Reading Reflections – Cain, God, and Sin

January 8, 200910:58 am Honzo Comments

I have never taken up a “read through the Bible in a year ” plan until this year. To aid in my reading, I picked up the NLT’s 24/7. It is arranged by day so that you always know what you need read on a given day. The daily readings are arranged in a narrative-chronological order. Thus, I have been spending a lot of time in Genesis, with some excursions into Chronicles.

The nice thing about this product from the NLT is that there are nice margins where one can take notes. This is actually what sold me on the product. Accordingly, I have been writing notes and reflections in the margins of this useful little product.

I have tried to not get caught up in the details of the texts, but to focus and meditate upon the purposes of the passages at hand, to get a sense of what the writer(s) were trying to convey

Much of my notes in Genesis have been noting all of etiological moments. This is why X is such, that is why Z came to be. A great example of this is Genesis 10:6-20, the account of Ham and the origin of Babylon, Assyria, the Canaanites, Hittites, etcetera.

Something else that struck me, besides all of the etiology, was God’s pleading with Cain to master his sin in Genesis 4:6-7.

Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

There are several things stick out in this passage. Firstly, I like the intimate relationship the Lord has here with Cain. In the middle of Cain’s frustration with the rejected sacrifice, God pleads with him to do the right thing. Hope is given to Cain, that though Cain is burning with anger and jealousy, wanting the favor of another, he can still have righteousness – but only if he chooses to do so.

What hope, what responsibility is afforded to Cain here by God in his pleadings?

When God is talking with Cain about his anger, God couches his language in terms of Cain’s freedom of the will. Similarly, God describes sin mastering Cain in terms of potentiality, not actuality. The two verses end with God pleading with Cain to actively master sin and deny its power over him.

Because of my reformed friends, I constantly run my readings through a reformed filter, just as I run them through a churches of Christ filter. I cannot imagine reading this through a reformed, TULIPed theology. Perhaps it is possible, I just can’t conceive of it. God just does not describe humanity and sin with total depravity and unconditional election in mind.

Anyway, these aren’t researched thoughts, just some initial impressions

Calvinism vs Arminianism, Genesis, Sin none

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Honzo

Hank,

I think it still holds - guilt is not the issue, capability is. This is where the problem lies. If Cain does not have the ability, there should be no responsibility in order for there to be justice. I don't know how you can frame it another way.

Children seem to be the ultimate expressions of humanity in our culture. We'll do anything for children, but not for adult men. God loved Cain as I will love my daughter, as I love my little sister, as you do yours. This cannot be overshadowed here. Cain, despite all of devotions to the contrary is a person with all the worth that God attaches to it (which was a whole heck of a lot, given that it was because of this love that he sent his son, Jesus to die on our behalf). I choose a daughter because we see them as full bearers of human worth. I am intentionally playing on the emotional weight.

I think we mostly agree on the last point - but just to be clear, I use "sin bogeyman" to refer to the point that there is no real abstract thing out there called sin, there is only sinful acts and the effects of those sinful acts. We may be dancing around one another on this point, but I am not sure.

henrythomasimler

My thing with 2 is that it doesn't represent the biblical picture. Sure for your analogy to work innocence is not necessary. But does it represent how the Bible depicts humans? I don't think it does. Humanity is universally guilty of sin. For your analogy to work that girl has to deserve the 50 pound weight to be dropped on her by her father. But you have already slanted the recipient against that by choosing a girl, something that is seen as innocent and sweet (and you know how I feel about little sisters). How could any loving father hurt his little girl like that? That is why I object to people intentionally using an illustration like this. It doesn't allow the audience of the recipient to see the guilt that must be there first.

In regards to 3, what you mean by sin bogeyman? The things you list I see as evidences of humanity's spiral downwards into deeper depths of depravity. They are real problems that only the final salvation that Jesus offers to his people will deliver them from. Those things are very similar to what Paul speaks of in Romans 1-2. The only remedy is the righteousness of God that comes by faith in Jesus Christ and his redemptive and propitiating death.

henrythomasimler

First, Cain's jealousy of Able and anger towards him was already sinful, and therefore he is already under sin. He is not as free as you would have him.

You illustration of the girl does not reflect the Biblical view of humanity. The girl is assumed to be completely innocent before the father and that is not the picture the Bible presents of humanity before I AM. Every human has offended I AM by worshiping someone or something else. Thus all of humanity has earned and has the wrath of I AM weighing down upon them. This is one my biggest problems with non-Calvinist theology, it assumes an innocence that the Bible does not portray. The book of Genesis contains one of the most explicit denials of such an innocence (Genesis 6:5; Genesis 8:21).

