D.

Khan

Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

Author : D.Khan
E-mail : 19davidkhan1981@gmail.com
Part of the ''Metaphysics of the holy'' series

D.Khan

Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

Prologue : Wittgenstein's Love

It is with a small tract of text featuring the beginnings of Adam and Eve, referred to in the passage
from our previous reading, from which an overcoming of the dualism of secular/theological is a
possibility. But first we must consult the work of the late analytic philosopher and logician
Ludwig Wittgenstein, whose main finding is integral for our achieving understanding. There is a
nigh on 100 year old mystery which surrounds the work of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus;
a work which appears as meta-logical in design, but whose main point Mr Wittgenstein claimed
as ethical. Mr Wittgenstein wrote to a prospective publisher, Ludwig van Ficker, I wanted to
write that my work consists of two parts: of the one which is here, and of everything which I
have not written. And precisely this second part is the important one. For the Ethical is delimited
in this way.'' And then there is this comment, again to Ludwig Von Ficker : ''I once wanted to
give a few words in the foreword which now actually are not in it, which, however, I'll write to
you now because they might be a key for you....For the time being, I'd recommend that you read
the foreword and the conclusion since these express the point most directly.'' The author of the
foreword to the 2007 edition I am reading from writes: ''The introduction says that the whole
sense of the book can be summed up in the following words: 'What can be said at all can be said
clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence.' These words are more or
less repeated verbatim in the last sentence of the book.'' In fact the concluding proposition is ''7:
What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.'' It has seemed, hitherto then, that
what Wittgenstein was pointing Ficker to was the same thing said twice over, which makes little
sense.
If only a dictionary had been consulted, for example the Oxford online dictionary, which gives this
as definition of a foreword: ''A short introduction to a book, typically by a person other than the
author.'' The error has been with previous investigators(1) having consulted the preface, rather
than the foreword. Now if one goes to the foreword they will find, following a dedication to the
man Mr Wittgenstein was believed to have been in love with, fallen soldier David Pinsent, a love
which Mr Wittgenstein passed over in silence, the following quote which Wittgenstein claims as
motto: ''and whatever a man knows, whatever is not mere rumbling and roaring that he has
heard, can be said in three words.'' The three words that are not actually there but are implied,
can be inferred from what is there, are ''I Love You''. Let us find that this is a very special
proposition indeed.
We find that there is one necessity, the I, one contingency, the You, and a metaphysical relation.(2)
From this we find that the position of the you cannot be inferred from the stated position of the I.
Also, at the level of the self the metaphysical relation, here as the predicate, is contained within
the subject and our proposition is truly transcendent; ''love'' found as foundations of one's
nature(3), (4). If we are imagining our prop. as a model of reality, a picture, then we find that
each name can be thought as a 'speck in the visual field' , with that speck being a 'spatial point' ,
itself 'an argument place'.(Tr:2.0131) In this we find that our proposition is a truth-function of
the arguments: a truth function of elementary propositions: names in immediate combination.(Tr:
3.25, 4.221) It is from here where the significance of Wittgenstein's find can be concluded.
Each agent has the possibility of entering freely into relation with the other, concluding the same
value which they hold out to the other, so that each is equal partner within that relation. With

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Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

this, the possibility that our transcendent function shares its form with the law of identity, its
meaning as ''I Love You'', is found. The function acts to connect peoples in meaning, that
meaning which we each have as innate and have an innate understanding of,(5) so that we have
the beginnings of a metaphysics of human understanding.
It is often said that, despite what we know of the subject/object dichotomy of the self, that the law
of identity, A=A, is a mere tautology; but this is to take our law as ranging only over particulars,
when it is trivially true that the law of identity ranges over universals, including that universal
known as ''humanity''. The law may say nothing as a proposition, but taken as a picture our law
shows that equality is the logical necessity of identity. We shall keep these findings in mind as
we continue onto our investigation of the Adam and Eve beginnings story.
Notes
1.I am certainly the only author in print to have concluded this Tractarian key.
2.From the Tractatus: '''We must not say, The complex sign aRb says a stands in
relation R to b; but we must say, That a stands in a certain relation to b
says that aRb. '(Tr: 3.1432)
3.Though one should not confuse this love with romantic love. Of interest is that Wittgenstein's
collection of notes, ''Culture and Value'', has Wittgenstein declare an admiration for Jean Jacques
Rousseau. It was Rousseau who, in his ''Discourse on Inequality'', centres his ontology with the
self's ''amour de soi'', a love of self. However, this is not a narcissistic love but a joy for being alive,
love as life-in-itself. What is of interest is that Rousseau shows how, through inequalities in the
world, True love can deteriorate to its opposite, what he calls ''amour-propre''. We have claimed our
prop as transcendent, and it is by way of Rousseau's simple logic of consequences that we find that
the prop. ''I hate you'' does not contradict the transcendent value of our prop but, rather, shows love
to curtail the capacity for human hate.
4.And it is by concluding the impossibility of love being a historical contingency that we find the
foreword's quote, the Tractatus' motto, to be of more than just poetic value.
5.We enter a text and, despite the absence of the word ''love'', we identify a representation as
conveying love. The theme of love, an organizing principle of the matter of the text, transcends the
text.

