“It is very good.”

Based on pages 7-30 from The Theology of the Body in Simple Language

God’s look sees the world as good, as created – even where it is a fallen world.  And because of God’s look, with which God embraces God’s work and does not let it go, we live. (Creation and Fall, p45).

[M]an, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself.  (Vatican II, Gaudium et Spes 24:3)

Adam and Eve’s original “look” comports with God’s statement, “It is very good.”  Adam and Eve were able to look upon one another, in nakedness without shame, and see the full dimension of solitude and unity in their own bodies.

Nakedness signifies:

1.     Original  goodness—the fullness of God’s vision for them and all the created order

2.     There is no opposition between physical & spiritual—the two were fully integrated

3.     There is no opposition between male and female—the two existed in unity

4.     They looked upon one another with an interior gaze of their hearts—adoration

Shame limits our look

                  At first, Adam and Eve were unashamed.  They were open and vulnerable.  They knew each other intimately.  They contemplated each other as God’s gift to them.  They saw in each other’s complementarity (body and soul) God’s gift to each other.  They were each recipients of a gift and, at the same time, a gift to one another.

Creation as Gift 

Understanding creation as a “gift” poses the question, “Why?”  Naturalism teaches that creation is a “given.”  Revelation teaches us that it is a “gift.”  With any gift, there is a relationship established between the giver and the receiver.  Since the gift of creation and one another is free, given without necessity, it is experienced as love.  Love is always experienced as receiving a gift without the expectation of return.  To be loved is to be enriched by another. 

The concept of giving involves three components:  it refers to the one who gives, the one who receives, and the relation between them.  We can distinguish a gift from a purchase: there is no relationship created between the parties of a purchase.  To return a purchase does not give offense.  However, to return a gift is an offense, because to return the gift is to reject the giver.  God created human beings in order to have someone to give gifts to.  To give means to offer one’s self (in the gift), and also to risk rejection.  If the gift is accepted, a relationship is created.*

This is the reciprocity of the gift.  A gift must be accepted, or there is no reciprocity.  There need not be a counter-gift in order for the gift to be received.  The acceptance itself creates the reciprocity.  But the gift must be accepted, and the acceptance is marked by gratitude.  Gratitude is necessary to complete the gift.

St Paul comments on Creation as gift in Romans 1:18-32.  He writes in 1:21, “for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”  The fall is described by Paul as ungratefulness, not being thankful for the gift of creation. 

Only man can understand creation as a gift—and offer himself back to God.  Of the entire created order the primary gift that man receives in creation is himself, his body.  It is in man’s creation as a body, in masculinity and femininity, that man is able to experience and interact with other parts of the created order (other persons, animals, nature, etc).  Therefore, in accepting God’s gift of creation, and God’s gift of himself, man must accept his own body.

Human existence—as a gift—is characterized by two words:  alone & helper.

1.     Alone: God’s statement that it is not good for man to be alone indicates that man is made for communion.  “A man reaches his full potential only by living with someone—or, even more completely, by living for someone.” (TOBSL p. 29) 

2.     Helper:  Eve is presented to Adam as the fulfillment of his original aloneness.  She is a helper suitable for him.  This is expressed by Adam upon seeing Eve: “This is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!”   Communion—with other persons and with God—becomes our help.  This communion is possible only by self-giving love, as we make of ourselves gifts to each other.  

Our embodied souls—male and female—is a sign of gift. 

When they come together they often create another gift – the gift of a child.  When we cease to see one another as gifts we will cease to see the fruit of our union as gifts. 

Questions for discussion

1.     If creation was a gift, did Adam live as though the world was a gift?  Was he grateful to the Creator?

2.     In giving a gift, the giver gives him or herself.  Have you ever given a gift that was rejected by the recipient?  How did this make you feel?   How did this affect the relationship? 

3.     What happens to the relationship between giver and recipient when a gift is accepted?

4.     Does this teaching shed additional light on the familiar passage of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave  . . . .”?

*For a Christian interpretation of creation as a gift to the human being, see also The Gift: Creation (Aquinas Lecture), by Kenneth L. Schmitz.