The creation story culminates in the interaction between the Creator and the pinnacle of God’s creation, humankind. This is represented in the story by Adam, and by extension, Eve. (I use Their to describe the Creator, because the text in Genesis states that the Creator proclaimed, “Let Us make man in Our image, in Our likeness….” Genesis 1:26)

The Pinnacle has a need from the start – man is incomplete himself, so the glaring question that must be addressed about Adam is, how should that which is not good (that man is alone) in an otherwise good creation be satisfied?

The Genesis narrative describes attempts made to address man’s problem of alone-ness. A search was conducted for a help-mate to satisfy that need for companionship, and it was quickly determined that anything created up until that point, including animals was insufficient to meet that primordial need for companionship. If One by himself was a problem, perhaps Two would be sufficient to ameliorate aloneness…?

The Creator fashions an “other” from the man: perhaps it takes another of the same kind to satisfy alone-ness?  A clone identical to the first man apparently would not suffice (a man plus a man), so a counterpart was created – of the same kind, but intrinsically different, yet dependent upon each other for continued propagation. Would two pieces from the same puzzle be enough to satiate the need? (A man plus a woman?)

It takes a garden and some trees to find out the answer to that question.

Much has been written about the events that transpired in the Garden of Eden. Many would say that at this point, before any fruit in the garden were harmed, perfection prevailed. It was the theft and ingestion of some forbidden fruit that led to the the shattering of the ultimate ideal, they would say. Taken to its logical conclusion, such a viewpoint would espouse that mankind should seek to return to that perfect state in Eden – man and woman, happily ever after in the garden, content to abstain from the forbidden fruit. Perfection would be defined by the absence of disobedience (the absence of “sin”, in some circles). If this were true, mankind’s potential would be fulfilled by somehow attaining perfection, whether by self effort, or by transference from another source. Indeed, there are some who believe that the goal of “salvation” is to reach perfection – and that if one can’t reach perfection (the absence of infractions against a cosmic law) by one’s own effort, then one must depend on another, even Jesus, to provide that perfection. But this line of thinking fixes the goal of humanity’s existence to be attaining “perfection”, the absence of “sin”.

Did the Creator expect Adam and Eve to forever obey the prohibition and avoid the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Was the Creator surprised that the prohibition was ignored and that God’s perfect plan was forever ruined by the theft and eating of some fruit? Was God’s plan A interrupted by an unforeseen circumstance (theft of fruit), and that God had to resort to a plan B to carry out his intentions? Did the Creator intend for Adam and Eve to never taste the knowledge of good and evil in the first place?

If so, why did the Creator invent that particular tree? Couldn’t the garden of Eden have been created without a Tree of the knowledge of good and evil to begin with? That would have guaranteed that Adam and Eve could have remained “perfect” and unblemished by disobedience. They could have lived through eternity oblivious to evil (and also to good) – but would have been safely tucked away in their cocoon of Eden. If it was God’s intention for them to be perfect, it would have been trivial to ensure that by not even creating a forbidden fruit.

The fact that God would go to the trouble to create a tree, even a forbidden one, indicates that there is more to the tree’s purpose than being a target of abstinence.

The Judeo-Christian holy scriptures (Torah/Tanakh for the Jewish, and the book of Genesis in the Bible for the Christian) are derived from the same texts and recount a narrative of creation with the famous phrase, “In the beginning…”  In those brief three words, we are introduced to the concept of time which has a very peculiar quality in that it is the one dimension in which one can travel in one direction only. (Our universe also has length, width, and depth, along which we can freely move forward and backwards – in space) Once there is a start, everything else within this universe can only travel in one direction – forward. This strange limitation is a pre-requisite for a history to be recorded and a story to be told. Once something comes to pass and is recorded, the story can’t change (which would not be true if one could travel backwards in time and thus alter the story).

This also hints that the Creator who made this universe, has chosen to enter into the constraints of His/Her creation, thereby choosing to limit themselves while operating within that realm. While creating time out of nothing, or perhaps out of a reality bigger than time, the Creator has fashioned a stage with which to record a story about the Creator and Their interaction with that creation. This is the first time we begin to comprehend that the Creator has chosen to limit themselves, and it is not the last.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth….”  “…and it was good.”

