Genesis 4 and the expulsive power of a new distraction
Very early on the Bible's story, we meet two families - really, two dynasties. One line descends from Cain, the murderer of his brother Abel, and the other from Adam & Eve's third child Seth. This second dynasty is introduced as those who "call upon the name of the LORD" (Gen 4:26), and includes Enoch, a man who particularly "walks with God" and appears to be taken directly to the Lord's presence without dying (Gen 5:24). The first lot includes Lamech, who has multiple wives, and boasts to them of his disproportionate vengeance against anyone who hurts him (Gen 4:23-24).
So a fairly clear line in the sand is drawn between these two families - one is godless, proud and violent; the other godly and devout. We know which one we're meant to side with as readers. And yet there is one puzzling feature in the narrative - namely, that the godless line seems to get an awful lot done.
Cain immediately builds the first communal human habitation outside the Garden, and it's a full-blown city (4:17). Lamech's children were particularly precocious - Jabal appears to invent tent-making and livestock farming (4:20), Jubal creates the first musical instruments (4:21), and Tubal-cain makes tools and weapons from bronze and iron. Later, another godless generation takes a huge leap forward in the craft of building, using bricks and bitumen mortar (11:3).
Meanwhile, the godly line is not really reported as doing anything much. They live, they raise families, they die (or not, in Enoch's case), and yet we don't hear much of their technological achievements. Of course, Noah builds the ark, but he only does that on God's initiative and to God's precise design.
So what lesson, if any, should we draw from this?
Is technology sinful?
One temptation is to see this as conclusive proof that technology is a corrupt, or corrupting, force in the world. I imagine that many people - especially nostalgists like me - subconsciously believe this: that the world would be a much better place if it were technologically simpler. No smartphones to rot our brains, no aeroplanes to pollute our skies, no weapons to cause destruction - wouldn't that be better?
A few observations on this:
1. It is clear that some technological advances are sinfully inimical to human flourishing as God intends it. God has designed his world - and us - to operate within certain boundaries and parameters. Indeed, the creation account in Genesis 1 is largely about separating the world into clearly-demarcated regions and filling them with things that are designed to live within those spaces. A goldfish who designed a catapult to shoot it out of the water so it could live on the sand would be acting in a way both contrary to God's design and its own welfare. Similarly, human inventions can fundamentally work against our design - some obviously, others much more subtly - in order to (as C. S. Lewis put it in The Abolition of Man) "subdue reality to the wishes of men." As Oliver O'Donovan says:
...to enjoy any freedom of spirit, to realise our possibilities for action of any kind, we must cherish nature in this place where we encounter it, we must defer to its immanent laws, and we must plan our activities in cooperation with them... If, by refusing its laws and imposing our freedoms wantonly upon it, we cause it to break down, our freedom breaks down with it.
Oliver O'Donovan, Begotten or Made?, 5
Indeed, Christians might do well to adopt a more thoughtful approach to technological advances than we generally tend to. I'd recommend any Christian smartphone user (which includes me) to read Tony Reinke's 12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, and then seriously contemplate not using one at all. And we might reflect, too, on the caution of our brothers and sisters from an earlier age about immediately jumping on every medical advance which might alleviate our suffering. That does not mean becoming an anti-vaxxer - far from it (I'm certainly looking forward to the coronavirus vaccine if and when it comes). But when the smallpox vaccine was first invented, although John Newton did not say that Christians should not take it, he did say he could not argue with the person who said:
"...admitting... that inoculation might exempt me from some pain and inconvenience, and lessen the apparent danger, might it not likewise, upon that very account, prevent me receiving some of the sweet consolations which I humbly hope my gracious Lord would afford me, if it were his pleasure to call me to a sharp trial? Perhaps the chief design of this trying hour, if it comes, may be to show me more of his wisdom, power, and love than I have ever yet experienced. If I could devise a means to avoid the trouble, I know not how great a loser I may be in point of grace and comfort."
John Newton, Wise Counsel, 112.
2. However, we must not join Jean-Jacques Rousseau in believing that technological advances are the cause of this sinful boundary-crossing - that in order to rediscover our humanity, we must throw off all civilization and revert to a "state of nature." It was in such a state, we recall, that Adam and Eve originally sinned; the cause of our corruption is from within, from our own hearts, not from outside (Mark 7:20-23). If technology is sinful, it is because the humans that design it and use it are sinners.
3. But we must also consider our definition of the word "technology." We tend to use it to refer to particularly advanced technology, perhaps particularly digital or electronic technology, or the most recent advances in our technological prowess. So an iPhone is "technology," but (say) a plough is not. But this is a fine example of what C. S. Lewis called "chronological snobbery." As Douglas Adams put it:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt
But "technology" really means taking something from God's creation and manipulating it so that it can be used for a practical purpose. An iPhone is technology, but so is a plough; so is a spoon, a lightbulb, a bread oven, a ram's horn (when blown through to make a trumpet), a donkey's jawbone (when used to kill Philistines).
