God’s questions to Cain offered confession as healing, not entrapment

Evidence

These queries are, of course, rhetorical, even in the biblical story. God certainly knows the answers, and, if we’re honest with ourselves, so do we. I’ve always found it puzzling that God asks these questions of Cain. When I was younger, I thought perhaps God was playing a divine game of “gotcha” with Cain, laying a trap and testing him to see if he would lie. But I think the better interpretation, and one that is relevant for us, is that God is giving Cain the opportunity for confession, for honesty, knowing that this would be the best path for Cain to begin reckoning with the traumatic experience of having killed his own brother, the pain he has unleashed for himself and others, and the consequences that will inevitably come. God’s questions were a compassionate invitation to Cain, giving him an opportunity to avoid the twisting of his personality that this trauma, and the perpetual deception required to cover it up, would inevitably bring. — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long, 666

Categorization

• XREF: Converges with the psychoanalytic premise — Adorno and the Frankfurt School on trauma and compulsive deception — that unconfronted guilt warps personality. — connects to: Reckoning etymologically unites verbal confession and economic justice — Robert P. Jones, White Too Long: The Legacy of White…, 649