WORSHIP AS KENOSIS - Part - I Power and the concept of Sin

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secret is hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your Holy Name; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.  

From the Book of Common Prayer of The Episcopal Church, USA.



People worship.  Perhaps not everyone, but a number of us still  do.  I believe there was a time in early  human history where most everyone worshipped some form of divinity as an essential function of life on this planet.  At that time the world of humans was largely orientated to theism.  Gods and goddesses ruled every aspect of life and nature and we humans from monarch to slave were dependent on their favor and subject to their wrath.

Worship was a way of ameliorating their favor by a demonstration of sacrifice, an offering up life to preserve life.  This could be a symbolic act or an actual taking of a life, animal or human, as a means to secure divine  favor and protection.  Worship in this sense was done as an appeal to power or a means to acquire power.

This history is clearly evident in the Hebrew Scriptures of Abrahamic monotheism, but the Hebrew narrative changes the perspective of worship from appealing to and acquiring power to divesting ourselves of it, giving it back to God.

This was the intuitive insight that the prophets of Israel brought to bear on theism - God doesn't want sacrifices. God wants us as true, contrite creatures who acknowledge the unbreakable strength of God's tenderness. So worship evolved in Abrahamic monotheism from acts designed to appeal and acquire power to its divestiture and acts of faith.

POWER AND SIN

Let me be clear from the onset of this discussion there is nothing intrinsically wrong with power (the appeal to, the acquisition of, or its use), the instinct to survive, or the desire to succeed.   It's how they are applied, that becomes problematic.

THE MISUSE OF POWER

The mythos of the misuse of power is likely found in every culture and theistic religion.  It is the root cause of every conceivable ill.  What I find interesting is that in the mythic stories  I'm familiar with, power is not specifically mentioned but its misuse is evident.

In Abrahamic monotheism, the misuse of power in human hands  is termed sin; therefore, we need a working definition of power. Power is simply defined in any dictionary as the ability or a capacity to do or influence something.  Having this in mind, let's examine its mythic origins as described in the Hebrew scriptures.

Once again we turn to the Book of Genesis.  Power is first defined as a creative imagination or, to be succinct, God's creative imaging of what exists.  Chaos is turned into Cosmos by God merely calling it into order.  Humans are specifically made in the image of God and brought to life - empowered - by instilling God's ability to be creative, to name the creatures God made, to have the power to choose, to have control.

I have no idea what the writers of Genesis originally  had in mind when writing this story, but I am impressed by its artistic simplicity which allows it to be examined and applied in any number of ways.  As such, permit me to indulge in sharing my thoughts on one way it can be applied.

After making the first human, Adam, God places him in the Garden of Eden. Into this mythic paradise God also places two trees, the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. There is an intuition that the writers of Genesis bring into this story by the introduction of these two trees.  They resonate, on a certain level, with what I have described in earlier posts as the instinctual drive to live and the intellectual desire to succeed.  What becomes interesting is that God forbids Adam from eating from the Tree of Knowledge.  God tells him if he eats it, he will die. This all occurs before Eve arrives on the scene.

Why God only forbids the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is a bit of a mystery.  

Why not the Tree of Life also?

I believe the answer lies in God instilling in humans the capacity for choice in the form of desire.  In Paradise there is no need for the drive to live, so God introduces the human mind to desire by granting humans the power to chose; in essence, to chose between life or death.  The choice is very subtle because death comes wrapped in a pretty package with benefits - life - not so much.

It appears that God is conducting an experiment to see where human desire, as a creative force, will lead.  God does not forbid eating the fruit of the Tree of Life.  He doesn't bring it to Adam's attention. If Adam was aware of it, it doesn't appear to have interested him.  In fact, Adam doesn't bite one way or the other.

God perceives something lacking in Adam. He lacks the capacity for desire. He simply does what he's told - no questions. He doesn't act much better the animals he names.  This incompleteness is described as loneliness; as in, lacking personal initiative or a drive to live creatively.

