Throughout human history, the concepts of light and darkness have transcended their physical meanings, evolving into powerful metaphors for spiritual truths, moral dichotomies, and the Divine presence. These symbols appear in nearly every religious tradition, philosophy, and mythos, representing the eternal interplay between good and evil, knowledge and ignorance, presence and absence, the seen and the unseen.
In most religious and spiritual traditions, light is intimately associated with the Divine. It symbolizes purity, truth, guidance, and the active presence of God or the sacred. Light reveals what is hidden, brings warmth and life, and dispels fear and confusion.
In Christianity, God is often referred to as light. The Gospel of John opens with: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5). Jesus is called the “Light of the World,” guiding humanity out of sin and into salvation.
In Hinduism, light is celebrated during Diwali, the festival of lights, affirming the victory of light over darkness, knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil.
In Islam, Allah is described as the “Light of the heavens and the earth” (Surah An-Nur 24:35), a verse that symbolizes divine beauty, guidance, and omnipresence.
In Buddhist thought, enlightenment itself—nirvana—is often depicted as a state of radiant awareness, pure and clear, like light breaking through the cloudy mind.
Light in these contexts is not merely physical illumination; it is spiritual awakening, wisdom, and divine love. It is the Divine reaching out to humanity, offering clarity, direction, and hope.
Conversely, darkness in spiritual literature is often associated with ignorance, fear, sin, or divine absence. But darkness is not always evil—it is complex, and often misunderstood.
In the Hebrew Bible, darkness precedes creation: “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep” (Genesis 1:2). Out of this darkness, God spoke light into existence. Darkness here is not evil—it is the raw potential from which creation is born.
Mystical traditions, such as Christian mysticism or Sufism, often speak of the “Divine Darkness” — a realm beyond human comprehension, where God dwells in mystery. In the words of Pseudo-Dionysius, a 6th-century Christian mystic: “The divine darkness is not the absence of light but the blinding excess of it.”
In Eastern philosophies, darkness is sometimes seen as a necessary complement to light. In Taoism, the Tao encompasses both yin (dark, receptive, feminine) and yang (light, active, masculine). Harmony arises not from defeating darkness, but from balancing it.
Thus, darkness can be a symbol of mystery, depth, and even divine transcendence—what lies beyond the grasp of reason or sight. It is the sacred unknown, the womb of transformation, where souls are tested and reborn.
The Interplay: A Sacred Dance
Light and darkness are not enemies—they are partners. Each gives meaning to the other. Without darkness, light would be blinding; without light, darkness would be impenetrable. Their interplay is cosmic and personal:
Spiritually, we move through cycles of light and darkness—moments of clarity and doubt, joy and sorrow, closeness to and distance from the Divine.
Psychologically, we face our own “dark nights of the soul” — periods of inner trial, during which faith is tested and deepened.
Ritually, many spiritual practices involve the use of candles, sunrise prayers, or night vigils—symbolic acts that honor the movement from darkness to light.
Ultimately, the Divine transcends both light and darkness. While these symbols help us understand aspects of the sacred, they are still limited. The Divine is both the light that shines and the dark that conceals, the known and the unknowable, the immanent and the transcendent.
To walk a spiritual path is not merely to seek the light and flee the dark, but to engage with both, to find holiness in illumination and in obscurity. As the Psalmist wrote: “Even the darkness is not dark to You; the night shines like the day, for darkness is as light to You” (Psalm 139:12).
In this sacred dance of light and darkness, we discover not only the Divine—but the full mystery of our own souls.
Light is not a color rather it radiates the absolute being with convenient thoughts and sound logics as various philosophers argue. Even most believe that there is no darkness since it is the absence of light as if darkness was a real being, it could stand beside light. But it is a naked truth that darkness has no essence before light. It is rather the phenomenon of the apparent movement of the sun and the real revolution.
Here it would be counterproductive two sets of ideas: One polarity which is two extreme edge of opposite which is presumably derived from the north and south pole which has equivalent meaning for the Greek Arikitos and Antiarkitos then evolved to proportionate meaning with its opposite on polarity darkness Arctic and Antarrctic while the first one means a pole with beer and the second the opposite as arkitos in Greek means Beer. This is to mean that there is a deep-rooted tradition to live with polarity in chronology and polarity is one of the fundamentals of everyday life though surprisingly light has not proportion meaning with the opposite darkness and vise versa.
Thus as one turns the page of history and myth of the different nation there is a concept of association the entity they love with light and the fear and grievance to darkness.
The Aztecs worshipped the Sun, and feared that it would disappear if they didn’t perform various rituals. Just like many other pre-Columbian civilizations, they also engaged in human sacrifice.
Psalm 84:11 identifies God as a “sun,” clothing him with the metaphor of light, in order to identify God as the source of all good, as one who is himself good, and as one who is in himself good, the first good in the order of goodness. This understanding of Psalm 84:11 fits well with the rest of the verse.
BY LAKACHEW ATINAFU
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 23 MAY 2025