When put this way, technology must be part of God's design for Adam and Eve to "fill the earth and subdue it" (Gen 1:28). Indeed, God himself is the first technologist - he manipulates the dust of the earth to become a man, he manipulates the rib of the man to become a women, he manipulates the skins of animals to become clothes for the sinful man and woman, he teaches Noah how to build an ark, his Spirit teaches Bezalel how to be a craftsman (Exodus 31:2-5). Ships and roads meant that Paul could begin to take the gospel abroad; the printing press meant the Bible could be distributed to common people in their own language; hydroelectric dams can power a radio station which can broadcast the gospel to half the planet. Technology is not a bad thing.
4. But in a sinful world, it can never be a wholly good thing either. Sinful people will always sinfully misuse technology - outside of Christ, all our creativity is turned to inventing new ways of doing evil (Rom 1:30). And sinful people will always have sinful reasons to invent technology too. Remember, God manufactured the first clothing only after Adam and Eve had, with their own first technological advance, manipulated the figleaves to become rather poor coverings for their own shame, attempting to hide from God (and not realising that only a sacrifice of blood could do it, as evidenced by the fact that God had to sacrifice the animals to get their skins for the couple).
Let's sum up. Technology is part of God's design and so is not inherently sinful; but every human attempt at it necessarily is - either in the design of it (which might be an attempt to break free of our God-given boundaries) or in the use of it. Almost everything is technology, and Christians necessarily can and must use it - but as with everything, with Biblical caution and thoughtfulness.
But that still leaves us with a question. Why is technological advance presented, in the early chapters of Genesis, as something which the ungodly are particularly good at?
The work of idle hands
The truth is I don't really know. But Blaise Pascal offers a suggestion which might begin to explain it:
I have often said that the sole cause of man's unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room... The only good thing for men therefore is to be diverted from thinking of what they are, either by some occupation which takes their mind off it, or by some novel and agreeable passion which keeps them busy, like gambling, hunting, some absorbing show, in short by what is called diversion.
Blaise Pascal, quoted in Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans, 172.
The sinful man who does not want to admit his sin certainly does not want to think about the God who made him or the fact that he will one day be called to account for it (which he knows from nature, yet suppresses it, as Romans 1 teaches us). So what is to be done? As Peter Kreeft puts it:
We need diversions because in order not to think about one thing, we have to have other things to think about. We cannot simply obey a command like 'Do not think of a blue monkey' - unless we obey the other command to think of a red crocodile.
Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans, 171.
Thomas Chalmers famously argued that in order to grow in godliness, it was not enough to simply try to hate sin instead of loving it. That would simply leave a vacuum:
Such is the grasping tendency of the human heart, that it must have a something to lay hold of — and which, if wrested away without the substitution of another something in its place, would leave a void and a vacancy as painful to the mind, as hunger is to the natural system.
Thomas Chalmers, The Expulsive Power of a New Affection
Rather, we must replace our love of sin with love for Christ - a new affection which would drive out our wretched, self-loving desire for sinful gratification.
Similarly, Pascal is arguing that in order to take our minds off the knowledge of sin - which, if explored thoroughly, would lead us either to utter despair or to the arms of Christ - we need the expulsive power of a new distraction. We need something new, something diverting, something to take our minds off it. I've already written about how that can manifest itself in the desire for new toys; others have written perceptively about how the attention economy competes to keep our eyes off God.
But perhaps even the kind of useful effort which creates (as in Genesis 4) musical instruments, new farming methods and practical craftsmanship can have its root in a desperate attempt to keep our minds occupied. Some technology perhaps only exists because we are radically discontented with our broken world, and so we are desperately trying to claw back some control over it. But perhaps more technology than we realise - even the stuff which seems self-evidently good and useful - only exists because we are radically discontented with ourselves, and we are desperately looking for something to do to take our minds off it.
So what of the godly family of Genesis 5? They surely must have created and used technology of their own. But perhaps they are presented the way they are in order to show that godly contentment is possible. Enoch and Noah were not sinless; they were heirs of "the righteousness that comes from faith" (Hebrews 11:7), even if they lived before the promised Christ who brought about that righteousness (Hebrews 11:39-40). They, like us, had been turned by God to face that which they would sooner deny - the sheer sinfulness of their own wretched hearts. Yet they were then also confronted with something greater than their sin - the unmerited mercy and grace of God, winning for them a settled relationship with their Creator and a future hope they could look forward to with confidence (Hebrews 11:16). And so, perhaps, they did not feel the need to strive for technological prowess - they had no desire to conquer and dominate the world for themselves, and no need to divert their thoughts away from their guilt. Rather, they could rest secure and content, with a clear conscience and the promise of a heavenly reward. They could work hard, provide for their families - and, at the end of the day, stay quietly in their rooms. Before a watching world, they could be a living picture of the contentment and beauty of a life trusting in God and knowing his forgiveness. As the apostle Paul would urge, many centuries later:
Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.
1 Thessalonians 4:11-12 (NIV 1984)