IMPORTANT LECTURE #2: On Cain and Abel and the question of Free Will vs. Predestination

IMPORTANT LECTURE #2:  On Cain and Abel and the question of Free Will vs. Predestination.  Read by Thursday, January 6.

Weekly Assignments

Read the following:

1.  The book of Genesis, Chapter 4 (King James Version, KJV).

2.  The King James Bible Commentary on Genesis, Chapter 4:  Introduction, Outline, and Commentary

3.  Gabel, John and Charles Wheeler. The Bible as Literature: An Introduction.      4th edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.  Chapter I.

4. Unit 2 Lecture Notes

Write the following: 

Three substantial contributions to the Online Discussion

A 300 word weekly reaction journal.

UNIT 2:  PROTESTANT REFORMATION AND THE IDEA OF PREDESTINATION

By the 16th century, a number of Christians came to believe that the Church as it existed was corrupt in terms of both doctrine and struc­ture. They sought to return it to the beliefs and practices of the Church as Christ founded it. This move­ment was called the Reformation. Originally the Reformers hoped to work within the Catholic Church but eventually broke with it to found other Churches. Reformation leaders included Martin Luther in Germany, Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland, and John Knox in Scotland. Luther's concept of justification by faith through grace, and not by works, some­times led to a belief in predestina­tion, the idea that God elects sal­vation for people without consider­ation of their actions. Predestina­tion was especially embraced by John Calvin and his followers, who believed in "double predestination," that God chooses to save His elect and damn the rest of humanity.

Introduction:

This lecture treats the Cain and Abel story of Genesis 4 from three angles. First, we treat the story as a work of literature or myth, in terms of what it may have meant, historically, to its original author or audience. Second, we address two Christian theological interpretations of the story. Third and last, we look at several examples from English literary history of characters responding to the fear of being, like Cain in certain Christian readings, creatures predestined to damnation.

Cain and Abel in Story, Theology and Literary History.

I. The Cain and Abel story on its own terms, may be considered a work of literature or myth. As such, the story raises basic questions about character motiva­tion: Why does Cain do what he does in the story? Why does Yahweh?

            A. After "the Fall" the curse of Adam is to till the land, yet Cain, Eve's firstborn son, is the first tiller of the ground mentioned in the Bible.

            B. Let's study the entire story of Cain and Abel:  Cain's offering proved unsatisfactory to Yahweh. There is no reason given, but Abel's offering is preferred.

                        And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit

            of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

                        And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat

            thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

                        But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain

            was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

                        And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy

            countenance fallen?               (Genesis 4:3-6, KJV)

            C. Consider this as a human drama. Cain asks why his offering was not acceptable and Yahweh answers:

                         If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.    

            And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.                  (Genesis 4:7, KJV)

            E. In the next passage comes the famous resolution of this sibling rivalry.

                        And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field,

            that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

                        And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not:      

            Am I my brother's keeper?    (Genesis 4:8-9, KJV)

            F. This passage is particularly important because it shows Cain's impudence and his claim to be independent.

           

            G. At this point Cain is exiled by Yahweh to the Land of Nod and given a mark so that no one should kill him. (Yahweh doesn't specifically prohibit human bloodshed until the time of Noah (Genesis 9).)  Cain becomes a nomad, or wanderer.

            H. Now we move into a separate part of Genesis 4 where Cain is not a wanderer but a patriarch. Indeed the founder of a city, Enoch, which he named after his firstborn son.  Thus he is seen as a city dweller.

            I. This second half of Genesis 4 possess­es several problems of narrative conti­nuity. Many scholars believe the Cain story is one with different historical sources that has been inserted back into the Bible.

II. Christian theological readings of the Cain figure.

These come in two main varieties:

A. The "works" interpretation holds that a human has at least some control over his fate through his own freely chosen acts or "works." Could Cain have chosen to bring God a sin ­offering and by this means become acceptable to God?  It seems entirely possible, but Cain doesn’t act on this because he demonstrates an overweaning sense of self pride.

B. The "predestination" interpretation, by contrast-rooted in Paul  (Romans 8:28-30):
28	And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
29	For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
30	Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

 and St. Augustine, and developed by the 16th-century Protestant theologian John Calvin-holds that fallen mankind has no free will, and that God mysteriously chooses some individuals to receive divine grace and salvation (the elect), and con­versely, some to remain in the sinful state in which all are born and so to be eternally damned (the repro­bate). Is Cain among the reprobate, and Abel among the elect?  This is one possible theological interpretation. 

C.  The idea of predestination can even be seen in the work of Roman Catholic theologians, such as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, who claims that out of the Cain story, a story of human arrogance and fratricide, God’s merciful treatment of Cain after he has slain Abel prefigures the blood sacrifice of Christ in the New Testament, a type of predestination:  sin – forgiveness – expiation of guilt.

III. Predestination-A disturbing concept.

Calvin's doctrine of double predestination (that some are predestined to election, some to reprobation) has caused perenni­al anxiety among certain writers and char­acters in the English literary canon, espe­cially through the 19th century.

