The Essence of Light, Part 1

The physical phenomenon of light is not as well understood as one might think. To come anywhere close to understanding it, one must delve into considerable mathematical complexities, a wide variety of experimental evidence, and the results of creatively-formed thought experiments. The challenge of such depth of study brings to my mind an even greater challenge: understanding the spiritual concept of light in the Bible.

Each area of study in physics has known times of mystery. In the Bible, light is supremely mysterious! It was the first thing that God completed and called good. Coming first, in the Bible, is a sign of importance. In this series of posts on the essence of light, I will attempt to describe some of what is known about the physics and the spiritual meanings of light.

The study of light begins with its very inception. Physicists have studied the early universe more and more intensively as particle colliders and other experimental apparati have developed and improved. As for the Bible, the first four verses are a weighty starting point. They have been studied for thousands of years. Here are those verses (from the New American Standard Bible):

”In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, ‘Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness.”

Let’s consider some of the meanings of the Hebrew in those verses: 

• The Hebrew word for “created” used is bara. That word only refers to creation by God. Only God can bara.
• The Hebrew word for “darkness” used, choshek, implies disorder.
• The Hebrew word for “light” used, owr, means light itself in this context, not light from a heavenly body. (Light from heavenly bodies was not created until Genesis 1:14-19.) In my interpretation, light did not shine until the fourth day of Creation. God created the physical concepts and the spiritual existence of light in Genesis 1:3, not shining light. 
• The Hebrew word for “saw” used, ra’ah, could more accurately be translated “perceived.”
• The Hebrew word for “separated” used, badal, could accurately be translated “distinguished,” which would make sense because the concepts of light (physical and spiritual) had been created but light was not shining yet.
• The Hebrew word for “good” used, towb, has roughly the same scope of meaning as the word “good” in the English language.  

One can use those definitions to glean information on the physics of light. The following alternate “translation” is not meant to be taken as any more than an attempt to learn about light — far be it from me to add to or take away words from the Bible!! 

”In the beginning, God alone created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness and disorder were over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God alone caused the physics of light and the spiritual realities of light to exist, saying, ‘Let there be light itself’ and there were the physics of light and the spiritual realities of light. And God perceived that light itself was good, and God distinguished light itself — the laws of physics of light and the goodness of light — from darkness and disorder.”

There you have it, my cautiously-formed version (not a fully formed, edited translation) of Genesis 1:1-4. These are some of the conclusions that I draw from it about Creation and the physics of light:

• The laws of physics, including those of light, did not always exist.
• Humans cannot create laws of physics. Only God can create those laws.
• In and of themselves, humans cannot add to God’s creation of the building blocks of the universe.
• Light itself (not the light from heavenly bodies) was the first creation to be finished — a completely formed concept and a spiritual reality.
• God spoke the laws of physics into existence, rather than there having been a physical cause. Laws of physics did not pre-date God’s speaking.

I will write more about the physics of light in another part in this series of posts; other Bible verses in addition to these, as well as scientific findings, will weigh in on the topic. The next post will focus on the spiritual meanings of light.