Why create just one man and one woman?

[bluegreenearth]

According to the "inspired word of God" (Genesis 2), the human population began with a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. However, after Adam was magically brought to life by God using a golem spell, it is implied that he was initially intended to live and work by himself in the garden of Eden. Apparently, Eve was subsequently created from Adam's rib as an afterthought when God realized that just one human being was probably insufficient to manage all the necessary gardening. Meanwhile, entire populations of animals and plants had been brought into existence, even before Eve came along to give Adam a hand with his chores. So, what was God's reasoning for creating just two humans in a world where other populations of living things presumably consisted of many individuals?

The first and most obvious apologetic is that God intended for Adam and Eve to produce more humans through sexual reproduction as the preferred mechanism for populating the world. The problem, though, is the "divinely inspired" text gives no indication that all the other forms of life also initially began as just one or two individuals who subsequently reproduced through an intended "natural" mechanism. This would be expected from a God that is depicted as being perfectly consistent. If it was the case that God instantaneously created numerous individuals within the plant and animal populations, then why not use the same strategy for the human population?

Maybe an explanation could be found by presuming the ratio of resources to humans in the garden of Eden was such that the ecology could only support a handful of people at a time. Of course, that explanation doesn't pass the sniff test because the planet is large enough for God to have created a garden with sufficient resources to support a population of more than just two people. Why would God plant one or two humans in a small garden on a planet large enough to accommodate billions of people? I suppose God could have intended for the garden and the human population within it to grow naturally over time. However, the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection already provides a secular mechanism for how that outcome could be achieved without special creation or intelligent design. It doesn't seem plausible or logically justifiable to presume that an omnipotent God would choose either the slow growth or natural evolution scenario for populating the entire planet as both of those methods are far less efficient than instantaneous special creation.

The next anticipated objection is that Genesis 1 indicates God did, indeed, create numerous human individuals (both male and female) and sent them to go forth and produce offspring. However, if God had instantaneously created many more than just one or two humans at the beginning of the world, then how is that scenario reconciled with the Genesis 2 account where there was initially just one instantaneously created human male who was later found to be lonely and subsequently supplied with a female companion fashioned from his own rib? If there were other male and female people running around in the garden, Adam wouldn't have been described as needing another human being to help him. Is it reasonable to believe that Adam wasn't interested in one of the female human beings already sharing the garden with him and needed a customized female companion born from the flesh of his own body?

Furthermore, what was God's motivation for creating separate biological sexes in the first place? Since God is depicted as an isolated being with an ability to produce another isolated being in his image, his creation of separate sexes is unexpected and unnecessarily complex. In fact, we know that there are creatures who are neither male nor female but have the capacity to naturally produce offspring. Therefore, it doesn't stand to reason that a genderless God would inexplicably create a living being with a male reproductive organ and then later decide to create a female version to serve as the male's helper and baby incubator. It would have been more efficient and less complicated for God to have designed Adam to be neither male nor female but with an ability to naturally reproduce with another human of the same genderless morphology. Had God considered that design option in advance, it certainly would have at least mitigated for the post-fall LGBTQ+ confusion.

Finally, if God did initially create just one man and one woman to live in the garden of Eden where they would subsequently produce offspring to populate the entire planet, then what is the theological justification for enabling a situation where the entire fate of humanity would hinge on the freewill decisions of just two fallible people? Had God planned ahead a bit better and instantaneously created several hundred people rather than just two, the odds are greatly improved that at least a few dozen of them would freely choose to obey their God and be allowed to remain in the garden. Then again, if the Genesis 1 account is to be incorporated, several other human beings with freewills of their own were also in the garden of Eden just before Eve ate of the forbidden fruit. If so, why were those innocent people ejected from paradise along with Adam and Eve if they had freely chosen to not eat the forbidden fruit? Is it reasonable to believe, in this scenario, that every other person with freewill in the garden also chose to disobey their creator in the same manner as Adam and Eve?

[Difflugia]

This would be expected from a God that is depicted as being perfectly consistent.

This is the first thing that jumped out at me. I know of no verse in the Bible that accuses God of consistency. Even in the parts that are just unmitigated flattery, we never read anything like, "and we love you, O God, because you will never smite us today for something you commanded yesterday."

