It’s Not Good to Be Alone
By John Jelinek
Hidden in a simple phrase of Genesis, God gives us a glimpse into truths about our nature and ultimately His plan for our eternal happiness. I invite you to journey with me as we explore this hidden gem.
In the beginning, God creates everything and rightly declares it good. In fact, there is only one thing in the creation story that God declares not good. One might assume such a declaration would be reserved for the fruit of the tree or the serpent. However, it is a lack of something, not a thing, that is declared not good.
In Genesis 2:18, “The Lord God said: It is not good for the man to be alone…” By drawing our attention to this deficit, God is teaching us something important about ourselves. Why is being alone a problem?The answer is in God’s blueprint for mankind. Genesis 1:26 reads, “God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness.”
To be created in the image and likeness of God is truly wonderous. However, knowing ourselves at the deepest level requires intimate knowledge of God. For this, God must reveal Himself.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says, “By sending His only Son and the Spirit of Love… God has revealed His innermost secret: God Himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and He has destined us to share in that exchange” (CCC 221).
The inner life of God is a dynamic and eternal community of self-giving and life-giving love between the persons of the Trinity. If man is created in the image and likeness of God, it is fitting that man also exists in a community of love. Hence, it is not good to be alone.
To remedy man’s lack of communion, God creates the perfect partner, woman — another human who is both distinct and yet complementary to man physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
God created much more than just a mate; He created a family. In this family, Adam and Eve can completely give themselves in self-giving and life-giving love. Through this love, they find communion with one another and are invited to be co-creators with God.
The glory and purpose of family is not lost with the Fall. Salvation is played out through individual families within God’s chosen people and culminates in the Holy Family.
The Church recognizes the family as the domestic Church (Lumen Gentium 11). It is where its members first encounter God, grow in faith, and discern vocations.
Family is also where we grow in virtue and struggle against the effects of our fallen nature. Families are full of imperfection, stubbornness, pride, selfishness, jealousy, and deep wounds. For marriage and family to work, we must learn selflessness, forgiveness, humility, perseverance, and compassion.
In family, love becomes more than an ephemeral feeling; it becomes an everyday choice. When united with faith, this love orients the family towards salvation.
In the chaos of life, it takes a conscious effort to keep our family focused on God. It is easy to become distracted by family responsibilities or see them as limitations to personal freedom.
Family and marriage can also erroneously be viewed as a malleable functionary of society which can be rearranged or repurposed.Similarly, there is a growing notion that marriage is a vestige of the past — something we can evolve beyond or socially outgrow.
These ideas miss the significance of marriage because they fail to understand the true nature of the human person, created imago dei, in the image of a Trinitarian God.
Family is the foundation of society and the Church, not simply because it is where the next generation comes from, but because family is where we mirror the inner life of God in a unique and marvelous way. It is also where we find true freedom to love and be loved.
When God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” He said it so that we might know we were created out of love, in the image of love, and for love.
Next time: What Gen. 2:18 means for us as a Church and the people of God.
For more, read: Scott Hahn’s “First Comes Love,” St. John Paul II’s work on “Theology of the Body” and “Love & Responsibility.”