So God creates a partner from the very being of Adam. In essence, God draws Adam out of himself as another, who will eventually become recognized as a separate entity, Eve.  But from the beginning they see each other as part of the same being. This often gets lost in the telling of the story, but it essential to hold on to this

I would suggest that the characters in this primal myth present general human characteristics.  In Adam and Eve we encounter the Masculine and Feminine Principles which play a role in all of our lives. (Click here for a further explanation). It's not about gender, but rather about perceptual tendencies. In the character of the Serpent we encounter the subtle force of intellect, the reasoning mind which engages desire that is associated with the feminine principle.

I find it interesting and rather intuitive on the part of the writers of Genesis to portray the reasoning mind as a reptile. Serpents in many ancient cultures are a symbol of wisdom and knowledge.  I see it, in my modern application of this story, as a transference between the reptilian drive to survive and the intellectual desire to succeed.

Everything Eve knows of God is through Adam. Adam and Eve are literally one  person in two bodies.  Until Eve's encounter with the Serpent, there is no sense of personal power.  It is the Serpent who presents the questioning mind with a thought, "What if....?"  In fact, the Serpent lures Eve to the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil with a question, "Did God say you shouldn't eat of any fruit from a tree?"  Eve corrects the Serpent and says there is only one, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; that if they do they will die.  Adam happens to be tagging along during all of this and says nothing - subtle clue to the masculine and feminine principles at play in this story.

The Serpent questions God's warning, "Surely God wouldn't let you die. The fact is you'll become like God, knowing good and evil." If this were a literal story, the concept of death would have had no meaning, since there was no experience of it.  The Serpent plays off this and invents the lie, which is best served with a side of truth. The truth being they will know good and evil.

Being a myth, the writers employ some license in telling this story. First Eve sees that the fruit is good to eat and looks pleasant to the eye, she also desires to become wise and takes a bite and then offers it to Adam and he eats it.  It is only when both eat that their eyes are opened.  This is the first time that power by a human was exercised independent of God and it was an attempt to usurp the power of God by acquiring the knowledge God possessed, which bring us to concept of sin.

THE CONCEPT OF SIN

There are several standardized definitions of sin, most of which I find useless as they generally tend towards defining it as some sort of offense to God.

In essence, the true nature of God cannot be offended.

What is offended is our sense of God as we are prone to lose sight of our dependence on the tender strength of God. Losing sight of God gives us the perception that we can, in some way, offend God because that is the feeling we have when we become aware of what happens to us in our attempts to go it alone, when we attempt to live by our own power and strength and lose sight of God.  We feel that whatever bad happens as a result is either because God turns away or is angry.  Such feelings are merely a projection of our own unbearable feelings projected on God. The reality is we cannot wrap our minds around the concept of God without anthropomorphizing God as having our same feelings.

The basic concept behind sin is getting or doing somethings wrong or, in the parlance of Greek and Hebrew archery terminology, missing the mark.   In keeping with my discussion on theism and the divestiture of power, I would like to suggest that sin, in essence, is the abuse or misuse of power in human hands.

The writers of Genesis brilliantly bring this into focus at the very beginning of their telling of the human story.  The story of Adam and Eve and the story of Cain and Abel are a set that are best read as one continuous narrative as sin is defined first as a desire and then as an act. The saying "knowledge is power" becomes operational in the serpent's temptation of Eve.

At first its all good until she gives it to Adam and he eats and their "eyes were opened." There is a subtle significance in the fact that this story makes knowledge operable only when both eat.  As reality is a consensus of perception, so too is knowledge.  Seeing is knowing and what they see is the unbearable burden of seeing and knowing they are different from each other and ultimately from God.  

They hide/cover their differences so they can look at each other and then try hiding from God. There are many types of death, and the separation they experienced was one.  They also know that they will physically die, the perennial human angst we all have to live with.

Sin in this case, is committed in the act of desire for what will cause them harm.  We are led to believe that the sin is trying to be like God, but the evidence is contrary to that notion, since we already are made in the image of God.  The sin is in the harm they brought upon themselves in ignoring the harm they will do to themselves and which is immediately expressed in the destruction of their unified existence with themselves and with God.  They immediately suffer the consequences of their action.

According to this myth, death is not the result of sin.  Death is a result of knowing good and evil - knowing death.  Suffering is the result of sin.   Adam must toil with the sweat of his brow.  Eve will suffer the pain of childbirth and the desire for Adam, the lost oneness they once shared.

