Jesus' theory of light

Jesus famously said it makes no sense to put a light under a bed. Light must be placed where it can shine. Once you do, everybody entering the house can see it. This is because light is by nature indiscriminate: you can’t make it selectively shine only on certain things.

But then Jesus immediately says something unexpected: “Therefore pay attention to how you hear.”

Huh?

What does how I hear have anything to do with the power of light to illuminate everything? And that’s not the only strange thing Jesus said about light. He also said light can be dark. It all depends, you see, on the eye.

Huh?

How can light be dark? And how can the eye, the receiving rather than the transmitting faculty, make light dark?

None of this is logical. Or … we just might be in the presence of a Higher Intelligence.

It seems that Jesus’ theory of light recognizes that, yes, light can illuminate everything in its path. But the one thing in the universe that can decisively sap the power of light is man and his senses.

The manner in which we hear can re-direct light. The manner in which we see can snuff light out, or even worse, make light “dark.” How can we be so powerful?

The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar suggests that the only way to answer this riddle is by what he calls “aesthetic reason in union with theoretical and practical reason.” Balthasar explains that light as Jesus understands it is not light that simply washes the exterior of a form. Rather, light essentially illuminates from the inside of a form.

Balthasar: “The beautiful is above all a form, and the light does not fall on this form from above and from outside, rather it breaks forth from the form’s interior.”

Now, Jesus also says that he is the light of the world (“I am the light of the world”). Jesus’ theory of light is this: He is light.

And so, Balthasar: “Christ is the redeeming illuminator of the mind and revealer of the Father.”

Illuminator of the mind: Therefore pay attention to how you hear.

Revealer of the Father: Therefore pay attention to how you see.

Balthasar: “In view of the nature of the reality involved, the human beholder can be brought to such a perception only by the grace of God, that is, by a participation in this same depth that makes him proportionate to the wholly new dimension of a form-phenomenon which comprises within itself both God and world.”

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Luke 8.16-18 No one after lighting a lamp covers it with a jar or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away.

Luke 11.34-35 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness.

John 8.12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, "The Light of Faith" in The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, vol 1, Ignatius Press/Crossroads, 1982, 148-154.