How Does One Go About Detecting the "Light of Christ"?

[Sunstone]

Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Should be easy to detect.

So basically, the "light of Christ" is an euphemism for "good works"?

 

[Kenny]

So basically, the "light of Christ" is an euphemism for "good works"?

That is a component that would be measurable. There are other aspects IMO such as:

John 13:35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

 

[Jainarayan]

So basically, the "light of Christ" is an euphemism for "good works"?

Not entirely. What Jesus said is a reiteration of what Krishna said several centuries, if not a millennium earlier. It includes attitudes, intentions, devotion, actions. It’s a whole package.

We have examples from three major religions saying basically the same thing. But you don’t have to be religious or a theist to see it.

I am seated in the heart of all living entities. I am the beginning, middle, and end of all beings. BG 10.20

... know me to be the beginning, middle, and end of all creation. BG 10.32

Whatever you see as beautiful, glorious, or powerful, know it to spring from but a spark of my splendor. BG 10.41

Those devotees are very dear to Me who are free from malice toward all living beings, who are friendly, and compassionate. They are free from attachment to possessions and egotism, equipoised in happiness and distress, and ever-forgiving. They are ever-contented, steadily united with Me in devotion, self-controlled, firm in conviction, and dedicated to Me in mind and intellect.

Those who are not a source of annoyance to anyone and who in turn are not agitated by anyone, who are equal in pleasure and pain, and free from fear and anxiety, such devotees of Mine are very dear to Me.

Those who are indifferent to worldly gain, externally and internally pure, skillful, without cares, untroubled, and free from selfishness in all undertakings, such devotees of Mine are very dear to Me. BG 22.13-16

Ok, that was a bit long-winded but I think the “light of Christ” is something that can be found in many teachings, and by observing the examples of many people. The Dalai Lama comes to mind as one. I’ll even give it to Pope Francis, Paramahansa Yogananda, Sri Ramakrishna, there are many others who exud(ed) this light.

 

[whirlingmerc]

Matthew 5:16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

Should be easy to detect.

The light shines in darkness according to John 1.

Problem is some love the darkness and not the light, in their fallen broken human condition - so says Jesus in John 3. There is hope however because salvation rests on God not man.

God said let there be light, and does so in the universe at creation but also in hearts as he sovereignly draws them to Christ.

God uses his word to turn on the lights but 'no one comes to Me (Jesus) unless the father draws him.

 

[Kenny]

The light shines in darkness according to John 1.

Problem is some love the darkness and not the light, in their fallen broken human condition - so says Jesus in John 3. There is hope however because salvation rests on God not man.

God said let there be light, and does so in the universe at creation but also in hearts as he sovereignly draws them to Christ.

God uses his word to turn on the lights but 'no one comes to Me (Jesus) unless the father draws him.

True.. true... The context was the light of Christ.

 

[Vouthon]

Something I read today on another website:

"We are also born with the light of Christ. It is up to each of us to embrace Him who is the Father of lights. The more we embrace, learn of, follow and obey the teachings of Jesus Christ, the brighter that light will shine in us."

QUESTION: How is this "light of Christ" detected? Is it detectable at all? And if it can be detected, how is it known to be from or of Christ?

​

Well, I would slightly refine your question by first asking: What is the 'light of Christ'?

Before we cover the issue of how, or if, it might be detectable, I think we need to discuss what Christians have traditionally understood this term to mean.

Its a very important belief in Christian mysticism. It is known, strictly speaking, as prevenient grace - which is instinctive in every person's conscience. This precedes human decision. It exists prior to and without reference to anything humans may have done, thus making it intuitive. We are simply given it by God on account of us being human beings made in his image and sharing the humanity of His divine Son.

From the Council of Trent in 1545:


Prevenient grace - Wikipedia

The Synod furthermore declares, that in adults, the beginning of the said Justification is to be derived from the prevenient grace of God, through Jesus Christ, that is to say, from His vocation, whereby, without any merits existing on their parts, they are called; that so they, who by sins were alienated from God, may be disposed through His quickening and assisting grace, to convert themselves to their own justification, by freely assenting to and co-operating with that said grace

​

Prevenient grace could be compared a bit to Buddha-Nature: everybody has prevenient grace, both Christians and Non-Christians, but not everyone "converts themselves to their own justification" (works out their own salvation) by freely deciding to assent to and co-operate with this prevenient grace through a faithful adherence to conscience and the inner law of the Spirit.

The Catholic mystic Blessed Jan van Ruysbroeck compared prevenient grace to sunshine. Here is how he described the same process of justification above, in mystical terms:

"...God being a common good, and His boundless love being common to all, his grace is common to all men, whether Pagan or Jew, whether good or evil. Thus God is a common light and a common splendour, enlightening heaven and earth, and every man...

