Before we had class discussion today, I simply thought the God curse upon Cain because of his sin. I did not notice the deep meaning of why he punish him. Why he treated him differently than his brother, why he made Cain angry seems like on purpose. Why he let the first human being became a murder?
God may be want to tell us we are murders, we are born with sins, which can explain why he put darkness first, then comes light, comes good. If there is only darkness or only sins exist, the whole world is going to corrupt and that’s why God divided light from the darkness.
I like what professor said: God wants the people choose the good, not naturally be good, because we are unable to do that. I think that is exactly what the significance of the curse God puts upon Cain. To let us understand that we are not born with good, we are full of sins, but we can change it to the good.
Its ironic how even though Cain killed his brother and cursed to till the land, he still became the creator of civilization and was even protected by God’s seal. As human’s were supposed to be created in the image of God, we were given the ability of free will. However, as being the first created people, Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel were not really instructed on what was proper etiquette, law, or even punishment. In a way, I interpretted Genesis to be God’s own test for itself using humans. If one were to have no prior knowledge of what is right or wrong, would every human be able to live a blissful life? God gave Cain a second chance for reasons that can be interpretted in ways such as hoping that an image of himself would be able to learn from his mistakes and spread this meaning on or can even be interpretted as God’s own self pity of understanding why Cain performed his action. Understanding his influence as an omnipotent powerful being, after the flood, God made the covenent to not intefere with the world in order to protect our freedom of thought and actions. By restarting the world with a basic guideline, God wanted humans to naturally be benevolent and good on their own accord. Unfortunately history has shown that with all the slavery, oppression, rape and genocide humans have committed, we did’nt do so well. However, ignoring the fact that we have nuclear weapons pointed every where that can blow up the whole world, we live in a time of better moral understanding, opportunities and education that is working towards the spread of liberty world wide.
I wasn’t in class that day but that’s a very interesting point. God is giving us the option of whether we want to change and become good. I never though about that; God, doesn’t force humanity to be good but he gives us the floor and make that decision. We are inclined to violence and sins but it’s whether we want to change that about ourselves.
Cain’s punishment also interested me for various reasons. I expected God to just kill him off but that’s not what he did. Instead he punished him by making him continue living his life. This brings up an interesting question which is “why did God choose to do that”? Which brings up the idea of sin and the idea of choosing to be good. God wants his followers to learn that your sins won’t be easily forgiven or forgotten. God also wants us to learn that we are born with sin and it is our choice to continue sinning or be “good”, which you mentioned in your journal.