Genesis 4:7
Genesis 4:3-7
So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the LORD of the fruit of the ground. Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the LORD had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard. So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell. Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it.”
One Calvinist explains: “God had a purpose in letting it happen.”
Permission, though, doesn’t work with exhaustive determination. Logically, according to Determinism, God doesn’t simply let anything happen, but rather, everything is secretly scripted.
Question: If there is no Free Will, or at least, Free Will to “do well,” as God puts it, then what exactly is God saying to Cain? How can Cain “master” what is beyond his depraved capabilities?
Answer: According to Calvinism, God couldn’t infallibly know what Cain’s next thought would be, unless God scripted what Cain’s next thought would be, and therefore, logically speaking, God would have to have scripted Cain’s anger and gloom, and then tells him that he must “master” what God does not give him the thoughts to master, but instead, gives him the exact opposite thoughts, which are the thoughts of murderous desire, otherwise, according to Calvinism, if God had not scripted such thoughts, He couldn’t infallibly know whether “sin is crouching at the door.” Arminians do not believe that God must cause something in order to know it.
Arminians believe that God knows the infinite future, without causing it, and hence, Arminians are not subject to the same difficulties as Calvinism. Calvinism teaches that God cannot infallibly know the future without causing it, all of it, whereas Arminianism teaches that God can know it without causing any of it, just as any person can know the past, without having caused the past.
God loved Abel and did not decree or ordain his murder by Cain. God accused Cain alone of that murder: “He [the LORD] said, ‘What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to Me from the ground.’” (Genesis 4:10) When God kills, He admits it, as in the flood, Sodom and upon Gomorrah, Lot’s wife and Judah’s firstborn son Er. Genesis 38:6-7 states: “Now Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD took his life.” Cain alone chose to kill Abel, and since God did not will it, He punished Cain for that murder. God does use whatever He deems necessary to judge, and always admits it when He does. God never said His will was being accomplished with the murder of Abel. But according to Calvinism, everything, even the most vile and evil, is according to God’s Secret Will, and hence, the escape route of divine permission is excluded from Calvinistic Determinism.
Here God tells the unregenerate rebel Cain, that he could potentially choose the right thing. His doing what was right, would be based on his choice, which fact, shows clearly in God presenting dual options to Cain. God describes the behaviors and the consequences, and places the responsibility for producing these, on Cain, rather than on any alleged, preordained decisions for Cain. God tells Cain could, even must, go down a path that would lead to his being accepted with God, even though he did not, at any point, venture down that path (the path that was at one point available to him.) All men likewise have the option to venture down this path, from a choice of two potential paths, exemplified here in the first man to ever be born on earth. God tells Cain that sin has a desire to master him. Desires are the motivating power behind choices, so Cain must choose to act against the desire of sin with his choice. By this choice, Cain would master sin, and would have had he chosen to be faithful to do what God had told him to do. Cain could have taken the “limited sovereignty” that he received from God and used it correctly, thereby gaining more, but he did not, with the result that he lost what little that he did have. Here we see God speaking to an unregenerate man, with the intention that this man understand what God wants for him, and to be able to make a real choice based upon this, that is, a choice that would lead to his being accepted by God. Nowhere in this early account of man’s descent into the deep levels of sin, do we see any indication that God preordained Abel to salvation, and preordained Cain to damnation. Rather, we see a more complex picture of God’s sovereignty, who sovereignly provides the means for each individual party to choose their destiny, out of a potential of two distinct options. Here we see God’s sovereignty and man’s free will in existence, simultaneously; they are not mutually exclusive. Cain received a divine mandate: master sin. By his obedience to this, he would be accepted by God. But having instead disobeyed, he refused the destiny that God had in store for him, and willed for him. All men in hell are such as this. God has made a way for them all to avoid it, but they have willfully rejected this path. That is how much God values our existence as autonomous agents.
Where God leads, God enables. God identified Cain’s problem and told him what he needed to do. I’m surprised that Cain took for granted, what any of us would otherwise consider as the single greatest moment of our lives: God audibly speaking to us from Heaven. It happened to Saul of Tarsus and it totally changed his life. But for Cain, he apparently took it for granted. Cain could have easily admitted to God, exactly what he was experiencing inside, and asked God for help, to “master” whatever it is that he needed to master, but he failed to ask.
