The dilemma between the heart and the head found in Khnopff's enigmatic Caresses is resolved in Divine Creation. In this work, the couple represents harmonious equality in its union and reveals a little-known historic reference to the sexual power of women.

Divine Creation shows a man and a woman embracing each other with love and sharing equally in the unity of their coupling. Like in Klimt's The Kiss, the couple is kneeling in very close contact, giving a feeling of both humility and sensuality. Unlike couples appearing in more conventional imagery, the man and the woman in Divine Creation are not only represented as equals, but are also face to face, rather than side by side.

To masculine and feminine principles, the artwork adds the Serpent and the Sun as symbols of divine essence. The Serpent is the symbol of Knowledge while the Sun symbolizes the Bliss of the Creator. The Serpent coils around the couple in a protective way while facing the Sun with an equal symbolic weight. Note that the four symbols are grouped two (man and woman = human symbols) by two (snake and sun = divine symbols) as a double dualistic principle as well as three (man, woman and snake = substance symbols) by one (sun = essence symbol) as in esoteric scripture. Moreover, the substance symbols comprise a 30-degree esoteric triangle from the center of the sun.

Neither the man, nor the woman nor the snake has eyes, while the sun represents the eye from above. The numinous blue halo that surrounds the four symbols indicates that the entire creation is part of the same infinite, cosmic, divine energy. The black background refers to the primordial darkness.

Adam, Eve, God and the Serpent are creation symbols found in the Bible. According to the Bible, Eve was not created from the ground, like Adam, but from his rib, to be his helpmate. This discards from the very beginning the notion of equality in their creation.

In an alternative version of the creation myth, the Alphabet of Ben Sidra, a Judaic biblical commentary written between the seventh and the tenth centuries CE, introduces Lilith who is identified as Adam's first wife, created from dust to be his equal. Because Adam was inflexible about his superiority, Lilith flew away and refused to return even when visited by three angels sent by God. God then created Eve, who would adopt a more submissive role.

In Divine Creation, the man and the woman are equal, which reflects my desire for equality between men and women. The couple therefore represents Adam and Lilith rather than Adam and Eve.

The Serpent in the Garden of Eden led Eve, who eventually enticed Adam, to disobey God’s commandment not to eat the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, fruit portrayed by the Church as evil. While the Serpent symbolizes the lost paradise for the Church, it represents the gain of knowledge and wisdom in Gnosticism, a religion that flowered from late antiquity to the second century CE and is still practiced discretely today.

Unlike the Church which considers the Serpent to be an extremely undesirable symbol (knowledge is doom and ignorance is bliss), the Gnostic sees it as a desirable symbol. In Divine Creation, the equal importance of the Serpent and the Sun expresses my ideal of equality between knowledge and bliss.

While Eve symbolizes the submissive helpmate and mother, Lilith symbolizes the equal sexual partner and also the darker temptress, who is often present in Symbolist works. Often, this temptress is represented by the Femme Fatale.