Curious Christian

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Should Our View of Humanity Shape Our Understanding of God?

Published by

Matt Stone

2026-02-25

Some weeks ago I encountered a guy who insisted our understanding of the Trinity needs to be grounded in our understanding of humanity from Genesis 1–3. I suspect he’d been influenced by Grudem. Whether he was or not, he made the same move of projecting patriarchy into the heavens, insisting the Son was eternally subordinate to the Father, just as Eve was subordinate to Adam.

Not only did he bulldoze over the fact that hierarchy between that tragic couple didn’t emerge until after the fall—and indeed as part of its fallout—he also got the relationship between Creator and creation back to front. Our understanding of humanity doesn’t ground our doctrine of God. It’s the other way around.

Our understanding of humanity needs to begin with our understanding of the Trinity, and in particular with the incarnate Son, whom Scripture identifies as the second (and greater) Adam. If we want to understand the image of God, if we want to understand humanity at its best, look to Jesus.

Tags Humanity

One response to “Should Our View of Humanity Shape Our Understanding of God?”

sojournersb

2026-02-27

Super interesting blog. I just stumbled upon it and am excited to read it. One point of respectful pushback, you say “…hierarchy between that tragic couple didn’t emerge until after the fall—and indeed as part of its fallout…” but I think the text tells us otherwise. Adam names the mother of all living “Woman” because she is derivative of him, and this is all in the context hierarchy as shown by Adam’s naming work in Genesis 2. Naturally, subordination in hierarchy does not make Eve inferior to Adam ontologically, just as the Son is not ontologically inferior to the Father.

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