Physical light -- the light from the sun -- is also moral light.
Our scientific way of seeing nature tells us this seems wrong. How can physical light be moral? Light is comprised of particle-waves. Physical matter, even if that matter is the particle-waves of physical light, is simply "brute mass." And it is at our disposal to manipulate for our comfort.
As for morality, it has no connection to brute physicality (we say). Morals have no weight to them; they have no physical dimensions, no girth.
And so we segregate the physical world, answerable to physical laws, from the moral realm, answerable to ... what?
Past cultures did not make this separation. When the medieval person looked up at the sky, he saw the vault of a vast and sublime cathedral designed and built by God.
In Imperial China, Confucianism taught that the moral stability of society depended upon all of its members cultivating social behaviors patterned after nature.
Certainly the Psalmist did not separate physical nature from moral uprightness: "The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork." We read this and we have no doubt that the Psalmist was simply "waxing poetic." What he says (we say) has no "literal meaning"; it is just a word picture.
Indeed it is a word picture. But I am not sure at all that a word picture is all the Psalmist had in mind. When he looked at the heavens, he saw the glory of God. When he looked at the firmament, he saw the handiwork of God.
When we look at the heavens all we see are atoms, particle-waves, brute mass. It is deeply impoverishing, and we don't even know it. We are so advanced.
Jesus says: I am the light of the world.
Aha, we say, now Jesus is waxing poetic. Surely Jesus means something like he can be a moral compass. Surely he did not mean that he is the light -- the physical light -- of the world?!?
Work with me now.
It also says that Jesus is the Word. It also says that all things are held together by this Word. Not just moral things. Not just spiritual things. ALL things -- which means also physical things -- are held together by the Word of his power.
Work with me now:
Jesus says: I am the light of the world ...
Today is a sunny April day. In my part of the world, the rolling fields of farmland glisten and dance in the light of the world as far as the eye can see.
Am I a pantheist? Of course not! Am I a scientist? Well, I know less than one, but I may be more than one.
Logos2Go
Psalm 19.1 The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork.
John 8.19 Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, "I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life."
John 1.1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Hebrews 1.1-3 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power …
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