If you don't mind, I'm going to treat this as a Bible study.

According to the "inspired word of God" (Genesis 2), the human population began with a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. However, after Adam was magically brought to life by God using a golem spell, it is implied that he was initially intended to live and work by himself in the garden of Eden. Apparently, Eve was subsequently created from Adam's rib as an afterthought when God realized that just one human being was probably insufficient to manage all the necessary gardening.

All 2:18 says is that "it is not good for the human to be by himself." It doesn't say why, so I don't think we can infer that the chores themselves were the problem. Aside from the simple declaration of ungoodness, any other reason is speculative. It might be, "the last time I tried this, the human went nuts and set fire to everything, so I had to smite it; let's not repeat that mistake!"

Meanwhile, entire populations of animals and plants had been brought into existence, even before Eve came along to give Adam a hand with his chores. So, what was God's reasoning for creating just two humans in a world where other populations of living things presumably consisted of many individuals?

I'm not sure what rules (if any) you have for harmonizing Genesis 1 and 2, but if we ignore Genesis 1 for now, 2:19 is the creation of the animals. The creation order in Genesis 2 is the creation of the human, the planting of the garden, "you may eat from any tree but the tree of knowledge," "the human will go nuts if he's left alone," the creation of the animals, the creation of the woman.

There are at least two interesting things here that are often overlooked. First, presumably as part of a particular way of harmonizing Genesis 1 and 2, the story is generally understood to be God bringing the already created animals around for Adam to name, but that's not how the text presents things. In the text, God creates the animals "from the dirt" (the same phrase used of human creation in verse 7) immediately after noting that the human shouldn't be by itself.

There's a lot to unpack theologically here. It's ambiguous whether God created all the animals at once and then showed them to the human or not. Grammatically, the text is something like, "and God made the animals and birds from the dirt and brought them to the human to see what he would call out to it [rather than them]." I read that as God creating the animals one at a time and looking to the human for some spark of a bond or recognition or something. As the man "calls out to" each animal, that becomes its name, but no "suitable helper" is found.

The text doesn't say specifically what's wrong, but the woman is the first creature that God made out of something other than dirt. In response to the original question, we might speculate here that God can't ever create the same kind of thing twice just from dirt. Perhaps at this stage, there's only one of each kind of animal and not two (or more). Whatever the reason, God tries something new. He anesthetizes the man and takes "one of his sides." This is usually interpreted as being a rib, but there are two other interesting speculations. The first is an old rabbinic tradition that the human (and perhaps each animal) was originally a complete fusion of both male and female that God separated into two "sides." The second is that the "side" (or "appendage") was a bone, but it was the man's baculum.

At this point, the human "called" the new creature "woman" and that seemed to be what God was looking for.

The first and most obvious apologetic is that God intended for Adam and Eve to produce more humans through sexual reproduction as the preferred mechanism for populating the world.

There's no indication anywhere that God can use dirt to create the exact same kind of thing twice in a row. Maybe God's magic isn't that specific. Sexual reproduction might be a (perhaps unintended) side-effect of either creating a woman from a man or dividing the human into a man and woman, depending on how one reads the text. Reproduction doesn't seem to be an issue in any sense until the two people (and all the animals, perhaps?) are ejected from the garden.

[bluegreenearth]

This is the first thing that jumped out at me. I know of no verse in the Bible that accuses God of consistency. Even in the parts that are just unmitigated flattery, we never read anything like, "and we love you, O God, because you will never smite us today for something you commanded yesterday."

While it is not explicitly stated in the text, I am logically and reasonably expecting that the God of classical theism would be perfectly consistent and perfectly efficient. Nevertheless, I do not dispute the results of your analysis.

All 2:18 says is that "it is not good for the human to be by himself." It doesn't say why, so I don't think we can infer that the chores themselves were the problem. Aside from the simple declaration of ungoodness, any other reason is speculative. It might be, "the last time I tried this, the human went nuts and set fire to everything, so I had to smite it; let's not repeat that mistake!"