The expulsion from paradise is to ensure that their suffering will not be eternal by eating the fruit of the Tree of life.  This can be easily missed as the writers tell the story in a way that can lead one to believe that God felt threatened by the fact that they knew good and evil like God and might become eternal like God.

It's possible to interpret the story that way, but I think it misses the point. Adam and Eve are in a state of suffering the moment they know.  Death is an end to that suffering as God tells Adam that he will toil until he returns to the dust he was made from

The desire and use of power becomes sinful when we use it to harm, to get our own way at the expense of others, to dominate and destroy the other for the aggrandizement of self, in trying to be something we are not - a God unto ourselves. This applies to individuals and nations alike, which brings us to Cain.

Since I have talked about Cain in my last two posts, I won't retell his story here.  The story of Cain killing his brother, Abel, starts with Cain  seeing a difference in how God reacts to Abel's sacrifice rather than his. His jealousy becomes a desire to get back at God by getting rid of Abel.  The story makes a point of God speaking to Cain in order to warn him that his desire will lead him to do evil, which Cain does.

The desire and use of power to do harm and for personal aggrandizement is the basis of sin.  Genesis will carry this through to describe it in global and national terms as seen in the stories of The Flood and The Tower of Babel.

In the story of The Flood humans see no need for God and mingle with the sons of God, which I understand as a reference to the mythological gods of other religions.  The result are demigods, legendary people of great power and might.  I see this as a nod by the writers of Genesis to the other religions that existed at the time it was being written, but what the writers depict as most offensive to God was "that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."  Genesis 6:5

In the story of The Tower of Babel, human hubris literally reaches a pinnacle in a metaphorical attempt to become god-like by making a name for themselves.  They are all one people with a shared perspective and a shared imagination to which God responds, "Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and one nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do."  Genesis 11:6

What the writers of Genesis point out is that sin is a matter of the heart, the seat of imagination from which evil can be enacted.  The King James version captures this by the use of the word imagination, the power to create as opposed to the more literal translation of inclination and purpose respectively.

So sin is rooted in the desire and use of power to do harm in the form of personal aggrandizement whether self is meant as a single person, as a nation or as a species. Genesis does not stop there.  Genesis takes a leap forward to the story of Abraham.  With Abraham, the Genesis narrative changes from myth to mystic legend.

GOD'S CHOICE OF AN AVERGE JOE TO RESET CREATION

Throughout the mythic portion of Genesis, God is shown as trying to reset the trajectory of human history on a restorative path.  I would suggest that story of Cain and The Flood are both depictions of God trying to restore the trajectory of human history.  He tests Cain who fails to heed God's warning much like his parents. In the Flood, God virtually wipes out all of life save two of each kind of animal and Noah and his family. This too doesn't end well with the construction of the Tower of Babel.  So the writers of Genesis depict God as taking a different approach in resetting the trajectory of human history, by making a personal choice in choosing Abraham.

God chooses Abraham and Abraham chooses God as his personal, familial God.  What is interesting about God's choosing Abraham is that there is not much interesting about Abram, as he was first known. Abram truly is an average Joe type.

What Abraham possesses, however, is great capacity for faith.  Abraham and Sarah become God's reset.  God is no longer interested in seeing whether humans can reset themselves by recreating themselves.  It's not about a quick fix, but rather a personal journey on the part of God with God's creation through a chosen people beginning with Abraham.

There are so many layers to these stories that I could spend several posts on each one, so I rely on the reader to have some knowledge of Abraham's story and the promise of God to make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the heavens.  Of course, Sarah, his wife, gives birth to only Isaac.   In turn, God tells Abraham to offer Isaac as a burnt sacrifice to God.  There is no reason given why God demands this of Abraham.  The importance of this story is in the fact that Abraham never questions God's command as a knowing, reasoning person.  And we know Abraham is capable of great reasoning in his compassionate defense of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The story goes out of its way to point out that God knows how much Abraham loves Isaac and still makes this demand.  When Abraham arrives at the appointed destination, he places wood on a makeshift altar, binds Isaac and places him on the altar and just as Abraham is about to plunge his knife into Isaac, an angel stops him and reveals that God knows that he fears God above all else.