The grace of God is to God himself as sunlight is to the sun — a means and a way leading us to the latter. It therefore shines within us in a simple, one-fold way and makes us deiform, that is, like God. This likeness constantly sinks away, dying in God and becoming and remaining one with him, for charity makes us become one with God and causes us to remain living in union with him.

This brightness is so great that the loving contemplative, in his ground wherein he rests, sees and feels nothing but an incomprehensible Light; and through that Simple Nudity which enfolds all things, he finds himself and feels himself to be that same Light by which he sees and nothing else. . . . Blessed are the eyes which are thus seeing, for they possess eternal life.

When love has carried us above and beyond all things, Into the Divine Dark [Within], We receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, Enfolding us and penetrating us. What is this Light, If it be not a contemplation of the Infinite, And an intuition of Eternity?"

(Blessed John Ruysbroeck (1293 – 1381), Flemish Catholic mystic)

​

The prevenient grace is thus like a spiritual impulse of God, a spiritual energy (i.e. like the Taoist chi), instinctively available to everyone but to reap its sanctifying reward a person needs to embrace and not resist its pull, like allowing yourself to be carried away by a river without resisting.

Since prevenient grace is available to everyone, non-Christians (in the Catholic understanding) can be saved so long as they are sincerely searching for the truth by heeding their consciences:

"...The universality of salvation means that it is granted not only to those who explicitly believe in Christ and have entered the Church. Since salvation is offered to all, it must be made concretely available to all. But it is clear that today, as in the past, many people do not have an opportunity to come to know or accept the gospel revelation or to enter the Church. The social and cultural conditions in which they live do not permit this, and frequently they have been brought up in other religious traditions. For such people salvation in Christ is accessible by virtue of a grace which, while having a mysterious relationship to the Church, does not make them formally part of the Church but enlightens them in a way which is accommodated to their spiritual and material situation. This grace comes from Christ; it is the result of his Sacrifice and is communicated by the Holy Spirit. It enables each person to attain salvation through his or her free cooperation..."

- St. Pope John Paul II, Redemptoris Missio (1990)

​

This concept of the "light of Christ" is bound up with the Christian theology of grace, redemption and a belief in the fundamental equality of human nature made in the image of God. It effectively claims that deep 'within' our mind / heart / soul - under the layers of original and acquired sin - there is a pure and untainted 'something' which is a reflection of God and the place where His grace is active in all people, whether or not we consciously are aware of it or choose to cooperate with it.

As you might appreciate from that cursory definition, it's an egalitarian doctrine. While it is present - in some form - in all Christian denominations, the traditions that make it a particular focus (monasticism / mysticism in Catholicism and Orthodoxy, Quakerism, the Radical Reformation and Arminian Methodism in Protestantism) have often acted as forces for social justice and societal levelling historically.

Much of the early abolitionist, anti-slavery movement and push for better working conditions for the urban poor was spearheaded by Quaker Christians in the english-speaking world. They were also incredibly entrepreneurial, creating jobs and opportunities for uncountable numbers of disadvantaged people. They founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; manufacturing companies, including shoe retailer C. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntreeand Fry etc.

Unsurprisingly, this doctrine is particularly central to Quaker Christianity, indeed one might say it is the essential belief of that denomination, above everything else. In the 17th century, during the English Civil War, the Englishman George Fox (founder of Quakerism) experienced Christ as this inner light and taught that anyone of any faith, nationality or gender could as well:


26.42 | Quaker faith & practice

"...Now the Lord God has opened to me by his invisible power how that every man was enlightened by the divine Light of Christ; and I saw it shine through all...This I saw in the pure openings of the Light, without the help of any man, neither did I then know where to find it in the Scriptures, though afterwards, searching the Scriptures, I found it. For I saw in that Light and Spirit, which was before Scripture was given forth, and which led the holy men of God to give them forth, that all must come to that Spirit..."

- George Fox (1648), Founder of Quakerism
​

Thus the doctrine, whilst properly speaking a spiritual and religious idea (not anything based on science or biology), translates very well into movements for epistemic / legal equality in the political realm if that leap is made.

Now, to trace its intellectual history a little......

St. John Chrysostom (347-407), Archbishop of Constantinople and an important early church father, addressed this doctrine in his Homily 8 on the Gospel of John, in the context of an exegetical commentary on John 1:9:

"That was the true Light which enlightens every man coming into the world" (John 1:9)
​

CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 8 on the Gospel of John (Chrysostom)

"How then does He light every man? He lights all as far as in Him lies [...] For the grace is shed forth upon all, turning itself back neither from Jew, nor Greek, nor Barbarian, nor Scythian, nor free, nor bond, nor male, nor female, nor old, nor young, but admitting all alike, and inviting with an equal regard."