Lastly, Paul understands law to imprison people under sin, and that is how I see I AM's statement. This statement serves to condemn Cain when he does sin by murdering his brother Able. I feel the vaunted "Deuteronomic history" fails to understand law in this way. Yes Deuteronomy presents Israel with blessings for obedience and curse for disobedience. However, the ensuing narrative of the Bible shows a spiral downward into depravity and the final curse is brought upon Israel, namely exile to Assyria/Babylon. The redemption of Israel and end of said exile comes with the Messiah (I do think N.T. Wright isn't totally crazy) and the New Covenant. Paul sees the endless spiral into depravity until the Messiah comes and that is how he reads his Bible (cf. Galatians 3). That is how we should read our Bibles as well.

Honzo

Hank,

Couple of things

1) Cain does not have to be free from sinning in order for my rubric to work. In fact, despite his (obvious) prior sins, God still pleads with him, asking for Cain to choose righteousness.

2) The girl does not have to be completely innocent for my analogy to work. She could (and most likely did) mess up beforehand. The real point there was asking the child to do something that she could not do and then hold her responsible for it. Innocence is not needed for responsibility, capability is. If a party holds someone responsible for something they could do nothing about (in fact, it is in their very genes) - actual justice is perverted and denied.

3) I agree with your statements in your third paragraph for the most part (though the sin cycle thing is a bit simplistic, but you are glossing for the sake of brevity, so it is to be expected (and welcomed, less we get term papers for comments that no one can read)). But still, is there some sin bogeyman out there? How do we talk about heart disease? How do we talk about the effects of pornography? Yet, these aren't real things in the since that you and I are real things. There are very real and potent effects of sin out there, effects that can be described via a variety of metaphors.

Henry M Imler

Thanks for your thoughts. I was sure that my initial impressions would draw something out of you. You are right to half-state that each comes to the text with their own initial impressions which in turn color their reading of the text.

The most natural reading for me is that God knew what (active) thoughts were creeping into Cain's head and interacted with him, giving him a way out, offering him strength through counsel.

Contrast this with a God that, sensing the thoughts, warns him, but knows that Cain can't choose righteousness, implores him to do so, and does not enable him to do so, and then curses him afterward. What a horrible God?

If I tell my 2 year old daughter, whom I love so much that I would die for her, to life a 50 pound weight, and then do nothing to help her, and then spank her for not doing it - what kind of a person am I?

Furthermore, that makes for a horrible story. Yeah, you can technically read it with a reformed mindset, but the story is robbed of its force, of its tragedy.

Contrast that with the arminian position. Here we have a good God intervening and pleading with Cain to choose right. He has the ability to do so, God implies it by his very questions. Despite God's pleadings with Cain, Cain chooses to give into his anger and kills Able. Sin (actually, the active temptation to sin) was crouching at the door, and Cain decided act upon his temptations.

I think that is the much better reading of the text, it seems more natural, and, frankly, has a better literary quality to it.

As for sin, it is easy to see it as a metaphor here. This is literature, after all. What better way to describe how sinful actions can consume a person?

henrythomasimler

Honzo,

I think that the whole reason you can't see how one can read this from a reformed perspective is because of your presuppositions. You have already assumed the libertarian form of free will and then read the text with that assumption. It works well and therefore there just isn't anyway to see a compatiblist form of free will here. But there is no warrant from Genesis 4 to read the text with how Arminians prefer to define "free will." I AM did appeal to Cain's volition and will to make a choice. Cain made his choice: sin. Reformed theology would say that because God didn't exercise his grace to move Cain to fulfill the obligation of Gen 4:7 Cain killed Able. This is no more ruled out by the passage as a whole than your reading of free will. Remember that total depravity says that a human is both unwilling to choose God/Christ/righteousness and unable. It takes a supernatural act by I AM to give that person the ability and the desire to choose God/Christ/righteousness. What happened here does not conflict that notion just because I AM told Cain to rule over sin or it will pounce upon him.

Which leads me to a question. The language that Genesis 4:6-7 uses to describe sin does not make it seem like only mere actions and thoughts. The author communications sin as something that is crouching and ready to pounce as well as something that desires to have a person. How do you reconcile this language with the previous post that said, "Sin never becomes a quality or even a substance. Sin is and remains an act"?

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Reading Reflections – Cain, God, and Sin

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