Illumination and Enlightenment

The theory of illumination has fallen on hard times these days.  Or has it?  Has the light of human reason fully eclipsed the luminosity of God, or might human reason be growing dark while some other lights begins to shine? Might there not be a return of illumination or more sinister variety?

From Illumination to Enlightenment

While there were certainly ancient precursors, Augustine (5th centurty) is a high points for the theory of illumination.  It theory states roughly that all our ideas of the world and God participate in the ideas which God has of them.  Or said differently, everything we know is taught to us by God as He casts His light over the world.  Everything is illumined according to the intelligible light of God. 

This tradition carried on into the Medieval Ages and culminates Saint Bonaventure (13th century) who claims that the light of Christ illumines both the science of faith (theology) and the science of the world (philosophy).  But along with this tradition began to grow another, more dialectical approach, prepared by Anselm (11th century).  Thomas Aquinas, a contemporary of Bonaventure, articulates this approach as a dual light: the light of Christ and the light of human reason.  The second light, while derived from the first, has its own integrity and autonomy.  The light of human reason can illuminate worldly objects all on its own, leading toward an independent science of the world which exists alongside the divine science of God, illuminated in Christ.

Of course, eventually, in the modern Enlightenment (16th century) the light of human reason replaces the divine light altogether, such that philosophers began to dismiss the need for God’s illumination at all.  In this great Enlightenment human reason comes out from under its self-imposed bushel (…I mean prison), and begins shining out as a beacon of hope amidst the Dark Ages.  According to Enlightenment philosophers like Descartes and Kant, the Age of Illumination was really an age of darkness and obscurities.

From Enlightenment back to Illumination

Of course this tale could be told with more detail, but I wonder if with all the talk about being post-Enlightenment and post-modern that perhaps we have entered into a new Age of Illumination, but possibility of a more sinister kind. 

In this hyper-technological and hyper-media age, where our faces are aglow from our smart phones and laptop screens, illumined by our televisions and neon lit billboards, our knowledge is now more and more given, shaped, and determined for us by other minds.  But not the mind of Christ.  But rather the target marketing, fear instilling, product placing, agenda setting minds of corporate executives and political think tanks, illuminating our world with the ominous glow and baleful brightness of global crises, economic meltdowns, and geo-political showdowns. 

But this has all been prepared by critical theory and philosophy which sought to emancipate thought by revealing the historical determinacy of thought and meaning.  Yet, with the dissolution of the Enlightenment project, the theory of illumination has come back, in a negative manner after the death of God: for Marx it is False Consciousness; for Freud it is the Super Ego; for Lacan it is the Big Other, or Symbolic Order; for Foucault it is the Knowledge/Power nexus; for Althusser it is the State Apparatus.  These hermeneutics of suspicion took the theory of illumination based in transcendence and recast it as an immanent illumination of knowledge production, socio-economically based and cultural-linguistically conditioned. 

And I would say that much so called postmodern and/or postmetaphysical theology often succumbs to this immanent illumination such that all talk about God actually become the darkness of vain human speech, conditioned and produced according to language and culture. 

“This little light of mine…”

Perhaps, then, the work of contemporary theology (and practice) may therefore be very similar to that which Aquinas accomplished, albeit in the opposite direction.  He sought to incorporate the independence of the human light into the reigning theory of divine illumination.  We, on the other hand, must incorporate the independence of divine light into the reigning theory of historicized human illumination.  Whereas Enlightenment philosophers sought freedom from theology’s illuminationist doctrines, today’s theologians must seek freedom from philosophy’s enlightenmental constrictions, which have redoubled into its own theory of illumination. 

Perhaps the goal then is to reunite “this little light of mine” which shines forth from historically determined and linguistically conditioned reason with the divine revelation of God’s illumination, trans-historical and trans-linguistic.

Perhaps the goal of contemporary theology is to again be able to sing, and sing confidently:

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;
All praise we would render; O help us to see
’Tis only the splendor of light hideth Thee!

Comments

[Jim Geiger]

Human beings have always used light as a metaphor for philosophical and spiritual enlightenment. Most of the ancient tribes attached spiritual meaning to the sun, moon, and stars, and some even worshiped the sun, etc. Plato, one of the originators of Western thought, associated the sun with the ultimate good, and most of the great world religions attach spiritual significance to the phenomenon of light. In the Hebrew tradition, light has been associated with deity; God created light, was clothed in light, and was manifested in his “skekinah” glory. In the Christian tradition, Jesus identified himself as “the light of the world,” and people are identified either as children of light or children of darkness.

As “Illumination and Enlightenment” points out, the modern era tried to accommodate both the “light of Christ and the light of human reason,” but under the auspices of the Enlightenment, “the light of human reason replaces the divine light altogether.” However, instead of thinking back to Aquinas, perhaps we should look forward to what physics continues to reveal about God’s creation.