​

This is his description of this doctrine, what theologians call the "prevenient grace of God": the divine grace that precedes any human volition or cognition but is received, unmerited, by all human beings on account of our being made in God's image and redeemed by Jesus Christ. "Grace is a participation in the life of God" (Catechism of the Catholic Church #1997).

Unlike subsequent cooperating grace and the sanctifying grace of baptism (or baptism by implicit desire), it is not dependent on anything we have done. All people whether baptised or unbaptised, male or female, of every race and creed and social class receive this influx of divine grace upon conception/birth.

(continued....)

 

[Vouthon]

@Sunstone So, now to answer your original query straight on: Is it detectable at all?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that all divine grace, including this prevenient grace, "surpasses the power of human intellect and will" so you might say that, in that sense, it isn't quite 'detectable' - if by this you mean something that can be measured quantitatively (like physical measurements) or even determined qualitatively based upon our feelings, thoughts and emotions (qualia).

However, we know as believing Christians - based upon the bible and church doctrine - that all people possess this 'light of Christ', whether they actualise it or not.

Additionally, we have the lived experiential witness of the great mystics of the Church who have plumbed the depths of human spirituality and become saints, living exemplars and mediators of God's grace. And many of them have written about this doctrine as it applies to the spiritual life - and they have given it many names, such that in this sense it is detectable. We see the 'fruits' of it in acts of human goodness, perfect love, charity, altruism and in contemplation / meditative states of inner purity.

In this sense, St. Cyprian of Carthage (c. 200 – 258 AD) - another important early church father - explained the qualities to be expected from a life of habitual divine grace:


CHURCH FATHERS: Treatise 8 (Cyprian of Carthage)

"This is truly to become sons of God by spiritual birth; this is to imitate by the heavenly law the equity of God the Father. For whatever is of God is common in our use; nor is any one excluded from His benefits and His gifts, so as to prevent the whole human race from enjoying equally the divine goodness and liberality. Thus the day equally enlightens, the sun gives radiance, the rain moistens, the wind blows, and the sleep is one to those that sleep, and the splendour of the stars and of the moon is common. In which example of equality, he who, as a possessor in the earth, shares his returns and his fruits with the brotherhood of his fellow man, while he is common and just in his gratuitous bounties, is an imitator of God the Father."
​

But in the more 'mystical' sense of the term....

From Abba Evagrius (345-399 AD), the first hesychast, and the Desert Fathers who followed him, we learn about "clear thinking" or "clear sight" of the image of God within one's heart, untainted by the obscuration of the passions and logismoi (disturbing thoughts) - the kind of passionate, wild thoughts that distract our attention and scatter the focus of the mind away from God. The Desert Fathers called this 'apatheia' which means a state of imperturbable calm. If this state of mind was achieved, this apatheia, the monks believed that they could see the undistorted light of their own mind, the image of God within them, which reflects the Divine Light:

"...The Kingdom of Heaven is apatheia [imperturbable calm, dispassion] of the soul along with true knowledge of existing things.

The proof of apatheia is had when the mind begins to see its own light, when it remains in a state of tranquillity in the presence of the images it has during sleep, and when it maintains its calm as it beholds the affairs of life.

The spirit that possesses health is the one which has no images of the things of the world at the time of prayer.

The ascetic life is the spiritual method for cleansing [the mind]..."

- Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), Early Desert Father
​

The true nature of the mind is described as "luminous" like sapphire when freed of incoming defilements (that is attachment to sense-impressions and mental images). Abbas Evagrius again:

"...If one wishes to see the state (katastasis) of the mind, let him deprive himself of all representations, and then he will see the mind appear similar to sapphire or to the color of the sky. But to do that without being passionless (apatheia) is impossible...The mind would not see itself unless it has been raised higher than all the representations of objects...

Apatheia (passionlessness) is a quiet state of the rational soul. It results from gentleness and self-control...

A man in chains cannot run. Nor can the mind that is enslaved to passion see the place of spiritual prayer. It is dragged along and tossed by these passion-filled thoughts and cannot stand firm and tranquil...

The ascetical mind is one that always receives passionlessly the representations of this world...The state of the mind is an intellectual peak, comparable in color to the sky. Onto it, there comes, at the time of prayer, the light of the holy Trinity..."

- Abba Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 AD), early desert father

​

In the medieval mystical tradition of the Catholic Church, this concept of the "sapphire light of the dispassionate mind" was embellished further by our monks, friars and mystics into the idea that the mind was a dual phenomenon: with a lower seat rooted in the imagination and emotions, and the intellect; while above this (or below it, if you like) was the "apex", "ground" and "essence" of the soul, wherein contemplative prayer takes place, and union with God.

As the Benedictine monk Dom Cuthbert Butler explained in his 1922 book, Western Mysticism (p.140):


Western Mysticism

It is a common teaching of mystic writers that introversion is effected by a successive silencing of the faculties of the mind and of the powers of the soul, till the actuations become blind elevations to God; and in the 'Quiet' thus produced, the very being of the soul the "Ground of the Spirit', the later mystics call it comes into immediate relation with the Ultimate Reality which is God.

