For Peterson, the Bible is one “manifestation of the highest transcendent pattern”—the necessary framework for human optimisation. Love is absolutely essential to optimisation, but not because God is love and he has made us in his image. Rather, it’s because without love, we would have no chance of successfully optimising ourselves.

When the early Christians talked about singleness and marriage, how did they talk about it? How are single adults viewed in our churches today? Is that consistent with the way they have been viewed in the history of the church? Is singleness a gift? Join Scott as we discuss these questions and more with our guest, Australian author Dani Treweek.

What does it mean to have the gift of celibacy (or singleness)? Does it mean that you don’t desire sex or marriage? Or that you’ve been given an extra booster shot of the Holy Spirit that gives you radical immunity to sexual temptation (or at least prevents you from serious spiriutal hospitalization)? What actually was Paul talking about when he said that “it’s better to marry than to burn?” (1 Cor 7:7-8).

Adam was the only creature made in the image of his creator. At the time, there was nothing and no one else like Adam in all of creation; he was the only human being walking on the entire face of the earth. This is what it meant that he was alone. This is what was not good in God’s sight.