Isaac is spared and a ram is sacrificed in Isaac's place.  What matters to God is not the act, but the condition of the heart behind the acts.  Abraham's silence in this account is telling.  He relinquished all sense of personal power in the face of God's devastating mandate. He does not question even though he is capable.  Unlike Adam he does not act blindly, but knowingly.  In Abraham knowledge is sanctified.  We can know beyond good and evil. We can know aright. We can know to act from faith, from the heart rather than the head.  Abraham's faith is the first step in the right direction towards a fuller redemption as he empties himself of all sense of self, his very heart, that is embodied in his son, Isaac.

I believe Christian teaching gets this Hebrew story wrong.  Most Christians see the angel stopping Abraham from sacrificing Isaac because God will send Jesus to be the sacrifice for sins of the world.  The point of the Isaac story is that God does not want any physical sacrifice. Period.

This journey into my musings on the foundation of power and the concept of sin in the Book of  Genesis is to set the stage for a discussion on the topic of worship as kenosis and it's importance today.  The topic of worship as sacrifice is graphically displayed in the stories of Cain and Abraham, both of which present the notion that true worship is not a matter of acts, but rather a matter of the heart rather than the head.  The writers of Genesis place the topic of worship and the trajectory of human history under the microscope of God's chosen people, for us to examine the intimate working relationship with all of creation.  Worship evolves in this working relationship as a divestment of power, which I define as kenosis - the emptying of self as a reset for people on this side of life to enact God's loving power in our midst and in our time as acts of faith to heal the wounds and the suffering that we have inflicted and do inflict on ourselves as individuals and as species.


Until next time, stay faithful.

CAIN AND KENOSIS

  Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.

                                                                                            Genesis 4:26b



In my last post, I began a discussion on theism as a divestiture of power.  In this post, I am going to rely on my experience as a Christian, but I think what I say  will on some level apply to other theisms.  

Let me begin with the Christian concept of kenosis and then backtrack to where I left off on the Cain story. Kenosis is the emptying of oneself, of submitting one's will to God as an act of faith.  It is most often associated with Jesus emptying himself of his divine nature to be one with us.  I will get back to that theology, but for now I want to go back to the earlier origin of kenosis as found in the story of Cain. 

CAIN

Admittedly, few would associate the story of Cain with the concept of  kenosis.  Here was a man so full of himself that he could not get the beyond the perceived slight God gave when God favored Abel's sacrifice over his.  That he killed Abel as an act of revenge on God was unforgivable.  Yet, God not only forgave Cain, he also marked him as protected.  Although Cain paid a price from the earth not giving of its produce, he would become the mythical founder of civilization and the forebearer of offspring who would become the founders of art and industry.  

How could such a jealous, vengeful person as Cain end up so favored by God?  

This is the question the writers of Genesis want us to explore.  They don't give us much to go on, but I suspect that was done with intent.  Genesis is one of the most complex books of the Holy Bible and is probably my favorite book because it is so rich in questions that beg exploration.  

The first four chapters of Genesis have deep psychological and spiritual implications about human nature and it's relationship to the concept of the divine.  The story of Cain ends this initial discourse on the inability of humans to cope with our own sense of knowing, our own sense of power over the other.  Adam and Eve sought to be what God is and bit off more than they could chew.  Cain showed the depths of depravity that human could sink to over something that did not directly effect Him, apart from his belief that God's favoring Abel's sacrifice was meant to insult him. 

In both cases God goes lightly on these three humans.  Yes, there were consequences, but they lived through them to see many more days.  The story of Cain  and Abel is presented in the context of acts of worship, in the form of sacrifice.  Why they were sacrificing or offering God the fruits of their labor is not known.  Were they thank offerings?  Were they being offered to ensure God's blessing?  


As a side note to Genesis, the stories in Genesis present a consistent theme of the younger brother being favored over the eldest.   God is depicted favoring the younger brother in order to give us pause on what we think is just. Often it is the younger brother that seems to be least deserving, like the deceptive Jacob and the arrogant Joseph. Abel's sacrifice is favored  by God.  As a result, his older brother, Cain, goes into vengeful rage.

