Treating the body as a machine has become integrated into our culture. However, our bodies are not machines. If they were, when two people shook hands, hugged or expressed their love for one another, it would not be two persons touching—but rather their two machines. Moreover, if our bodies were machines, then a surgeon operating would be nothing more than a technician working on a defective machine much like a serviceman repairing a malfunctioning computer. Clearly, our bodies are our flesh and blood. They are the means by which our persons are expressed. When we are in pain, most of us do not cry out, “I have damaged my machinery.” Rather, we cry out, “My leg!” or “My arm!” When our bodies are hurt, we are hurt. Thus, the human body is not a machine. Rather, it is created to be the expression of a person.

We received our bodies as part of the gift of life. None of us bought them. They were given to us by God through the cooperation of our parents. Further, when a small part of the body is harmed—e.g., the heart, we—our persons—suffer and can die. Our bodies are part and parcel of human life. They are created to be the expressions of our persons. In other words, there is a fundamental unity in each of us. We are body and soul—but the two are united as one. The unity does not exclude the duality—and the duality does not destroy the unity. In this unity-duality, we confront one of the essential mysteries about man. It should not surprise us that man is a mystery. After all, we are images of the supreme mystery, God Himself.