Light (Uncreated Light)
- 5 hours ago
- 3 min read
“…when we speak of God as light, for He is not that created light we take as a given in our everyday lives. The light we know casts a certain illumination – but God is the One who creates all lights. Every created light comes into existence out of nothing, for “God said, ‘Let there be light: and there was light’” (Gn 1:3). The light of God, however, is uncreated. This light is not made of photons visible to our physical eyes. God is separate from and entirely other than His creation, including every form and type of created light. In Himself, from His divinity, and apart from all created lights, God is Light uncreated…God guides us toward divine light, for it is His light that guides us toward Christ, the Light.” (Dynamis 1/9/2019, 5/14/2020)
“The chasm between uncreated and created is fundamental to understanding God vis-à-vis His world. Our theological reflection should begin with the fact that He is entirely other, surpassing any human cognition…the uncreated light of God is itself beyond physical and noetic perception, entirely transcendent but “made present only by divine grace in the rational natures that have been purified.” In other words, no creature possesses an innate ability to apprehend God, either with the physical senses or the mind; only God can deign to reveal Himself to His servants, when and as He sees fit.” (Fr. Joseph Lucas)
“The goal of the Christian life is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit”–not its mere reception. The Holy Spirit is given freely to all, but can we hold on to the Spirit? Since Pentecost, the Uncreated Light of God is shed abroad in the world without limit, but our eyes are not prepared to see it.” (St. Seraphim of Sarov, Timothy G. Patitsas)
“This is why God is light: so that He can be seen. Thus the phrase, “He was seen by them for forty days,” means that during a perfect interval of time, Christ revealed Himself to the most powerful, most gripping, of human senses, thereby providing us with the most compelling and permanent experience of God…The most profound thing is that we have to first experience the darkness of this world before we begin to realize Christ has already filled all things with Himself. Christ makes everything in creation as a way for us to see Christ and His Kingdom. We first see things as they are in the world (dark) and then realize that now in Christ, He can shine through all the darkness. In the Church, nothing can blind us to God, nothing in the world can hide our Creator.” (Dr. Mary S. Ford, Fr. Ted Bobosh)
“God's essence and His energies are pre-eternal and uncreated. God’s essence, that is His essential nature, is inaccessible and unknowable to us, and therefore will always remain a mystery. The distinction between God's essence and His energies guarantees God's ultimate unknowability whilst simultaneously giving us the possibility to achieve intimate and personal communion with Him through His energies, for these are accessible to us…To see God means to know Him in the Scriptures, in prayer, in the sacraments, in love for our neighbor, and in the beauty of Creation, through which uncreated grace is given to us. Having experienced God through grace here in time, we will experience the perfect fullness of the graceful knowledge of God in eternal life. The fulfillment of the promise begins in the Church militant on earth and reaches its fullness in the Church triumphant in Heaven—in the Kingdom of God.” (Archimandrite George, Priest Tarasiy Borozenets)
Comments