Abel trusted Cain. He had no idea that Cain was jealous to the point of wanting him dead.   
Cain deserved to die and Cain knew it.  When God asks Cain where his brother is and Cain responds by asking God if he is his brother's keeper, Cain realizes that he should have been.  There is a deep psychological dialogue going on in Cain's mind.  God is in the details of our minds, we cannot rid ourselves of God's inner voice. We can try to reason it away, try to ignore it, or try to tune or drown it out, but it's there. Call it conscience or consciousness, but that voice which knows what we don't want said is always there at some level.

Cain suffers from extreme guilt and fear.   In his inner conversation with God, Cain tells God he cannot bear the guilt, and he fears that God will no longer look upon him; that others will seek to kill him.  In essence, Cain spills his guts to God, empties himself to God, and loses all sense of pretense.  He submits to God's will and he is spared. 

In the Hebrew  scriptures, kenosis is expressed as contrition, as heartfelt remorse for failing to do what is right, an admission of one's own weakness, a handing over control and power to God who alone can manage it, a submission to the will of God. This is what Cain does and as the Hebrews scriptures affirm time and time again, God does not despise the contrite heart.  In fact, the Hebrew scriptures goes so far to say God does not desire sacrifice, the context in which the Cain and Abel story is set.  Is the graphic point of this particular story that it was not the sacrifice that God sought, but rather the expressed need Cain had of God?

There is a sense of irony and paradox in the story of Cain much like the story of Adam and Eve.  They parallel each other on several levels.  Their storylines are similar.  God sets the stage for a challenge.  In Adam and Eve's case it is putting the tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden.  In Cain and Abel's case it is God's favoring Abel's offering over Cain's.  In Adam and Eve's case God warns them not eat of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge.  In Cain's case, God encourages Cain to resist his urge for vengeance and warms him of the evil that is seeking him out.  In both cases they fail the challenge. In both cases, they try to avoid their sense of guilt.  In both cases, they experience an expulsion of sorts that leads them to remorse and contrition whereupon God forgives them.  

What these stories tell us is that we are powerless against our own desires when left to ourselves.  We are prone to impulsive behavior and decisions based on feeling rather than reason, which allows one's selfish interests to become dominant rather than acting from a true self interest based on the needs of others.

What these stories reveal is the perception that God is merciful and forgiving; that this awareness is somehow connected to the act of one emptying self of one's failures, real and perceived as an act of contrition, a divestment of personal power. Although the story of Cain does not make a direct link between God's show of mercy towards Cain and people calling upon the name of the Lord, that the story ends with birth of Seth (Abel's replacement) implies a connection.

This interesting obscure verse at the beginning of the Hebrew narrative is easy to pass by without much notice or thought. I suggest that the writers of Genesis are making a subtle commentary on the nature of worship.  Consider the story of Cain and Abel. If sacrifice was not worship, what was it?  The concept of worship is suddenly turned upside down.  Sacrifice was done to appease or appeal to power.  Here at the end of Cain's story people call - talk to God - rather than sending smoke signals.  Here at the beginning of the Hebrew narrative (and at the end of Cain's story) is the point that God does not want appeal or appeasement in the form of symbolic sacrifice, but rather the sacrifice that comes through contrition, through the personal divestment of power, through the emptying of self, through kenosis.

KENOSIS


Kenosis is a Greek term that simply means emptying is mostly applied in Christian theology to Jesus as the Christ of God.  As a teaching about Jesus as the Christ, it maintains that the Christ of God, the Son of God came to earth divesting himself of his divine nature - power to become one with humanity.  This top/down theology was promoted in one of Paul's letter, the Letter to the Philippians as follows:

 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
⁶ Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
⁷ But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
⁸ And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
⁹ Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
¹⁰ That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
¹¹ And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2: 5-11 (King James Version) 

As is true with the ending of the Cain's story being overlooked,  so it is the beginning of this narrative in Verse 5, that is easily overlooked:  "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."  Perhaps it is that Paul goes a bit overboard in his adulation of Jesus as the Christ that throws one off a bit, but Paul recognizes the  essential motive at work in monotheistic worship, that true worship begins with emptying oneself of self.  In principal, it is the divestiture of one's own sense of power and will or, in other words, turning over the instinctual drive to survive and intellectual desire to succeed to the power and will of God that defines true worship.  

