You Are the Light of the World
...ng highways devoid of ‘rest stops’ which provide renewal and perspective. This rule of self perpetuation, called the modern identity, is governed by conflicts over instrumentalist attitudes. Taylor writes, “But a study of the modern identity ought to make one dissatisfied with all these positions. It is not that the basic moral standards of modernity, concerning rights, justice, benevolence, depend on his exploration; they depend rather on goods to which we don’t have access through personal sensitivity.” Humanity is and has been on a quest for the light throughout history. That very light, which is sought for so fervently has alluded most of humanity. Identity needs something with which it can identify and resonate, which goes beyond self. Like a moth drawn to a ‘bug zapper’, which only will destroy the moth, we Westerners have been drawn to the ‘bug zapper’ of empty self, effacing obliteration of emptiness. We are in desperate need of authentic light. Modernity is a search for light that is constant, fulfilling, benevolent and understandable, a ‘light’ that has eluded much of Western civilization. We search for some reason to get out of bed each day; some purpose for tolerating the stress and abuse society inflicts upon us. Modern epiphanies have proven to be only shadows of enduring identity. “For if we ‘resonate’ with the epiphany we can accept it without sacrificing autonomy, yet the precise status of epiphanies remains unclear,” writes Dr. Greenway. “Thus the modern epiphany is realized through extreme subjectivity, for it abondons all appeal to being...Once the notion of being was abandoned, once the focus turned not to what was revealed in a turn inward but to the very capacity to turn, moderns realized that ‘a turn inward,’ to experience and subjectivity, didn’t mean a turn to a self to be articulated.” Authentic light casts shadows and numerous ‘wanna-be’ idealogies are found in those shadows searching for light away from the light; seeking authenticity farther and farther away until it becomes dark. Authenticity requires objectivity in a land of subjective, inward inauthenticity. So what is the point? The point is that the allusive ‘light of the world’ is still being sought. Modern identity is still in crisis for the very reason that it has not found the light. Where is the light? When we find light will it be authentic? If it is authentic, how will we know? Light: History and Relevance The statement, “You are the light of the world,” is elusive. Light is not easy to nail down. Often what seemed to be light was only darkness in disguise. That is to say, subjective light is not light at all. If light is self-serving then it is darkness that only appears to be light. The theme of this paper, ‘You are the light of the world’, was in the beginning such an exciting, rather simplistic theme. In retrospect, the only part of the project that was simplistic is the way the theme was perceived by this candidate. Search for light has consumed all civilizations, nations and peoples. Assyrians, Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks and Modern Western Civilization are no exceptions. Seeking the light is conditioned by historical articulation, yet the modern search for Taylor’s goods and hypergoods is not concerned by historical reflection. “...our acceptance of any hypergood is connected in a complex way with our being moved by it.” ‘Authentic light,’ which Taylor would call a hypergood is driven by the engine of Taylor’s constitutive goods. A constitutive good is “...a something the love of which empowers us to do and be good.” Constitutive Goods is that engine pulling or pushing us toward the good. Light for Plato could be found in the logos. “For Plato the rational order of the universe, the logos behind the sensible flux, was really there to be seen. Since the logos lies not merely behind the universe, but behind or within ourselves, our ability to recognize the logos behind appearances is explained in terms of mimesis, we recognize (i.e., remember) the Real and Good because it already lies within, the logos flows within and without.” “There are, then, no evil selves, only selves ignorant (i.e., forgetful) of the Real and Good. Thus there are no evil wills, for there is no possibility one might see good but will evil.” Athanasius wrote about God as light and radiance, “In order to express our thought in language, it is necessary to make use of an unsatisfactory image taken from tangible and familiar objects; for it is rash to pry into the incomprehensible nature [of God.] Athanasius and Augustine believed the ontic logos of light was reflected by the statement of the Apostle John, “God is light,” and this becomes a symbolic statement about God. This is similiar to Ricoeur’s concept of symbol. “Beings of light” was possible for Athanasus, because the ‘true’ light was God. “The roots of this Athanasian doctrine lay in the Platonic notion that human life was an imitation(mimesis) of the divine life” If the Logos of God is present throughout the universe the illumination of that Logos would illuminate all things. The Logos illuminated everything, visible and invisible. “The darkness of sin had fallen over the world; and the minds of men, once illuminated by the knowledge of God, had beenobscured by ignorance and doubt.” “Augustine’s God is not only the cause of things being but the cause of our knowing them. God illuminates truths as the sun illuminates visible things.” This search for True light has been the quest of humanity. Pagan religions have always worshipped light. Jewish and Christian readers of the Bible have always recognized this paralled between Jewish/Christian and pagan worship. Martin Luther wrote, “Babylonians