CatholicTheology.info

Choose a topic from Part 1:

• God and His Attributes
• The Blessed Trinity
• Creation
• The Angels
• The Days of Creation
• Man
  • 75. Man's Soul
  • 76. Union of Soul and Body in Man
  • 77. Faculties of the Human Soul: In General
  • 78. Faculties of the Human Soul: In Particular
  • 79. The Intellective Human Faculties
  • 80. The Appetitive Human Faculties
  • 81. The Sensitive Appetite in Man
  • 82. The Intellective Appetite in Man: The Will
  • 83. Free Will
  • 84. Man's Knowledge of Bodily Reality
  • 85. The Manner or Mode of Man's Understanding
  • 86. What the Intellect Knows in Material Things
  • 87. Man's Knowledge of Himself
  • 88. Man's Knowledge of Nonmaterial Things
  • 89. Knowledge in the Separated Human Soul
  • 90. The First Production of Man's Soul
  • 91. The Production of the First Human Body
  • 92. The Production of Woman
  • 93. Man as the Image of God
  • 94. The Intellect of the First Man
  • 95. The Will of the First Man
  • 96. The Ruling Power of Man in the State of Innocence
  • 97. The Preservation of Man in the State of Innocence
  • 98. The Preserving of the Human Race in the State of Innocence
  • 99. The Bodily LIfe of Offspring in the State of Innocence
  • 100. The Righteousness of Offspring in the State of Innocence
  • 101. The Knowledge of Offspring in the State of Innocence
  • 102. Paradise
• The Divine Government

92. The Production of Woman

1. Woman is necessary to man for purposes of generationaccording to God's plan for the propagation of the human race.When the first man had been created, God said (Gen. 2:18): "Itis not good for man to be alone; let us make him a helper like tohimself."

2. It is entirely fitting that woman should be made fromman. This fact shows the likeness of man to God; for as one God isthe principle of the whole universe, so one man is the principle ofthe whole human race. Further, the fact that woman is derived fromman should make a man love his wife and cherish her as "boneof my bone, and flesh of my flesh." Again, this fact indicatesthe order of domestic life, with man as the natural head of thehousehold. Finally, the origin of woman from man has a holyallegorical meaning, and foreshadows the origin of the Church fromChrist.

3. The first woman was formed from a rib of the first man:"God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman"(Gen. 2:22). Woman was suitably taken from man's side, toindicate social equality and companionship; she was not taken fromman's head to rule him, nor from his feet to be his slave.

4. Only God can produce a man from the slime of the earthand a woman from the rib of a man. Therefore the woman, as well asthe man, was formed immediately by almighty God.

"A person who rails at God in adversity, suffers without merit; moreover by his lack of resignation he adds to his punishment in the next life and experiences greater disquietude of mind in this life."
St Alphonsus de Liguori

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"The supreme perfection of man in this life is to be so united to God that all his soul with all its faculties and powers are so gathered into the Lord God that he becomes one spirit with him, and remembers nothing except God, is aware of and recognises nothing but God, but with all his desires unified by the joy of love, he rests contentedly in the enjoyment of his Maker alone."
St Albert the Great

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"The more you know and the better you understand, the more severely will you be judged, unless your life is also the more holy. Do not be proud, therefore, because of your learning or skill. Rather, fear because of the talent given you."
Thomas á Kempis

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