The main mechanism of worship is prayer -  Calling on the name of the Lord - talking directly to God - letting it all out, the good, the bad, the ugly and putting it in God's hands as an act of faith without expectation.  This is easier said than done, but it is what Paul is getting at in his hymn of praise to Christ. 

Paul's recognition of kenosis is tied to his understanding of contrition when he says, "Let this mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus."   The word, contrition is not found in the New Testament, but the concept is woven into the teachings of Jesus.  I would say that in Jesus's teachings contrition morphs into a sincere heart that seeks to do God's will more than an unloading of one's guilt and sense of failure. 

For Paul  kenosis is the ultimate act of letting go and letting God.  Johannine theology, on the other hand,  tends to sidestep the issue of contrition when it comes to Jesus.  In John, kenosis occurs at the moment of Jesus's death - when the time is right.  The synoptic gospels, however, strongly hint at Jesus's ongoing acts of contrition throughout his ministry, beginning with his baptism and culminating in his death on the cross. Throughout his ministry Jesus pours himself out to let the power of God, the word of God, come through.  

It is in the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane that synoptic gospels of Matthew and Luke depict Jesus emptying himself of the instinct to survive and the desire to succeed comes into full play when he prays, "If it is your will let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours."  The sacrifice of Jesus begins here with a broken and contrite heart.  It is completely counterintuitive to what we Christians imagine as necessary in Jesus's case, but it is played out throughout his ministry from his act of submission in baptism through this act of submission before his crucifixion.  

In the synoptic gospels, Jesus is in a constant state of emptying himself of personal power.  He is depicted as being in a constant state of dependent worship.  It is his engagement in becoming powerless that renders him so powerful or that exposes the life-giving power of God that is expressed in the story of his resurrection.   This is what Paul is hinting at when he says that his power is perfected in his weakness. (2Cor.12:9).

From taking one's life over a sacrifice as an act vengeance to the act of giving one's life as a sacrifice of love, God is depicted as restoring life to those who pour out their lives, who turn over their drive and desire for power to God.


Until next time, stay faithful.

THEISM AND THE DIVESTITURE OF POWER

                   Give unto the Lord, O ye mighty,
                             give unto the Lord glory and strength.

                                                                               Psalm 29:1

Having ventured into realm of secular religion for the past several posts, I return to theistic religion and will focus on its importance to human existence.   As I have repeatedly said in these posts, religion is about power; the appeal to power and the acquisition and use of power.  


Theism arose from both experience and intuition; experiences with forces greater than mankind and intuitions related to cause and effect.  The ultimate ontological question, "Why are we here?" demanded an answer that humanity has yet to obtain a definitive answer to, but that question ultimately gave rise to a sense of power beyond the reach of human possession.

JUSTICE

Apart from the modern theism of atheism, ancient theisms developed a sense of cosmic or divine justice; that there was a power beyond the grasp of human possession which could only be appealed to and upon which life was dependent.  Humans understand power, use it, but cannot effectively control it without running the risk of killing off our own species.  That risk remains, and today, we have the means to do it more efficiently than ever. 


Instinct may have led homo sapiens to survive in prehistoric times, but with the emergence of the reasoning mind, instinct could be overridden by desire, greed, and a lust for dominance.  Human history is full of sordid tales that exemplify this.   As humans began to dominate their environment, survival as a species became less of a concern; turning the instinctual drive to survive into an intellectual desire to succeed.  Nevertheless, there remains the reptilian mind beneath the intellectual mind of humans. The urge to dominate one's environment as survival has become an urge to eat one's own in order to succeed.  


To curb the instinctual drive and intellectual desire that often proved fatal to our own kind, a sense of justice emerged early in human social development that was theistic in nature.   What prevented us from killing ourselves off long ago is a fundamental knowing that we need others in order to survive and succeed.  Along with that knowing, there emerged a sense of justice aimed at limiting the drive to survive and the desire to succeed at all costs. 

At a primal level, justice could be defined as a trade off for actions deemed unreasonable.  The basic question, then, became whether an action against an other was necessary to survive or succeed.  This remains the fundamental basis for justice in the modern world.

Compensation in the form of retributive punishment has been the mainstay of administering justice throughout human history.   The notion of a life for a life, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth was an early example of limited retribution - the idea that no more than what was lost should be taken from that which caused the loss.  As barbaric as this may sound today, this most likely represents a giant leap in the administration of justice from a human perspective.

