Alone In Paradise Series

Back in the days when women were fighting for the right to

vote there were a number of women speakers who could

expound eloquently on the virtues and values of women.

The story is told the one such speaker who brought her

message to a conclusion by saying, "Where would man be

today without the care and comfort of women? Where

would man be today without the hands and heart of women?

Where would man be today without the labor and love of

women? Just tell me where would man be today without

women?" Just then a little man shouted from the back of

the crowd, "Paradise!"

The battle of the sexes is one in which each side seeks to

reinforce its position by going back to paradise and showing

that everything would have been great if it hadn't been for

the other. Like the woman who said to her husband, "Our

marriage would have been perfect if it hadn't been for you."

He probably agreed with the philosophy, but not the

application. Women delight in pointing out that man was

incomplete without woman, and that even in paradise he

was not happy without her. There are no lack of poets to

back up her claim to be the poetry of earth as the stars are

the poetry of heaven. Hargrave wrote, "Clear, light-giving

harmonies, women are the terrestrial planets that rule the

destines of mankind." Moore adds, "Ye are the stars of the

night, ye are gems of the morn, ye are dewdrops, whose

luster illumines the thorn."

Men are quick to label this as sentimental nonsense,

and they insist that Adam was better off when he had

paradise to himself. They also have poetic support, for

Andrew Marvell has written,

Such was that happy Garden-state

While man there walked without a mate;

After a place so pure and sweet,

What other help could yet be meet?

But 'twas beyond a mortal's share

To wander solitary there:

Two paradises 'twere in one

To live in paradise alone.

Women retaliate with the words of Dryden,

Our sex, you know, was after yours designed,

The last perfection of the Maker's Mind:

Heaven drew out all the gold for us, and left

Your dross behind.

Man then counters with these words:

For woman due allowance make.

Formed of a crooked rib was she.

By Heaven she could not straighten be;

Attempt to bend her, and she'll break.

On and on the battle rages ad infinitum, ad nauseum,

or in other words, until it gets sickening. We are interested

in this battle only because it calls our attention to a basic

human need, and the only adequate solution to meet that

need. Man is made a social creature, and if he does not feel

a part of society, or if he does not have companionship, he

ceases to find value in life. One of the most unbearable

conditions of life is that of loneliness. We want to examine

God's relationship to this basic human problem and seek to

discover what it means for our own lives. In spite of all the

fighting, men and women need each other, and they know it.

Josh Billings said, "Adam without Eve would be as stupid as

a person playing checkers alone." In verse 18 we find two

aspects of God's relationship to the problem of loneliness.

I. GOD'S ATTITUDE.

God says it is not good for man to be alone. Man was to

be a social being, and so he can never be complete alone.

Loneliness is opposed to the very nature of God Himself.

God is not alone and never has been in all eternity. He is a

trinity of three Persons in one Godhead. He has had eternal

fellowship within His own being. One of the key values of

recognizing God to be three Persons in One is that it

explains His self-sufficiency. No other being is self-sufficient,

for they are dependent upon God and other forms of life.

God alone is self-sufficient, for He is Triune, and all the

requirements needed for love and fellowship are contained

within His very nature. God is complete in Himself, but man

is incomplete in himself.

God did not intend to make man in His image with the

nature of love and desire for companionship, and then not

meet that need. But for awhile Adam was alone, and it is

interesting that God would say that it was not good. This

means that with all of the beauty of nature, and with all of

the abundant provision of the garden, and with a job to keep

him active, and with many animals to keep him company,

there was still something missing. There was an

imperfection even in Paradise. That imperfection was not in

what was there, but it what was not there. Without human