The problem is one of knowing or assur­ance: how can one know whether one is among the elect or among the reprobate? We may see this problem addressed in three literary sources:

A. John Milton, Paradise Lost (1674).

            1. In his classic epic on the fall of Adam and Eve, Milton believes in a type of predestination-the predesti­nation of some to be elect without believing in the predestination of others to be reprobate (PREDESTINATION OF THE ELECT.)

            2. To show his belief in this he puts these words in the voice of God in Book 3 of Paradise Lost:

Some I have chosen of peculiar grace

Elect above the rest; so is my will:

The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warnd

Thir sinful state, and to appease betimes

Th' incensed Deitie, while offerd grace

Invites; for I will cleer thir senses dark,

What may suffice, and soft'n stonie hearts

To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.

(Book 3, II. 183-190, Paradise Lost)

            3. Elsewhere in Paradise Lost Milton presents the entire debate between fate and predestination in a humorous but fruitless debate between devils in hell.

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high

Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate,

Fixt Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,

And found no end, in wandring mazes lost.

(Book 2, II. 558-561, Paradise Lost)

B.  Olaudah Equiano:  Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

            1. How can one ever know if one is among the elect? This is Calvinist anxi­ety, which brought author Olaudah Equiano, a freed slave, to the brink of suicide. But in the end Equiano, the author, feels himself to be among the elect:

. . . this scripture was instantaneously impressed on my mind-"that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." (1 John 3:15) Then I paused, and thought myself the unhappiest man living. Again I was convinced that the Lord was better to me than I deserved, and I was better off in the world than many.  It pleased God to enable me to wrestle with him as Jacob did: I prayed that if sudden death were to happen, and I perished, it might

be at Christ's feet.

            In the evening of the same day, as I was reading and meditating on the fourth chapter of the Acts, twelfth verse, (¹²Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.") under the solemn apprehen­sions of eternity, and reflecting on my past actions, I began to think I had lived a moral life, and that I had proper ground to believe I had an interest in the divine favor; but still meditating on the subject, not know­ing whether salvation was to be had partly for our own good deeds or solely as the sovereign gift from God. In this deep consternation the Lord was pleased to break in upon my soul with his bright beams of heavenly light; and in an instant, as it were, removing the veil, and letting the light into a dark place (from Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, chapter 10).

C. Lord Byron, Cain: A Mystery (1821), Act III, scene i.

            1. Byron's most famous creation is the Byronic hero, which is modeled on Cain.  The Byronic hero feels himself to be damned but gives the damna­tion aristocratic airs.  (Isn’t this true of so many “heroic figures” from Samurai warriors to those in Hemingway’s books, such as For Whom the Bell Tolls?

            2. In Byron's play, Cain is a proud hero defying a bloody God. He is also an agnostic who disapproves of the animal sacrifice given by Abel.

Cain's anger leads him to an unpremeditated act, that of murdering his brother. This introduces death into the world. Cain moves on to become the wandering Byronic hero. 

           

            3. The Byronic hero also reappears in the characters of Mr. Rochester in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Heathcliff in Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights and Ahab in Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

Summary:

We have seen the story of Cain pass from its context in Genesis, where both Cain's and God's motives appear obscure, to an Augustinian and a fortiori Calvinist interpretation of Cain as a reprobate, slated by God for worldliness and damnation. Calvin's doctrine of predestination infects much English literature of the 17th and 18th centuries with fears about personal damnation. Lord Byron is the first author to turn Cain into a heroic rebel and outcast, a prototype for the artist-hero in the age of Romanticism.

FOR GREATER UNDERSTANDING

OLAUDAH EQUIANO

Olaudah Equiano was probably born in 1745 in Essaka, a village located in Nigeria. He grew up in a family of considerable influence. At the age of ten

Equiano was kidnapped by slavers and transported to North America. Eventually he was bought and transferred a number of times. In 1757, he

was purchased by British navy lieutenant Michael Henry Pascal, ending up as a servant, powder boy and gunmate in the Royal Navy. On July 11, 1766, Equiano purchased his freedom but continued to serve on a multitude of sea voyages. The adventurer even participated in Constantine Phipp's North

Pole expedition in search of a northeast passage to India. He traveled widely and undertook successful business endeavors. Sometime in late 1774 or early 1775, Equiano experienced an evangelical Christian conversion. A dedicated humanitarian and abolitionist, Equiano published a number of let­ters, book reviews and finally his autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African Written by

Himself, in 1789. Although Equiano died in 1797, his Narrative continued­ and continues-to be published. It is an eloquent testimony to the horrors of slavery, the spirit of freedom, and the courage of faith.

NOAH AND THE FLOOD

The story of Noah is told in Genesis 6-9. God warns Noah, the sole righteous human being, that because of human wickedness he will send a flood to destroy all of creation. He gives Noah specific instruc­tions for building an ark that will preserve the lives of Noah, his family, and pairs of every

kind of animal. Noah builds the ark, collects the animals, and boards along with his family. Rains begin that last for 40 days, killing all creatures not aboard the ark but saving those within. Noah and his family leave the ark and thank God for their salvation. According to Genesis, God

promises never again to destroy living creatures through flood: "And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh" (Genesis 9:15, KJV). He seals this covenant with a rainbow.

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