Saturday, March 03, 2007

Contra Feminism: Creation

Feminism, in its many forms, is scientifically, ethically, spiritually, and biblically bankrupt, and has been shown as such. In this couple of posts, I would like to like to positively set forth what the Bible says about the roles and relations between men and women.

We will first start with the roles and relations between men and women as it began in Creation and the changes brought about by the Fall.

The first passage we will look at is Gen. 2:18-25, which show forth the relations between men and women as seen in the Creation order.

Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,

“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.

From this account, we can see that the first woman, Eve, was created out of the first man, Adam. And the reason for her creation was ... that she would be 'a helper fit for Adam'. God saw that Adam was lonely, without a companion fit for him, and NONE was found to be a suitable companion for him, so God made Eve to fulfil this role.

First of all, we can see that Eve was equal to Adam in nature and worth. Eve was made out of the same material as Adam; in fact made from Adam's rib (Gen. 2:22), and thus by nature she was equal to him. By Adam calling Eve ''bone of my bones' and 'flesh of my flesh' (Gen. 2:23), he was esteeming Eve on par with himself as his equal in nature and worth. This is also seen in the New Testament where the apostle Paul himself said that all are equal before God, both men and women (Ga. 3:28)

Notwithstanding this, secondly, we can see that since Eve was made to be Adam's helper, Adam obviousy had pre-eminence in the relationship between Adam and Eve. This, however, is not one of nature, but of roles within the relationship. Eve was created for Adam, and not the other way around, and God definitely was not wrong in so doing! Obviously, such pre-eminence is God's design primarily for a relationship between men and women in the context of marriage, and thus here we can see the foundation of biblical complementarianism. The functional inquality between men and women within the family and macroscopically as worked out in society is founded on this creation order established by God. All egalitarians thus err by rebelling against God's order which He established in Creation.

Thirdly, the relation between men and women can be seen in Gen. 2:24; they are to complement each other. Marriage is ordained by God between one man and one woman at Creation, and thus all 'variations' are sins. This includes sins such as homosexuality, adultary, fornication, polygamy etc. At marriage, both the man and the woman would leave their parents and cleave to one anther, becoming one flesh. By leaving their repsective families and becoming one, they are setting up a new family unit. Since they form one flesh, they are set up to complement each other. Obviously, this means that there should ideally be peace and harmony within the marriage relationship. That there isn't is such is because of the fall, which we shall come to later, but even then we should still strive for it.

In Creation, the relationship between men and women has been set forth by God Himself. What then did the Fall bring about to the relationship between men and women?

[to be continued]

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