Once again, this is something that probably should have appeared earlier in the series. I was reminded of it by something a priest said in a homily; I decided I had better deal with it before making the transition from more abstract to more mundane issues.
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God said, "Let there be Light!". What, exactly, is light? Wave, particle, electromagnetic resonance? A material token of the glory of the Invisible Light of God? In any case, with light we have the first element of physical Creation; energy and motion, heat and excited particles.
The light we know is gathered into and emanates from lamps hung in what we call Space, reflected occasionally from the mirrors of moons and planetary bodies; but light had priority in Creation over these bodies. I think it was St. Issac of Syria who said, essentially, that the Sun and Moon were created as timepieces to measure the fluctuation of the increments of time, which were already created; Day and Night are more ancient than Sun and Moon.
We always associate light with the Sun, because in our experience the movements of the Sun (in appearance) govern the appearance and disappearance of light. The Sun, obviously, is a component of the material creation, and consequently it has a life-span; there was a time when it was not, and there will come a time when it will "wear out". Consequently, when we think of the beginning of things, we think of darkness; that the Universe was a lightless abyss before the beginning of the World, no matter what kind of theory we have about this beginning. The horror of the emptiness of this abyss hangs over all of modern mankind, giving (or helping to give) a persistent nihilistic cast to our mentality. The imagery of human language always (so far as I know) before modern times associates light with goodness, and darkness with evil; persistent attempts have been made in Art and Literature in recent times to reverse these associations, but it is a failure. In the Nihilism of our civilization we may come to hate light, but we know what it means in the grammar of good and evil.
Nevertheless, as Christians, we know (or should know) that this is not so; "In the beginning, God". Before the Creation, God did not float alone in an abyss mightier than He; He is All in All, the ever-blessed Trinity, a shoreless Ocean of light and love, illimitable, without beginning. The Abyss is not beginningless, or it would be co-eternal with God; rather, the Abyss is the place carved out of His Being by the creating hand of God to give space for other being. The Light of God recedes to give place for lesser lights, the resulting vacuum is the womb of all Worlds. Though in the created Universe light seems such a fleeting interval, poised against the vastness of interstellar Dark, this is but a temporary condition; there was a time when darkness was not.
We always associate light with the Sun, because in our experience the movements of the Sun (in appearance) govern the appearance and disappearance of light. The Sun, obviously, is a component of the material creation, and consequently it has a life-span; there was a time when it was not, and there will come a time when it will "wear out". Consequently, when we think of the beginning of things, we think of darkness; that the Universe was a lightless abyss before the beginning of the World, no matter what kind of theory we have about this beginning. The horror of the emptiness of this abyss hangs over all of modern mankind, giving (or helping to give) a persistent nihilistic cast to our mentality. The imagery of human language always (so far as I know) before modern times associates light with goodness, and darkness with evil; persistent attempts have been made in Art and Literature in recent times to reverse these associations, but it is a failure. In the Nihilism of our civilization we may come to hate light, but we know what it means in the grammar of good and evil.
Nevertheless, as Christians, we know (or should know) that this is not so; "In the beginning, God". Before the Creation, God did not float alone in an abyss mightier than He; He is All in All, the ever-blessed Trinity, a shoreless Ocean of light and love, illimitable, without beginning. The Abyss is not beginningless, or it would be co-eternal with God; rather, the Abyss is the place carved out of His Being by the creating hand of God to give space for other being. The Light of God recedes to give place for lesser lights, the resulting vacuum is the womb of all Worlds. Though in the created Universe light seems such a fleeting interval, poised against the vastness of interstellar Dark, this is but a temporary condition; there was a time when darkness was not.
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