The
Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils
the breath of life, and so man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)
So the Lord God cast a
deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, he took out one of his ribs and
closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built
the rib that he had taken from the man into a woman. (Genesis 2:21-24)
In creating a “suitable partner” for the
man, God did not repeat the process he used to create the man. He did not form
another out the clay of the earth and breathe life into her nostrils as he did
for the man. This would have also set the woman apart from the animals, bearing
the breath of divine life which they lack--but the man and the woman could not
truly be the image of God if she had been created separately. For that she had
to be taken from the man.
Why?
Because of what we profess about the
Holy Trinity--of which conjugal love is created to be an icon--in the Nicene
Creed.
We profess that the Son is “God from
God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not
made, consubstantial with the Father.” We profess that the Holy
Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.”
Had the woman been created in the same
manner as the man she would be, like him, a body infused with a soul, but their
bodies could not be an image of God unless they were of the same substance--woman
from man, as it were, consubstantial, proceeding from him.
Only then could the union of their
bodies, and the life that flows from that union, truly image the intimate
communion of persons that is the Holy Trinity.
And such union--husband and wife, in a
covenantal bond, giving themselves to each other freely, totally, faithfully
and fruitfully--is the only one that images God. None other can.
