Genesis 2:21-22, Adam, Eve, and Panentheism

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; And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.

//What a brilliant idea! If you want to make something like something else, make it out of that something else. If you want to make something like yourself, make it out of yourself.

God took of piece of Adam to make Eve. Adam, he formed out of the dust of the earth. But where did the dust of the earth come from?

Most believers assume creation ex nihilo, a Latin phrase meaning “from nothing.” God started with nothing and made something. The Bible never directly claims that God made everything from nothing, but many read Hebrews 11:3 to imply this: “By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” We take this to mean that the universe came into existence by divine command, rather than being assembled out of preexisting matter or energy.

But is this a valid interpretation? Does the verse in Hebrews instead say that God made everything out of the Word of God? (Do not think of Word as a spoken command; Jesus, for example, is the Word of God according to John’s Gospel.) Does this explain where God’s building materials came from? Did God take a piece of himself and create the universe from it? Is that how mankind wound up in the image of God?

This wouldn’t be pantheism, per se, but rather a flavor of panentheism … the idea that God both pervades and transcends the universe.