Once again, I do not disagree with the result of your analysis. However, regardless of the reason why it was "not good" for Adam to be alone, there is no indication at all that God initially intended for Adam to have another human companion. Therefore, it seems reasonable to interpret the text as indicating that God made the determination after placing Adam in the garden as though he was initially intended to exist there with the plants and animals in isolation. Now that I thought again about it, though, wasn't it the plan for Adam to be God's companion? Why would God go through the trouble of creating someone for whom to share his love then leave the guy alone in a garden somewhere like an absentee parent?

I'm not sure what rules (if any) you have for harmonizing Genesis 1 and 2, but if we ignore Genesis 1 for now, 2:19 is the creation of the animals. The creation order in Genesis 2 is the creation of the human, the planting of the garden, "you may eat from any tree but the tree of knowledge," "the human will go nuts if he's left alone," the creation of the animals, the creation of the woman.

There are at least two interesting things here that are often overlooked. First, presumably as part of a particular way of harmonizing Genesis 1 and 2, the story is generally understood to be God bringing the already created animals around for Adam to name, but that's not how the text presents things. In the text, God creates the animals "from the dirt" (the same phrase used of human creation in verse 7) immediately after noting that the human shouldn't be by itself.

There's a lot to unpack theologically here. It's ambiguous whether God created all the animals at once and then showed them to the human or not. Grammatically, the text is something like, "and God made the animals and birds from the dirt and brought them to the human to see what he would call out to it [rather than them]." I read that as God creating the animals one at a time and looking to the human for some spark of a bond or recognition or something. As the man "calls out to" each animal, that becomes its name, but no "suitable helper" is found.

The text doesn't say specifically what's wrong, but the woman is the first creature that God made out of something other than dirt. In response to the original question, we might speculate here that God can't ever create the same kind of thing twice just from dirt. Perhaps at this stage, there's only one of each kind of animal and not two (or more). Whatever the reason, God tries something new. He anesthetizes the man and takes "one of his sides." This is usually interpreted as being a rib, but there are two other interesting speculations. The first is an old rabbinic tradition that the human (and perhaps each animal) was originally a complete fusion of both male and female that God separated into two "sides." The second is that the "side" (or "appendage") was a bone, but it was the man's baculum.

At this point, the human "called" the new creature "woman" and that seemed to be what God was looking for.

I hadn't ever heard of that rabbinic tradition before, but it is a very entertaining post-hoc rationalization for sexual dimorphism. Of course, it doesn't change the fact that neither interpretation is the outcome I would expect from a perfect and genderless creator God.

There's no indication anywhere that God can use dirt to create the exact same kind of thing twice in a row. Maybe God's magic isn't that specific. Sexual reproduction might be a (perhaps unintended) side-effect of either creating a woman from a man or dividing the human into a man and woman, depending on how one reads the text. Reproduction doesn't seem to be an issue in any sense until the two people (and all the animals, perhaps?) are ejected from the garden.

If sexual reproduction didn't emerge until after they were ejected from the garden, then did God initially intend to share his love with only Adam and Eve prior to their fall? That scenario doesn't explain why God wouldn't have created more than just two people in order to increase the odds of having at least one person freely choose to obey his instructions? Instead, it depicts God as bringing two sentient beings into existence against their will in order to force them into making a life or death decision. From the perspective of Adam and Eve, it would be like waking up with no prior knowledge of anything to find yourself behind the wheel of a moving vehicle on an unfamiliar network of winding roads with a note on the dashboard that reads, "Meet me at the corner of River Road and Hill Street if you want to live. You can touch anything in the vehicle except the GPS navigation. If you touch the GPS, the vehicle will explode. With love, your Creator." I don't know about you, but I'd be rather annoyed to find myself in that situation or Adam's situation.

[bluegreenearth]

[Replying to Difflugia in post #2]

It's been a few days and still no responses from theists. The OP either has them thinking very critically about those questions or isn't worthy of an apologetic argument. What do you think?

[JehovahsWitness]

The bible says God created all living things in the physical world both human, plant and animal life "according to their kind" so in that he was following a recognizable pattern. How many non-human lifeforms from reach category were initially created was evidently not deemed significant enough to be mentioned. Paradoxically any implied significance can be deduced from the bibles silence on this point since humans thus became the exception.


