Faith & Spirit Quote by Thomas Goodwin

Goodwin is doing a characteristically Puritan sleight of hand: he makes a small grammatical choice in Genesis carry the weight of an entire covenant theology. Adam, he argues, doesn’t simply overhear a promise; he “utters his faith” in it. That phrasing matters. Faith, in Goodwin’s Reformed universe, is not a warm feeling but the legal instrument by which a person is brought under a covenant. Adam becomes, in effect, a convert to a promise delivered through Eve.

The subtext is both pastoral and polemical. Pastoral, because it offers a way to see the post-Fall scene not as God abandoning humanity but as God immediately reconstituting relationship through promise. Polemical, because it shores up a Protestant emphasis on salvation by faith rather than by ritual mediation. The covenant is not “his” by birthright or patriarchal priority; he “came in under her covenant” by believing what was spoken.

That last twist is the point with teeth. In a culture that assumed male spiritual headship, Goodwin foregrounds Eve as the initial recipient of the gospel promise (“her seed,” traditionally read as a prophecy of Christ). Adam’s status becomes dependent, not dominant. He is not the gatekeeper; he’s the one who must assent. Goodwin’s intent is to make the earliest marriage story double as a template for conversion: the promise is announced, faith answers, and even the first man enters the only way anyone ever enters - by trusting the word given.