Ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men, yet they cannot fathom the work that God has done from beginning to end. BSB
At the end of Genesis chapter four, we see that people were beginning to call on (“worship” in some translations) the Lord. Seth is continuing with an acceptable worship in the manner initiated by Abel while the Cain descendants are going down a more worldly path. That is, Seth’s family is following God while the Cain side is indicative of a world that has gone awry.
There is an innate human desire for a relationship with God which should not be surprising as back in Genesis 2 we see life beginning with both a physical and spiritual element. Death separates these two as the body returns to earth while the spiritual component continues to have an existence. Ultimately, there will be a time where the spirit will take on a new and imperishable body. What Adam and Eve experienced after eating the fruit was a spiritual death rather than a physical death. (Spiritual death is the separation of people from a right relationship with God).
French mathematician, philosopher and Catholic writer Blaise Pascal (also known for Pascal’s Wager) laid out the concept of what we call “the God shaped hole” in his book Pensees.
“What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself” (148/428).
Augustine touches on this desire for a relationship with God in his Confessions:
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.
A Biblical example can be seen in Acts 17 regarding Paul’s trip to Athens. The first thing he notes upon arrival is that it is a city filled with idols. These are not an unreligious people but they are trying to fill that God shaped hole with things they have elevated to a god-like status. (Not unlike what we see today in our world). At Mars Hill, he sees an altar to “the unknown god” and attempts to use that to correct their ignorance and fill that hole with the knowledge of Jesus. Unlike later stops of Paul on his missionary journeys, this particular one wasn’t particularly successful as for the most part, the Athenians were more interested in simply hearing something “new”.
Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, He made him in His own likeness. 2 Male and female He created them, and He blessed them. And in the day they were created, He called them “man.” BSB
The word translated as “generations” (“descendants in some translations) in Genesis 5:1 signifies a shift in the narrative as we are about to encounter a new set of stories. God has a purpose and intends to to achieve these objectives through humans – some will respond and some will not. The shift is to describe the generations of Adam starting with a recap of creation at Genesis 5:1. With the exception of Enoch in verses 21 through 24, all of these descendants died.