WHY ONLY TWO HUMANS



The Genesis account presents humans as wholly unique. Only to humans does scripture say "Let us make man in our image" and only humans were presented with a law external to their instincts. Only humans were given domination over the animal kingdom and told to "fill the earth and subdue it" and yes, only of humans does the bible explicity state only two of each sex were created It seems by clearly stating all humans are children of Eve the WHY question is answered, namely, because God intended all humans to literally be one family. Arguably favouring human harmony despite genetically programmed variations in biological sex, skin colour, hair texture or eventual physical locality.




JW

Why did God great just one man and one woman? [this post]
viewtopic.php?p=1017200#p1017200

Are all humans really genetically related?
viewtopic.php?p=335734#p335734

If God knew Adam needed a mate, why did he make Adam to wait for her?
viewtopic.php?p=857016#p857016

Was SEX the original sin?
viewtopic.php?p=954188#p954188

Why was Eve punished for her misconduct as she was?
viewtopic.php?p=801843#p801843

[bluegreenearth]

WHY ONLY TWO HUMANS

The Genesis account presents humans as wholly unique. Only to humans does scripture say "Let us make man in our image" and only of humans does the bible explicity state only two of each sex were treated making all descendents relatives. Only humans were presented with a law external to their instincts and only humans were given domination over the animal kjngdom and told to "fill the earth and subdue it". It seems by clearly stating all humans are children of Eve the WHY question is answered, namely, because God intended all humans to literally be of one family. Arguably favouring human harmony despite genetically programmed variations in biological sex, skin colour, hair texture or eventual physical locations.

No, it doesn't answer the question because there is no logical explanation given for why all humans needed to be the children of Eve in one family. It also doesn't explain why a genderless God would design humans to be sexually dimorphic rather than neither male nor female. Humans didn't have to be sexually dimorphic in order to produce offspring. You also failed to answer any of the other relevant question from the OP.

[JehovahsWitness]

Sometimes the logic is found in beauty; do you see no beauty in the idea of a global family?


JW

For more details please go to other posts related to...

ADAM &EVE, ORIGINAL SIN and ...THE GARDEN OF EDEN

[bluegreenearth]

Sometimes the logic is found in beauty; do you see no beauty in the idea of a global family?

There is no logic in something subjective like beauty. Just because you find beauty in the idea doesn't necessitate that this was God's subjective opinion as well.

Side note: How could God even have a concept of beauty given the fact that, prior to anything existing other than himself, such a being would have no other point of reference from which to compare? This is another philosophical question we could probably debate in a different thread.

[JehovahsWitness]

Sometimes the logic is found in beauty; do you see no beauty in the idea of a global family?

There is no logic in something subjective like beauty.

LOGIC


Logic is defined as "reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity". There is nothing in the definition that is negated by subjectivity. If an individual's reasoning is conducted by a strict adherence to that which they personally find beautiful then therein lies the logic.


JW




RELATED POSTS


Is there any verifiable evidence that JEHOVAH /YHWH is the True God?
viewtopic.php?p=979967#p979967

Personal Blog: Evidence v proof
https://fosterheologicalreflections.blo ... ience.html



]

For further reading please go to other posts related to...

PROOF , EVIDENCE and ... FAITH

[JehovahsWitness]

I suppose God could have intended for the garden and the human population within it to grow naturally over time. ... It doesn't seem plausible or logically justifiable to presume that an omnipotent God would choose either the slow growth or natural evolution scenario for populating the entire planet as both of those methods are far less efficient than instantaneous special creation.

Could you explain why you presume an intention that "the garden and the human population within it to grow naturally over time" to be :

a) inefficient
b) implausible
c) illogical
d) unjustifiable (you might like to explain to whom)


Your reference to the theory of evolution by natural selection is essentially irrelevant as it does nothing to address the issues you raised which in essence are determined by goals and motivation.

For more details on the analysis of METHODOLOGY see link HERE
viewtopic.php?p=1017015#p1017015

JW



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Does the Edenic rebellion represent a defeat for God?
viewtopic.php?p=853395#p853395