In the Middle Ages, proud intellectual philosophers dared to think that they could find the answers to questions about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything while rejecting the prevailing biblical consensus of the time. That period was called the “Enlightenment”.

After several centuries of intellectual effort the result is one of confusion, humiliation, and the recognition of failure. Having abandoned the wisdom of Jesus who declared that he was “the Light of the world”, philosophers who hoped for enlightenment by their own rational powers ended up plunging the world into hopeless darkness; I call this the “endarkenment”.

The truth is that only the Creator of the whole universe who placed on earth human beings made in his image – only he can enlighten our darkness. “God says: It is I who have made you and I alone can teach you what you are” (Pascal). 

The true enlightenment came when God sent into the world his Son, who proclaimed: “I am the light of the world; whoever follows me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life” (John 8.12). What a claim! The Gospels tell us that he was “the true light which enlightens everyone” (John 1.9). Jesus’ light “shines in the darkness” (John 1.5); but Jesus lamented that “people loved the darkness rather than the light”. Why? Jesus tells us: “because their deeds were evil; for everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3.19-20). In other words, Jesus’ light includes moral absolutes; these condemn our sins, and we don’t like that, so we “switch off” the light. That’s why Jesus was rejected and crucified by evil men.

Today, Jesus’ light remains the only ultimate answer to our human predicament, and our refusal to listen to him damns us to remain in our existential darkness.

A powerful passage in the New Testament unveils the deep darkness of our human condition; sadly, we are too proud to envisage its truth. It speaks of all people as “walking in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity” (Ephesians 4.17-19). It takes serious humility to accept such an accurate assessment of our human condition!

Another penetrating and devastating analysis of our human darkness is to be found in the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. It describes how people “became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools… They exchanged the truth about God for a lie… and… did not see fit to acknowledge God”. Such behaviour brings down God’s holy wrath against us sinners, and the passage shows that an element in that righteous judgment is that God abandons sinful people to their “dishonourable passions”; specifically “women exchanging natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise giving up natural relations with women and being consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (v26-27).

In other words, bad thinking leads to bad living. God’s light not only answers our existential questions: it provides moral truth we need, to deliver us from the hellish slippery path of relativistic moral thinking. 

Jesus, however, offers truth and the promise of eternal life.

Clive Every-Clayton