As I have written elsewhere, we now have a better understanding of the scientific nature of light. I would suggest, therefore, that we should re-focus our attention on what Jesus meant when he said, “I am the light of the world.” When we stop to consider the fact that the free space velocity of light is constant, that it is independent of both source and observers, and that the speed of light is even used to measure time, we should realize that “light” is more than mere illumination. Perhaps the old light metaphor should be extended to include not only intellectual or spiritual enlightenment but also the nature of light, itself. In the context of this expanded new metaphor, Jesus Christ, as mediator between heaven and earth, becomes the “constant Christ” – who is the nexus between the uniformity of the temporal world and divine nonuniformity – just as the constant speed of light in E=mc2 provides a nexus between uniform motion and nonuniform motion.(www.sezwho.org)

[Geoff Holsclaw]

Jim, thanks for your contribution. that is quite interesting. You have practiced what I preach... uniting both the literary aspect ("I am the Light of the world") which ought to be investigated according to the religious/philosophical/social texts in which it is embedded as well as investigated literally as part of the world in which we live, move, and have our being.

If we adopted the method you are laying out, it seems that then we would be arriving back at a theory of illumination (of both a physical and metaphysical variety). Am I reading that right?

[Jim Geiger]

Thanks for the note, Geoff. The short answer to your question is yes! The extended response, however, is that if you characterize the method as “arriving back at a ‘theory of illumination,’ ’’ then you may be selling yourself short.

Your initial post reveals that you have broken out of the pack, and re-incorporated “the independence of divine light” into philosophical/theological inquiry. However, holding onto the old metaphor of “illumination” in that way suggests that you may not be completely free from philosophy’s “enlightenment constrictions.” It may also limit God’s revelation to the objective mode where “the light shines down on creation,” as in Paul’s Damascus Road experience and/or the subjective mode where “the light is down in my heart.”

Utilizing the constant “c” in E=mc2 as the constant Christ signals the expansion of the analysis to the relativity mode which also features a “moving frame of reference” and a “uniformity/nonuniformity” duality. The moving frame acknowledges the chaos of the present age, and the uniformity/nonuniformity duality provides a classification model that imposes linguistic order on the chaos and disorder that exists all around us. (It is noted that the uniformity/nonuniformity model, i.e., self/other, self/Eternal Other, male/female, black/white, etc., is both neutral and inclusive.) The constant Christ then superimposes constant value on all creation much the way the constant speed of light in E=mc2 is superimposed on the theory of relativity. All of this is lost if we are just talking about illumination.

[Sue]

All theologians operate from the fragmented point of view perspective of Humpty Dumptys broken shell.

And as we all know all the kings horses and all the kings men(that is the theologians)can never ever put Humpty back together again.

In fact despite and contrary to all their babblings they (the theologians) are all thoroughly commited to keeping intact their own tower(s) of babel/babble.

You cant get (there) to Divine Illunination from here, by any method whatsoever.

[Silent Sam]

Great thoughts - I do think that maybe the idea of kneeling to allow divine light to cast off illusions and give clarity is compelling. I agree with Geoff - it seems inadequate though to a person making bold claims like "Christ is the light of the world" and to only consider that light to be a supplement to our baseline of reason. Through Christ we can do all things, and if the Lord doesn't build then we labor in vain.

Your theory though is very appealing to a person who believes that unaided reason will allow us to being to grasp at truth. It seems that postmodern thoughts often are honest in this sort of appealing way.

However, Aquinas' theory was less friendly - acknowledging that divine aid was essential to grasp some truths. Aquinas' theory seems to me to be a biblical one, although less interesting in the sense that confessional rants are when we admit that we see many things by our own reason that have made us cynical.

I appreciate the effort of wording the new philosophical task in a way that it could be inclusive to someone not so sure about divine "light", but I think that this modern corollary to our directive of using reason "in light of" God's truth is ultimately fallacious.

[Scared to say, People throw stones.]

Your conversation interests me, but I do not have the Education to join in or understand all your terms used or the maths.

I wonder if you would even consider the words of a idiot worth reading?

There are many ways to read what was said.
Many great tools used to refine what was said.
Many clever ways tried to understand what was meant by the words used.

Maybe we have got lost in all the complication.

Can I invite you to play a nonsense game?

the light of the world

The light of the world is Sunlight, It comes from the Sun. Which some cultures regard as the Father of life because it gives warmth, light and nurtures growth of food and illuminates the dark unknown, so we may see and enables education of the Mind to what is truely there and in doing so drives away fear caused by not knowing the truth.

But Sunlight is Energy

Infact everything is made up of different states of Energy. Energy is in everthing, living or dead. (Do Atoms have energy?)

like some people say their God, is everywhere.

Is Energy the hair on the beard of God that so many looked for?

I known I am a ignorent fool.