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Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

Adam = Eve
Let us give the passage for examination and find just what it offers as its meaning.
20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every
beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept:
and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man.
23 And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she
shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave
unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
Genesis 1
We require a bringing forth of the pure reasoning of the text itself, but this requires knowing how
the text should be read. It is by being attentive to logical structure that the correct amount of
insight can be taken, insight which points to the author's possible intentions, with this giving the
''how'' as to interpretation.
It is with verse 24 beginning with ''therefore'', a logical operator, that we find that the passage
shares its form with our ubiquitous argument form, Modus Ponens. The verses prior to verse 24
hold a premise, these verses being the antecedent of the argument, with a conclusion from this
premise marked as the consequent in verse 24. Note that what is concluded, or rather what is
being explained, is the universal phenomenon which has men and women pair. A particular is
being given as reasoning for a universal occurrence. The conclusion is an identity being formed,
and it is how it is formed which is of crucial importance.
An overview of the antecedent verses has the way by which the divine created woman result in a
metaphysical operator working over, in and between couples, working to bring them together as
one. The metaphysical operator is that very force of attraction which works to sustain this
original ordering which is the necessity for a humanity to speak of, that force most commonly
known as Love. It is by use of the 'therefore' to reason a universal, and noting what is being
explained, that we find that the author need not have intended the retelling of an actual historical
event. If this is the case then the symbolic ordering of the antecedent verses hold a meaning. The
use of the rib is a main component of the premise, but what could the author possibly be trying
to convey with its use? Could it be that the use of the rib is a pointing to 'love' as realized at a
meeting place between hearts? This should certainly make a sense, but there is more to be taken
from this symbolic picture. It shows man as coming of an age when he becomes aware of a
yearning for completion, a completion with another whom he finds holds a part of him. In
Hebrew the two words that "help meet" are derived from are the words ezer' and the word
'kenegdo". Diana Webb, in her book 'Forgotten Women of God' , writes on ''ezer'': ''The noun
ezer occurs 21 times in the Hebrew Bible. In eight of these instances the word means savior.
These examples are easy to identify because they are associated with other expressions of
deliverance or saving. Elsewhere in the Bible, the root ezer means strength.... the word is most
frequently used to describe how God is an ezer to man. " Eve is therefore taken as whom

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Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

salvation can be found in. Our being attentive to the form of the passage is allowing us a new
appreciation of what is being spoken of, and we have found an author of some skill. Though we
have concluded only what the author is trying to convey by way of the symbolic components,
but this being a sacred text hints at there being more for the reader to take than simply a warm
love story.
We noted how identity was the primary fact concluded in verse 24, and it is of interest that identity
is written as ''A=A'', an eternal and immutable law of thought. ''knegdo"was that other word
which makes up the term ''help-meet'', and Diana Webb explains it as so: ''"Neged, a related
word which means against was one of the first words I learned in Hebrew. I thought it was very
strange that God would create a companion for Adam that was against him! Later, I learned that
kenegdo could also mean in front of or opposite. This still didn't help much. Finally I heard it
explained as being exactly corresponding to, like when you look at yourself in a mirror." Also of
note is that Adam takes Eve to be '' bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh'', and in naming her
wo-man does he grant that Eve is his literal extension(1), a mutual partner in that thing called
love. The identity is formed by each standing to the other as equal partner, finding the other as
equal, the very being of the law of identity being in equality. It is equality which is being
impressed as necessary for love, as well as the desired natural order to things. Two distinct
entities facing each other equally is what creates and sustains a one identity for both, this being
the point of meta-stability which the author promotes the engendering of a finding of. But this
call for equality is a universal one, the law of identity holding over Being in general, the
necessity for truth to be found and known . The type of story that we have is a guidance myth
and we can be sure of this via the use of the term ''cleave''.
The word is taken to have two meanings: one being 'to split/rend' , as in when Abraham claves the
wood for the burnt offering (Genesis 22:3), and the other being 'to 'adhere/join oneself to' as
Adam does with Eve, or as the Psalmist's tongue does to the roof of his mouth (Psalm 137:6). It
is also told of how Ruth clave unto her mother-in-law (Ruth 1:14), of certain men claving unto
Paul ( Acts 17:34); cleaving being how one joins with the Lord (Deut. 4.4) A point of interest is
in just how strong a bond our word tells of: the Hebrew word for cleaving is devakut, derived
from the root word davak. This word is related to the word for bodily joint, debek, speaking of
the bond between our bones and our skin.(see: Job 19:20) It is with the use of the rib that we
find both meanings as applicable, the author relating how the bond between is strengthened by
way of a vigorous working towards. It is to bring about that divinely supplanted essence of the
other, this being, by way of the focus being on the other, a truly self-less act; there being only
one self in true love, one identity which both agents share and represent.
So, we have concluded a sense to our passage and found an ethical message of universal
applicability. We should also note on closing that our new understanding on just what the text is
attempting to convey must lead us to conclude that our notion on ''eternal sin'' is a wholly man
made construct which no scriptural authority can be found for. The story of Adam and Eve was
created to give guidance, so we can expect this to be the case with the later part. This must be
for elsewhere, but if I can point out that the picture there, the picture of the first division, that
picture lacks one crucial ingredient for Love to be; and being a self-evident ingredient it can be
imagined that the first readers would have known only too well what guidance was being given,
for that missing ingredient is Forgiveness.

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Adam = Eve : Love as the Law

Notes
1. Adam names this other being 'Woman', the reasoning being that she is an extension of Man:
''woman'' becoming a literal extension of man: the Hebrew for man being 'ish', and for
woman , 'ishshah'.

References
Webb.D., Forgotten Women of God, Bonneville Books(Kindle Edition), 2010
King James Bible
Wikipedia, Taijuti, , Date accessed: 12/06/2015, 03:15