worshipped God under the title of light, which is the best figure or representation of the Divine Majesty; the Holy Scriptures themselves called God, “light.” Christendom has affirmed these concepts of the ontic logos of “God as Light,” throughout history. That light is then reflected in the ‘children of light’ who follow the Christ of God. This ‘light’ is the Christian correlation to Taylor’s hypergoods, which is a higher kind of goods defined by qualitative distinctions. That is to say, light to Christendom is the ultimate hypergood, in that it is the ‘plumb line’ for all other goods, because ‘authentic light’ comes only from God. Disciples of Jesus are called ‘children of light’. Jesus referred to his disciples as ‘the light of the world’. John reports that Jesus said that he was the light of the world. What appears to be a contradiction is not one at all. The moon provides light for the earth during the night. The sun provides light during the day. The actual source of light for both the sun and the moon is the sun. The moon only reflects the sun’s light. So it is with God and humanity. God, for Christendom, is light and the source of light for God’s people who reflect the light of God. Light as a subject of poetry and prose is excelled in use by only a few metaphors. A quick glance at the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations reveals that eye, friend, love and life compete for prominence, with the metaphor of light, in the literary world. Light presupposes shades of gray and black. Darkness cannot be divided into its constituent parts. This existential reality has a history and releveance of its own. Light can be divided into hues and types. Scientists have never discovered constitutencies of darkness. Dark then is an absence of light. Light can always obliterate the darkness, but darkness, ontologically, cannot obliterate light. Light must remove itself if darkness is going to be hegonomous. Darkness serves numerous purposes. Darkness serves many species of animal and plant life. For instance, if a poinsetta is going to grow and bloom it must have darkness. Poinsettas will not mature and bloom without darkness. Consider that many humans are gainfully employed, because of darkness. Examples of gainful employment are power companies, electric sign makers, criminals and even law enforcement. Problem is that darkness has been impuned by the Greeks, Hebrews, Christians, Muslems, and other peoples. Hades is designated as the realm of darkness; Some Greeks depicted darkness as the realm of the dead and other such designations. The enlightenment found its own darknesses in the pursuit of atomism and inwardness, resulting in a dead end street absent of street lights or buildings that produce light. But, darkness properly used in benefit of plant, animal and humanity is good. Darkness is necessary to provide vegetation and plants with better maturation. Without darkness light could not be appreciated. Humans find respite and rest in darkness; refreshment for activity in the light. Isaiah quotes God, “I formed the light and created the darkness.” What God made, in the Judeo/Christian viewpoint is good. Therefore, darkness is good. We continue with an investigation of, “What is authentic light?” In the philosophical and theological realms there is little room for the affirmation of darkness. What then can be said about authentic light, with so many different leaders, nations, civilizations, philosophers, theologians. What happens when people say they are light when their views, politics and aspirations are opposed to each other? Where is authentic light? Language and light: How do we get at authentic light? “You are the light of the world” requires, what Ricoeur states as, a guess (if my professors could have been a bit more definate about the origin of the topic of this paper; things would have been much more managable). What Ricoeur calls guessing, Schleiermacher called the ‘divinatory.’ What Ricoeur called methods for validating the guess, Shcleiermacher referred to as the ‘grammatical’. “The transition from guessing to explaining is secured by an investigation of the specific object of guessing.” If there are no rules for making good guesses there are methods for validating the guesses we do make, through investigation of the text, signature, relevant culture etc. Ricoeur says we must guess and validate the text. To construe the meaning of the text is to make a guess. The key to guessing is the grammatical. One can read the Romans text and divine meaning by grammar, but still never get the complete meaning or the final word. A primary problem lies in the distanciation of the text. That is to say, distanciation creates historical, and therefore, psychological hurdles to jump. Reformers believed the barriers of distanciation did not create a wide gap. Schleiermacher and Ricoeur feel the gap is enormous. Recent scholarship has appropriated the need for cultural and anthropological sources to enhance interpretation. “Suppose I listened very carefully to everything you say. I could then catalog your speech patterns and relate them to various contexts of your life. I could come to know the patterns you use to tell a joke, to threaten your friends and acquaintances, to flatter your parents, to cajole a person of the opposite sex, to pray to your God or your friends of the I.R.S., to greet a teacher or equal. Cultural anthropology and social science are passed on through the medium of speech and writing. It is at this point that the phenomological meaning requires the fusion of horizons. To understand what it means to be the ‘light of the world’, Gadamer contends that the world horizon of the reader must be fused with the world horizon of the writer. This