In fact, in the Judeo-Christian story of creation, everything created was deemed “good” at the point of its creation. Light and dark,  land from the waters, heavenly bodies, plants, animals, humans – all were good. In the six days of creation, there were six statements of “and it was good.” But then, a jarring statement interrupts all this goodness and sticks out like a sore thumb.

“It was not good for man to be alone.”

This was the ONLY time in the seven days of creation that anything was deemed not good. This revelation is significant because it lays the groundwork for understanding the ultimate need that the Creator has built into His creation (and into mankind, in particular) It is this very primordial need that the rest of the story of the Tanakh and the Holy Bible try to address, and it becomes the axis around which everything else turns as we learn more about the Creator and humanity.

If this is true, mankind’s greatest need is not to avoid or minimize suffering, it is to address Aloneness. Everything else is subordinate to dealing with that which was not good since the beginning of creation.
Photo: Alone on a Salt Flat (Bicycle on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah)

This blog’s “theology of suffering” finds it’s source in the juxtaposition of two key revelations from the Holy Scriptures known as the Tanakh (which includes the Torah, used by the Jews) and the Bible (used by Christians). Both scriptures recount in the book of Genesis (which they share) the story of creation in which everything created was proclaimed “good” except for one factor that was lacking: it was not good for mankind to be alone. Aloneness, therefore, was a primary need built into mankind at the very beginning of creation. The next key revelation comes one book later, in the book of Exodus, when God is asked for the very first time to show himself (and herself – God likely encompasses both genders, but for the sake of readability, we will use the masculine gender) for who God is. The way God answers this questions will become his calling card that is used throughout the rest of the Torah and the Old Testament of the Bible. “I am Compassionate and Gracious.…” is God’s answer to the question of who he is.  The first word that God chooses to describe himself is Compassion, which means to Suffer With. This is a most unexpected descriptor for a being as powerful as one who could conjure up an entire universe. It is not a coincidence that God’s description of his essence (compassion and graciousness…) has a direct bearing on the primary need that was built into the mankind, the pinnacle of his creation. Suffering just happens to be the most ruthless and efficient tool that exposes a person’s aloneness.

If mankind’s in-built need is to address his aloneness, and suffering is the one circumstance that will strip away everything else to expose man’s aloneness, then God’s  primary characteristic of being the Suffering-With God not only describes how God intends to meet mankind’s  aloneness by suffering with them, but also hints at the depths and cost that God is willing to pay to do so. It is not a coincidence that the only aspect of Love that God could not demonstrate within the perfection of heaven was compassion. This particular aspect or quality of love needed suffering to exist before it could be demonstrated. God needed to create a realm in which their creation suffered, so that he could join in that suffering to demonstrate the extent of his Love. In this sense, compassion is an extreme demonstration of love.

The same could be construed with regards to Creativity. It is one thing to create something beautiful out of nothing. It is another thing entirely to create something beautiful out of something ugly, broken, or disfigured. In fact, one might argue that it requires more creativity to fashion beauty out of brokenness than out of nothing. The natural world around us has ample demonstrations of the kind of beauty that God can create out of nothing. A trip to the Sierra Nevada Mountains or to the coastline along California’s Pacific Coast Highway (Highway 1)
can provide countless examples of that. But there is another quality of beauty embodied in human stories of redemption and compassion which rival and surpass the beauty of the natural world. Mother Theresa’s and Julie McGown’s work among the destitute and dying (the Living Room in Kipkaren, Kenya) are examples of such redemption, and are testaments to how God can create beauty out of brokenness. Just as compassion takes love to a whole new deeper level, redemption takes creativity to a new and deeper level as well.

What if God did not stop creating after the six days described in Genesis? What if his creative skill is being demonstrated through finding new ways to bring beauty out of pain, brokenness, and tragedy today?

If this were true, then the God of the Bible has revealed to us two existential needs: to demonstrate his Love (through compassion) and to demonstrate his Creativity (through redemption). This blog will explore in much more detail evidence throughout the rest of the Torah/Tanakh and the Bible which supports this assertion.