On Lighting a Match to Illuminate the Sun

All knowledge is conformity to an object. What is the object to which philosophy conforms? For Berdyaev, it "must commune with the primal source of life, and from this draw its perceptual experience." Er, that's a little evasive -- poetic even. Could you say more? "Knowledge is initiation into the mysteries of being, into the miracle-plays of life." C'mon. You can do better than that.

"It is light which blazes out from being and within being as well." That's better. Bi-directional primordial Light: philosophy sheds light on Light, making it an exercise -- or verticalisthenic -- in Light².

This would explain how we may "touch" God -- or rather, vice versa. I was just talking with the Gagboy the other evening about how it takes some nine minutes for the sun to touch us. Likewise, when you gaze at a star, you are being touched by an event that occurred before you were born.

Elsewhere Berdyaev writes that "Knowledge is the sunlight which causes being to develop. Knowledge is creative development, the growth of being in the sun." And since Berdyaev died in 1948, I'm benefitting from his light, which has been traveling since before I was born.

The primordial (upper case) Light alluded to above is God's "energy," so to perceive it is to perceive God, regardless of whether one is consciously aware of the fact. The ancients imagined it was the other way around -- that a beam of light streamed from the eye to its object. But this error didn't prevent them from seeing.

Or at least for that reason. As described in the prologue to John, there are times the light shines in the darkness, but the dorks can't see it. Can't or won't?

He goes on to tell of a man who "was not that Light," but rather, came "to bear witness of that Light." This is the very same Light "which gives light to every man who comes into the world." I don't know about your translation, but my copy respects the Light/light distinction made above, implying that light comes from Light.

So, was Jesus a philosopher? Yes, in the sense that he threw light on Light. But more than that, John appears to be saying he is philosophy as such -- the Word -- which would make him more like Light². If this is the case, then perhaps it might be said that the God/man distinction in him is (or manifests as) the Light/light distinction. Every man has immanent or horizontal light. But what he really needs is transcendent and vertical Light.

Berdyaev puts forth the controversial idea that freedom is prior to being. In fact, this is what makes him a "Christian existentialist," because this radical freedom is the same as the primordial nothingness of a Sartre. For Sartre, man is free, and freedom is nothing, in that it is completely unspecified. Thus, the same condition that makes us free condemns us to nothingness. Freedom is the gift that keeps taking.

Sartre, of course, was a halfwit. But more to the point, he was only half-lit, in that he eliminated -- or deluminated -- the Light. If one does that, one is left with only a tiny fleshlight to try to illuminate the upper vertical, which cannot be done.

In the same hot tub conversation with my son, I talked about how, if one points a flashlight into the dark, it illuminates everything within the beam, but also creates a boundary, beyond which is a black nothing. Not only that, but it can bleach out the subtle light from distant stars.

Doesn't this describe atheism? That is, it is an attempt to illuminate reality with light only. Furthermore, like old Prometheus, atheists are playing with stolen fire.

In any event, to adhere to the immanent light only is to be Prometheus Bound. Which is why scientism is "incapable of proving the very fact of science, the very possibility of man's knowing, for the very posing of the question takes us beyond the limits of science" -- or beyond the immanent boundaries of their little fleshlights.

But in real knowledge -- or knowledge of reality -- "freedom is conjoined with the Logos." And "the Logos is from God, while freedom is from the abyss.... In knowledge, freedom is enlightened by the Logos," the latter of which is also connected to Love.

Thus, "Knowledge completely separate from love is transformed into the will to power, and in this is a demonic element," "just as everything becomes demonic without freedom" (Berdyaev). As such, the Knowledge of which Berdyaev speaks shines in the dark, but the dimlits of the left don't see it.

I met myself in a dream / And I just wanna tell you, everything was alright / Hey now, baby, I'm beginning to see the light....

Here comes two of you / Which one will you chose?

There are problems in these times / But, ooh, none of them are mine / Oh, baby, I'm beginning to see the light...