The fact is justice, like any form of power over the other, can become excessive, as Lord Acton famously said, "Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely."  Justice can be manipulated by human desire, greed, and lust as demonstrated throughout our history.  As theism evolved, justice emerged as a central tenant.   This evolution is particularly observable in the Hebrew Scriptures.

THE STORY OF CAIN



Divine power and justice are evident at the very beginning of the Hebrew scriptures.  The Book of Genesis is one of the most carefully written pieces of theistic literature and begins by depicting an advanced understanding of justice and power that belies its title.

Genesis is a book that calls us to reason deeply through its use of myth and legend. According to Genesis, the human adventure begins with an appeal to acquire power, to become like God, knowing good and evil (to use power as divine justice).  The difficulty is that this knowing destabilized Adam's and Eve's use of it.  They immediately feel judged by their act and are expelled from the Garden of Eden.  Pure or true knowledge bears a weight that no one can fully bear.  The lightness of paradise, the lightness of just being, is lost to them and their actions force them into the world that is other, the world of "What is."

This powerful mythic story is revealing about human nature on so many levels, but what follows is a story that I would draw attention to as setting the stage for the divestiture of human power. The story of Cain and Abel represents a turning point in the concept of power and divine justice.
What is important to note is that the justice employed in this story is far advanced than the "eye for an eye" justice that is found four books later in the Book of Deuteronomy 19:21.


The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 is mythic; in that, it conveys a truth that requires an illustration to grasp.  The premise of the story is that Adam and Eve have two sons, Cain and Abel.  The youngest, Abel, is a keeper of the flock and the eldest, Cain, is a worker of the soil and tends the fields.  They are both offering sacrifices to God.


Abel offers the firstborn of his flock and Cain offers some of the fruits of his labor.  God looks with favor on Abel's offering, but didn't on Cain's. One could say that Cain's sacrifice did not match the level of Abel's; that Cain held back, but I think that misses the point of the story, entirely. The point is, I believe, that God is testing Cain to see if he can resist evil, which Cain fails with disastrous results.

Cain is overcome with jealousy but cannot get even with God. So he opts to get revenge on what God favors. God, knowing this, warns Cain that evil is trailing him.  Nevertheless, Cain kills Abel for being favored by God.  This is no simple murder.  It is fratricide as act of vengeance against God.  What could be more deserving of death than that?

But God doesn't kill Cain. 

Instead, Cain is confronted by God about Abel.  God asks Cain, "Where is your brother?"  Cain plays dumb and says he doesn't know and goes on to question God with the infamous line, "Am I my brother's keeper?"

God points out that Abel's blood cried out to God and the earth that soaked it up will refuse to give Cain its produce and he will be a wanderer in the land.  The guilt, remorse, and fear - the knowledge Cain has is more than he can bear and he tells God others will seek him out and kill him for what he did.  God tells Cain that he would be marked so that no one would kill him and should any one kill him that person would suffer vengeance seven times worse.

The story concludes with Cain having children and establishing a city.  From his lineage are those who create musical instruments and tools and weapon made of iron. This is not the outcome one would expect in a human world; in a world of retributive justice.  The chapter ends with Seth being born to Adam and Eve, as a replacement to Able, and then the writers of Genesis make the curious statement that at that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.  I will expand on this curiosity in my next post.

What Genesis establishes from the start is humans are prone to acquire power and use it, but cannot control it; that in our hands it is subject to our desires, greed, jealousy, and lust.  We are prone to acts of injustice rather than justice because of our limited vision and our inability to fully know.  It is God who demonstrates a tempered justice, who sees value where we see none, a knowing justice that proceeds from care and love.  What is established from the start of the Hebrew narrative is a journey into restorative justice, a forgiving justice that redeems and builds up rather than tears down.

This, of course, is not always exemplified in the Hebrew scriptures, but restorative justice undergirds the entire narrative found in Abrahamic monotheism.   What these scriptures stress is that humans lose sight of our own frailty, our proclivity to abuse power when we fail to call upon the name of the Lord. This calling on the Lord (worship) is a recognition that power and justice can only rightly administered in the loving hands of a merciful God.

Until next time, stay faithful.