Does the Bible Teach That God is Not Enough?

I was encouraged to listen to a podcast the other day.  The title of the episode was You Need More Than God. Provocative, to say the least.  What made this challenging was that these speakers were making a biblical case for this argument.  The argument was thought-provoking and caused me to wrestle with the premise for weeks. Let me frame up the case they were making. 

The main idea of the argument was based on one feature of the creation week.  When God made Adam and all the animals, there was one thing God purposefully left out: the woman.  After God made Adam and then brought all the animals to him, it became clear that this was “not good.”  A suitable companion was needed, and it is from this reality that the speakers drew their argument. God was not enough for Adam.  Man needed a wife. And this was a pointer to a larger reality that man needed people. All of this was something that God was putting on display.  God had created us in such a way that He alone would not be enough. We need people in addition to God. It was the humility of God to create us to need something more than himself.  

After establishing their premise, they then explore a variety of ramifications.  They spoke about how they regularly hear that when they want their wives they are in danger of making an idol out of their wives.  But, the speakers say, this is not normally true. Codependency is bad, but not enough co-dependency is also bad. Additionally, there is the fact that we are people with bodies and our bodies need to be touched.  As embodied creatures, touch is a part of our hardwiring and we need to be held and hugged. Our needs are part of the design and should not be hated or viewed as shameful. The pathway of confessing our needs is the pathway of vulnerability, but it is a necessary one.  Our need for relationships is just what it is to be human. To deny this is to dehumanize yourself, and therefore destroy yourself.  

Now, what are we to make of all this?  This is not easy. I think we have a case here of truth intermingled and entangled with error.  It is here we must remember again that discernment is not distinguishing between right and wrong, but right and almost right.  

First, is the premise correct?  Yes and no. It is correct that God created Adam and purposefully left something undone.  It was not good that Adam was alone, and God did this for a reason. But was that reason to show that God is not enough?  I don’t think so. I believe that Adam needed Eve not because God was not enough for Adam, but because God is so super-exceedingly enough that Adam needed another person to understand God’s total sufficiency.  Why do I think that? To ask why God created Eve is to ask why God created marriage. Why did God create marriage? Ephesians teaches us that God created marriage to point to the realty of the relationship between Christ and the church.  Marriage doesn’t exist because God isn’t enough: marriage exists because God is more than enough and we need help to see all that He is for us. Marriage helps us understand all that God is for us in Christ. Therefore, I believe this podcast took a truth from the Scripture and landed squarely upon a faulty conclusion.  They went the opposite direction they were supposed to go with the realty that Adam needed Eve. God is enough, and Eve helps manifest that reality. 

We must extend this out to the other ramifications that were stated.  Many of the things that were said about relationship were really good.  We really do need people. We need our wives and husbands. We need the church.  We need to be touched. We need to boast in our weaknesses and understand that our design of dependency should not be hated or shamed.  All of these are great statements. But to continually say that these are showing us that God is not enough borders on blasphemy. That is simply not true.  

Can I say that I don’t need people because all I need is God?  No, I can’t. But that is not because God is not enough. It is because we live in a fallen world.  In a fallen world, we don’t have all of God’s presence as we were created to have. The gospel means we are reconciled to God, and he is completely for and not against us, but we are not fully in his presence yet.  Therefore, I need help to see and know God, and I find that help in you. All of these relationships we must pursue and embrace are ways to see God’s sufficiency more clearly, not remind us he is deficient. I need you because you help me see that God is the ultimate need-meeter.  

One day marriage will end.  Why? Because it will have fulfilled its purpose and we will be married to the ultimate bride-groom.  1 Corinthians 13:8 tells us that when Paul was writing he knew that a day was coming when spiritual gifts would cease.  He didn’t know if it would be because of the growth of the church or because Jesus would come back. But one thing was sure, when Jesus comes we will know him perfectly, and love is what remains forever.  We won’t need each other’s spiritual gifts anymore because those gifts will have fulfilled their purpose in this fallen world. They helped us understand that God was more than sufficient, though how we could see that was like seeing through a mirror dimly.  

We need others, not because God is deficient, but because he is more sufficient than we can grasp in our fallen state.  You are complete in Christ (Col 2:10), and you need others to help you understand that more and more.