Cain and Abel

Before we move on from thoughts about the fall of mankind, I want to consider the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4: 1 – 16).  I would contend that, brief though it is, this story introduces something absolutely necessary for our understanding of the human condition and of how a relationship with God is possible despite it.

There is a sense in which the brothers, Cain and Abel, were the first true human beings.  Adam and Eve were created directly by God, according to the Creation Myths; Cain and Abel were born in the same way as the rest of us, i.e, through the sexual union of their parents.  This introduces us to two important themes which we will find recur and are expanded upon in the rest of the Bible.  They are: Sacrifice and Envy.

Sacrifice

The necessity for sacrifice has been almost universally expressed in all religious cultures since prehistoric times, but what is its function?  From a psychological point of view, sacrifice is the putting off of immediate satisfaction in order to gain a great good/reward in the future.  This is an incredibly important developmental stage for humans.  It means that they can foresee, however dimly, a future, and it is worthwhile holding fire on immediate fulfilment in order to attain a better future in the long run.  This runs throughout life: we give up all kinds of options in order to attain something in the future we value, eg, giving up earning easy money and living the high life can be rejected in favour of going to college, working hard and gaining a qualification which will set us up with a much better future in the long run. 

Theologically speaking, sacrifice involves entering into a relationship with God and the removal of barriers to that relationship, i.e, sin.  It is, I would suggest, impossible to merely see sacrifice as described above as just a human developmental trait.  It is that, but it is more.  It is something God requires of us if we are to enter into a relationship with Him.  It would be an error of the highest magnitude to imagine that the Biblical insistence on sacrifice is some left-over archaic superstition, rather it is at the centre of everything whether we like it or not. 

Cain and Abel offer sacrifices to God, one is accepted the other is rejected.  The intriguing thing about the story is that we are not told exactly why one is accepted and one is rejected.  This has led to all kinds of speculation, by theologians and Biblical Scholars, as to why Abel’s sacrifice was accepted and Cain’s was not. I don’t wish to enter into such speculation but what I would like to affirm is, that in order to grow, psychologically and spiritually, we have to be prepared to sacrifice something prized in order to move on to something better, more developed.  Something treasured has to die, in order that something better can come to birth.  This may be a treasured belief, a comforting habit, a way of living, etc.  It is as if this is what God demands of us and it is enacted in our psychological development.  If we can embrace this principle then, in the words of the story, “we do well”, if we cannot embrace this then we, like Cain, fall into a dark and dangerous/murderous place.  Something highly destructive is crouching at the door looking to devour us: Envy.

Envy

Watching someone else, particularly a sibling, succeed whilst you are left behind wallowing in anger and self-pity, is a very dangerous place to be.  It is destructive and murderous.  I would suggest it can, at the very least, lead to two highly destructive responses.  Firstly, it can lead (as in the story under review) to attacking the successful party and seeking to bring them down.  Or, secondly, a more introverted response, is to deny the envious anger and turn it on oneself, which ends in depression. Cain, in the story, has no empathy, “am I my brother’s keeper?”  He is totally self-centred. He also suffers from paranoia, “I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth and whoever finds me will slay me”.  So, Cain manifests both an extroverted and introverted response to being rejected and being consumed with envy. God’s response is to give Cain a mark, which will keep others away from him.  He is thus condemned to wander through life and life does not give him what, as a human being, he requires to grow, or put another way become truly human and able to empathise with others.

It would be easy to skip over this story, after all it only consists of a handful of verses, but its message is fundamental for our understanding of the human condition and of God’s remedy to humanity’s maladies.  As we will see as we journey on through the Scriptures, the idea of the nature of sin and of sacrifice as a way of defeating its ravages, will be developed in both the Old and New Testaments.