This at least will be held by all who regard the mind as something other than a bundle of sensations, phantasmata, emotions, cognitions, volitions. This essence of the soul, the soul itself, is what the mystics mean when they speak of the centre of the soul, or its apex, or ground, or the fund of the spirit, or the synteresis. 2 It has been called also in modern terminology the core of personality, and the transcendental self.

For the Catholic mystics it is this essence of the soul that enters into union with God. This we learned from Pope St Gregory the Great: he says that the mind must first clear itself of all sense perceptions and of all images of things bodily and spiritual, so that it may be able to find and consider itself as it is in itself, i.e., its essence; and then, by means of this realization of itself thus stript of all, it rises to the contemplation of God
​

At the end of his Book of Spiritual Instruction Abbot Louis de Blois, O.S.B., (1506 – 1566), a Flemish monk and mystical writer, sets forth at some length the doctrine of the Catholic mystics on this hidden essence of the soul/mind:

Few rise above their natural powers; few ever come to know the
apex of the spirit and the hidden fund or depth of the soul. It is far
more inward and sublime than are the three higher faculties, for it
is their origin. It is wholly simple, essential, and uniform, and so
there is not multiplicity in it, but unity, and in it the three higher
faculties are one thing. Here is perfect tranquillity, deepest silence,
because never can any image enter here. By this depth, in which
the divine image lies hidden, we are deiform. This same depth is
called the heaven of the spirit, for the Kingdom of God is in it, as
the Lord said:

'The Kingdom of God is within you';

and the Kingdom of God is God Himself with all His riches. Therefore this naked
and unfigured depth is above all created things, and is raised above
all senses and faculties; it transcends place and time, abiding by a
certain perpetual adhesion in God its beginning; yet it is essentially
within us, because it is the abyss of the mind and its most inward
essence. This depth, which the uncreated light ever irradiates, when
it is laid open to a man and begins to shine on him, powerfully
affects and attracts him. . . .
​

A later monastic writer, Pere Noel, in summarizing the thought of the earlier German mystic and Catholic preacher Johannes Tauler (c. 1300 – 15 June 1361), explains it thus:

"Do you wish to live truly of the divine life, to submit yourself fully to the illuminations of the Primary Truth, to experience the direct irradiations of the Divinity?

Leave matter and the senses, go forth from this visible world, quit creatures, pass over the matter that encloses you, the sensations that hold you in, the imaginations that keep you captive, the thoughts and sublime concepts which you take for the Primary Truth, but which are only a magnificent though fragile scaffolding of your reason. Raise yourself above your reason, above your human intelligence which nourishes itself on phantasms, images, sensible species; descend into the fund and the inmost recess of your soul: there you will find the pure and subsistent spirit; there you will find the dwelling-place of God; there you will find God."​

 

[Vouthon]

@Sunstone Now to your final query: "And if it can be detected, how is it known to be from or of Christ?"

I think this has a rather simple answer from a Christian theological perspective.

The Johannine Prologue to the Fourth Gospel explicitly identifies the pre-existent Jesus as the Logos (using that old Stoic idea) and explains that He is the Light of Life which enlightens all human beings who come into the world:


John 1 NKJV

The Eternal Word

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not [a]comprehend it.

John’s Witness: The True Light

6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. 8He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

10He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. 11He came to His [c]own, and His [d]own did not receive Him. 12But as many as received Him, to them He gave the [e]right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: 13who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Word Becomes Flesh

14And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

15John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me [f]is preferred before me, for He was before me.’ ”

16[g]And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. 17For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten [h]Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
​

So, in other words, a Christian 'knows' that he has the prevenient grace and light of God (and ergo Jesus because He is that Light) in his soul by faith. This can't be proven.

If a person isn't a Christian, then the same phenomenon would be attributed to something else - like neurobiological wiring (an atheist?) or indeed Allah (Muslim), Vishnu (Vaishnavite Hindu), Nibbana (Buddhism) etc. but be known by its effects or fruit in that person's life and psychology in exactly the same way.

 

[Ancient Soul]

Will it also detect souls and the holy spirit or are those attachments I need to order separately?

I'm currently converting a Whites metal detector to detect souls, but still still have some issues to work out. For holy spirits you can get all you want at the local liquor store.

 

[whirlingmerc]

True.. true... The context was the light of Christ.

I might add if you examine the purpose of the parables in Jesus explanation is to hide things from some and show things to others. But it is God who is hiding and God who is showing. Not us.

 

[Kenny]

I might add if you examine the purpose of the parables in Jesus explanation is to hide things from some and show things to others. But it is God who is hiding and God who is showing. Not us.

If you seek, you will find. there is a part that we play.