Eve rescued Adam.

Without others we are not whole.

Eve rescued Adam.

Made in the image of the Trinity, we are not made to be alone. Self-sufficiency is abhorrent to the human condition. The Bible declares this truth in the beginning: the Garden of Eden meets all of Adam’s material needs, grants him safety and security, and provides him with meaningful work. He even has God to talk to. Nevertheless our Creator, Abba, discerns that Adam needs a partner. Adam needs to do more than just work and live; he needs to work with and live with.

For Adam, and all humankind, self-sufficiency is insufficient. There is more. The soul (like God) seeks relationship not through a sense of lack, but from a feeling of potential, the intuition that openness to another offers increase. We are pulled by promise, not pushed by need.

The original Hebrew reveals the intensity of this desire. Recognizing Adam’s heartache, Abba creates for Adam an ezer: Eve. The term ezer has often been translated as “helper,” but ezer implies much more. The Hebrew Bible applies ezer three times to nations that Israel, under threat, sought military aid from (Isaiah 30:5; Ezekiel 12:14; Daniel 11:34). And it applies the term sixteen times to Abba/YHWH as Israel’s defender, protector, or guardian (Exodus 18:4; Deuteronomy 33:7, 26, 29; Psalm 20:2; 33:20; 70:5; 115:9–11; 121:1–2; 124:8; 146:5; Hosea 13:9; etc.). Given the semantic ranger of the word, ezer can be translated various ways: the NIV translates ezer as “strength” in Psalm 89:19, for example, but it can also connote support, partnership, and alliance.

In any event, Eve is no mere assistant. Just as God is Israel’s deliverance (ezer) from danger, Eve is Adam’s deliverance (ezer) from emotional desolation.

Two caveats are necessary here. First, Eve’s status as Adam’s deliverer does not mean that all women are spiritually superior to all men. Abba could have made Eve first, and she could have needed Adam, in which case Adam would have been Eve’s deliverer. The order of creation is accidental, not essential. Hence, Adam and Eve’s status is interdependent and equal. They rescue each other—had Adam not already been there, Eve would have been equally desolate.

Second, Adam’s desire for Eve does not establish a heterosexual norm for all humankind for all eternity. Their love for each other symbolizes all human love, not merely erotic human love. Like all of us, they need an ally, companion, friend, coworker, conversation partner, counselor, and lover. These relationships, including erotic ones, occur across an array of genders. The depth of our love determines the quality of our relationships, regardless of gender.

We are made for community.

Genesis insists that we are not made for isolation; we are made for each other. Contemporary science endorses this religious insight. Medicine is asserting that loneliness can be lethal. Psychiatry declares any mental condition that separates us emotionally from others to be an illness.

The prime example of such illness is narcissism. For narcissists, self-love is exclusive love. Narcissism plucks the narcissist from the interpersonal web of life and confines them within themselves, depriving them of the reciprocating affection that is our lifeblood. Equally painful, the self-love of the narcissist is unrequited. They love themselves, but they hate themselves back for it. Their self-relationship is abusive; their internal diversity is a cacophony.

Tragically, the part of the narcissist that must die so that the narcissist might live is the part that makes the decision. Love threatens the narcissistic self because love invites the relational self into being. In an act of masochistic self-preservation, the narcissist must reject love and any hope of prospering with others. Narcissism is no mere personality disorder; it is a tear in the fabric of being.

Ubuntu: I am because you are.

God does not make humans to be. God makes humans to be with. Human being is being with others. The capacity for solitude is healthy, and the need for retreat is real, but enduring isolation sickens the soul. Any interpretation of human being must acknowledge our interpersonal nature, with our constitution by self, other, and God.

This melded life begins on the day we are born. We realize instinctively that our survival rests outside of us, that our destiny depends on our caregivers. Theologian John Mbiti articulates this truth through his interpretation of ubuntu, an African concept of humanity: “Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. The individual can only say: I am, because we are; and since we are, therefore I am.”

According to Mbiti, the individual is inseparable from society, just as society is inseparable from the individual. So, there is no conflict between the two—only a just society achieves flourishing individuals, precisely because it recognizes their freedom, nurtures their potential, and encourages their cooperation. Unjust societies that deny equal opportunity are inherently against the individuals that compose them. Too frequently, those who extol “individualism” are only masking their privilege behind the rhetoric of virtue, through which they separate themselves from others. In the words of Barack Obama, “We can only achieve ourselves by sharing ourselves.”

To balance the individual and society always requires moral judgement. Our celebration of community must not subject the virtuous individual to any vicious crowd. What we are proposing here is a nondual understanding of humanity based on divine agape: God’s unconditional, universal love for creation. Because we are fully individual and fully social, influence flows both ways. Nevertheless, as fully individual, we cannot participate in any identity fusion in which our personhood is lost to the mob: “Thou shalt not follow a crowd to do evil,” warns the Bible (Exodus 23:2 WEB). At times, the individual must resist society for the sake of society, as did Harriet Tubman, Sophie Scholl, Bayard Rustin, and the “Tank Man” of Tiananmen Square, all of whom loved dangerously. (adapted from Jon Paul Sydnor, The Great Open Dance: A Progressive Christian Theology, pages 106-108)

For further reading, please see:

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders [DSM-5]. Washington, DC: APA, 2013.

Campbell, W. Keith, and Joshua Miller. “Narcissism.” In International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, edited by William A. Darity Jr., 5:369–70. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2008. Gale eBook.

Freeman, R. David. “Woman, a Power Equal to Man: Translation of Woman as a ‘Fit Helpmate’ for Man Is Questioned.” BAR 9 (1983) 18–32.

Rico-Uribe, Laura Alejandra, et al. “Association of Loneliness with All-Cause Mortality: A Meta-Analysis.” PLoS ONE 13 (2018) e0190033. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone. 0190033/.