Blinded by the Light

As Manfred Mann’s Earth Band once sang in their 1976 hit, we are often “blinded by the light.” Though the relationship between light and darkness is frequently believed to be a dichotomy, like good and evil or open and closed, the nature of dark and light is far more complex than most realize and may have painful–and blinding–consequences. In Dark Night of the Soul, St. John of the Cross addresses the light of God as it appears to man. God’s radiance and light, as St. John explains, is both confusing and afflicting to man, yet His light is the ultimate good.

The first issue man experiences with God’s light along the soul’s contemplative journey is confusion. St. John’s Dark Night of the Soul is fundamentally about man’s soul as it goes through the purging of its impurities to align man’s will with God’s; the Diving light is the mechanism through which the soul is purged. While the soul is experiencing the guidance of Divine light, St. John refers to the process as a dark night for two reasons, the first of which is the “Divine Wisdom, which transcends the talent of the soul,” is “darkness to it” (47). At first appearance, St. John’s statement appears contradictory–how could perfect light appear as darkness? He goes on to explain that “the clearer and more manifest are Divine things in themselves, the darker and more hidden are they to the soul naturally,” and his explanation indicates that the reason the light of God’s presence is darkness to humans is the confusion men experience towards that which exceeds their soul’s natural, more basic, understanding (St. John 47-48). Further demonstrating man’s sensual weakness compared to the perfection of God, St. John uses a metaphor regarding physical light to the eyes. St. John describes that the “more directly we look at the sun, the greater is the darkness which it causes in our visual faculty, overcoming it and overwhelming it through its own weakness” (48). Just as human vision sees darkness upon gazing at bright lights like the sun, the eyes of the soul are so inferior to God that they perceive His light as darkness the closer to Him they gaze. Like Dante was blinded by John as he neared the presence of God in Empyrean or Paul was blinded by God’s light on the road to Damascus, men, who are separated from God through their sin legacy, can not fathom the unfiltered light of God (Paradise 25.138, Acts 22:10-11). The purging process St. John reveals as the chief purpose of the soul’s dark night, is the earthly cleansing that helps align the soul with God. In the soul’s journey, it is purified as it nears the Light. The soul can never be wholly purified on the sinful earth, but the dark night allows the soul to move closer to God and see clearly that the darkness it dwells in is not an absence of light but an inability to recognize it.

Man also only sees darkness in the light because of the affliction the darkness brings. St. John says that the soul of man is filled with such “vileness and impurity” that the lightness is “painful and afflictive to it” and thus appears as darkness (47). The soul begins the journey into the dark night so sinful and far removed from God that the correcting nature of light hurts as deeply as the darkness does. An important element to Dark Night of the Soul is the pain of being separated from God, so St. John explains that “because, when this pure light assails the soul, in order to expel its impurity, the soul feels itself to be so impure and miserable that it believes God to be against it” and assumes that the present pain is the result of further separation (48-49). The perception is wrong in that the pain of the assailing light is not a result of darkness further separating the soul from God but a result of the spiritual growing pains Divine light brings. Alternatively, the soul may see that it is blinded by perfect light and be allowed to “see its impurity clearly,” although still in the confines of darkness, and it recognizes that “it is unworthy of God or of any creature” (St. John 49). The soul, in that case, still sees only darkness when in contact with the light, but now it sees the darkness more clearly as a projection of their own painful inferiority rather than an indication that the light has gone dark. 

In a later passage in Dark Night of the Soul, St. John indicates that the recognition of the darkness as one's own weakness is the proper identification of the dark light. He says that “the light of contemplation, which is so sweet and blessed to the soul that there is naught more desirable,” produces painful effects through its presence, but the pain is not a product of light itself (St. John 65). The pain the soul may have, mistakenly. identified as originating in light is not so because the contemplation and “the Divine inflowing” that are a part of the soul’s journey into the dark night are incapable of causing pain and suffering; not only is there no pain from Divine light itself, but it “rather cause[s] great sweetness and delight” (St. John 65). Though the soul sees the light as darkness through its affliction, the light is no less light, and the light possesses no less goodness.

Saint John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul guides readers to a better understanding of the Apostle Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18 that say, “for this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (ESV). In St. John’s work the message is clear that though the soul suffers and is afflicted by the darkness that the light illuminates, the Divine light–that is goodness in itself–must appear as afflicting darkness to prepare the soul for the radiance of glory. It is true, we are all blinded by the light, but it is in that blindness that God allows His children to see.

Works Cited:

Alighieri, Dante. Paradise. Modern Library, 2004. 

ESV: Study Bible: English Standard Version. Crossway Bibles, 2016. 

Saint John. Dark Night of the Soul. Dover Publications, 2003.