becomes an event in history when truth, form and person meet. To understand what the text means becomes a game with a set of rules and this requires a risk on the part of the reader. The danger is in misunderstanding the text and to avoid misreading the text the reader must be willing to unlearn what she already knows. One must be ready to break the bounds of one’s own frameworks, because every event has it’s own frameworks. Dr. Greenway, in his lecture of January 14, 1998, said language is ordered to the world; language creates the world in which we live and that thinking requires words, grammar, logic and risk. An example might be that the cosmos exists without language, but we can only experience the cosmos by means of language. Understanding what ‘authentic light’ is requires beginning at the point of where the horizons of the writer and reader intersect. These horizons must meet. Locutionary acts insist on illocutionary acts. That is to say, the illocutionary act is that which distinguishes a promise from a commmand, wish, assertion, affirmation, question or warning. “Your are the light of the world” is locutionary. It is an affirmation of what people should be as opposed to being something else to the world. The effect, perlocutionary act, implies the yield of the illocutionary. Agreement is expected in this locutionary assertion, which becomes interlocutionary in that the hearer, or reader is invited to agree or at least question the assertion. Because the language of light transcends time the dialectic of event and meaning is, at the same time, temporal and virtual. “You are the light of the world” also extends to readers outside the event to give meaning to readers outside of the locutionary act. Distanciation between the locutionary act goes through a writer then on to generations of readers. Appropriating what it means to be light calls into accout the cognitive factor of incorporating the surplus of meaning found in the metaphor of ‘light.’ Existential appropriation of being light is enhanced by explanation and understanding. Misunderstanding is unavoidable in that the meaning of light will be appropriated differently by readers. And this is where Ricoeur’s guess enters. Text is accepted as a part of the whole and as individual text. This results in being able to view the meaning of light from divergent viewpoints. To get at what it means to be ‘the light of the world’ means we must see the text as a representation of reality and not a reproduction of that reality of being light.. Ricoeur sees this problem with the written word as having, “...severed it’s tie with the feeling, effort and dynamism of thought...This is why the authentic creators such as Socrates and Jesus have left no writings...” Ricoeur likens a text to a painting rather than a photograph in that it represents rather than reproduces. “You are the light of the world,’ represents rather than reproduces, exactly. The purpose of ‘being light to the world’, phenomenologically and existentially, means something because it has a definite effect on the present. An original utterance or text can legitimately mean more than the signator or author meant. Discourse has a determining effect on the present, even though it was spoken or written to a different audience. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world,” to his disciples with the reference being to the disciples and to all who claim to be his disciples in the future. Once this utterance of Jesus was preserved in written form, that written form became the medium by which the utterance was projected into the future. Texts use language as the medium of expression. This text is not meant for the disciples alone, but for all people that read and appropriate the text of Jesus. This is in opposition to postmodern thought which argues that the text offers unlimited meanings and that it is the responsibility of the reader to appropriate the meaning by exposing the ambiguities and inconsistencies to open up those limitless possibilities. Therefore, being ‘light’ does not exist ‘for us’; ‘being light’ exists only in our vaired appropriations of what ‘being light’ might mean to the individual. Sense is a distinction Ricoeur uses to mean the function of a word, phrase, sentence within the text to explain the ‘aboutness’ of the text. That sense, then is referred and that reference is the reality to a particular situtation. Reference then is the ‘about what’ of the discourse. “You are the light of the world” is about illimination. ‘About what’ is the reference to the disciples as the ones reflecting the illumination. At the time of writing meaning becomes the dominant voice and event becomes secondary, because the event cannot be rescued, while meaning can, to some extent, be rescued. Meaning cannot be inscribed by the author. Only thought can be inscribed by the author, but that does not diminish the meaning. “You are the light of the world” gives purpose and meaning to self because it can be explained and understood. Explained and understood in the sense that meaning can be recovered for the reader(s). Recovering the meaning of the text dissemination is a necessary part of the meaning. Regardless of how objective the reader may be, meaning of the text ‘bleeds’ in attempts to understand. That is to say, the totality of meaning is not pinpointed to the ‘nth’ degree because there is no possibility of the ‘face-to-face’ event being reproduced. Being ‘light’ will be understood by different readers in different degrees. To one reader light may mean evangelism; to another it may mean tithing; to another it may mean attending worship; and so on. Peramiters and borders are always collapsing as being ‘light’ means something different to the reade...