The meaning of man's aloneness.

“It is not good for the man to be alone.”

Most people know God said this about Adam, but they’re usually wrong about what it means. They think God meant something like, “Guys get lonely if they don’t have a girl around.” And as true as this may be, it’s far too small a lesson for such a grand scene. The problem isn’t Adam’s neediness. The problem is that Adam is supposed to image God, and he’s only partway there.

Despite first plants and then animals, Adam has no suitable companion because he’s categorically different from the natural world. So far, this aloneness is actually good imaging because it show God’s distinctness from creation even while Adam’s presence within Eden as gardener represents God’s involvement in that creation. Thus Adam by himself does a fine job imaging both God’s transcendence from and immanence in the natural world.

But he still has an “aloneness problem,” that requires Eve to be resolved. And when we interpret this as meaning something like, “Men get bored, so God gave them women,” we miss the far more profound lesson. It is only after Adam is placed into a gendered, marital family where his social and reproductive nature can properly show God’s loving communal identity, that they can finally be called “very good.”