Sex, Creation, and Family...part two

Theologically, the loving womb created by the father and mother is prefigured in the triune life of the Christian God, which is ultimately its origin and condition. The idea that human love and relations are analogous to the mutual affections of Spirit, Jesus, and the one he called Father is now common in theology.

That the finite world of creatures is an expression of this primal triune love is also common, but we must consider it further. Jurgen Moltmann maintains that Father, Son, and Spirit make a space for another different from them, and such is the basis of creation. The mutual giving and being-given-to of the triune persons, we might elaborate, simply IS the space (and time) within which creation subsists. The advent and evolution of creaturely forms is thus "already" possible purely given the dynamics of the Trinitarian love. We are merely spaced and timed finitely within that life, and nurtured by the abundance of resources gifted to us.

Human persons as finite creatures, on the other hand, must more precisely create space for finite others. Their womb is the mutual affections, culminating in sex and conception, which, like the Trinity, are the space into which new life is born. Mother and father also provide the resources integral to the child's growth, which gives raising children a temporal and not only spatial dimension. Moreover, the physical resources of food and shelter are never sufficient by themselves to ensure the life of children. Continuing love, this time not only between mother and father, but now also between child, mother, and father, is paramount. What were once dual affections become plural; the opening of love which creates a multitude of lovers. Such is also an indispensable contour of the Christian doctrine of creation.