DURING one of the Easter Eucharistic Celebrations I attended, the new parish priest of San Roque de Pasay exhorted in his homily that “Darkness does not exist!”

His argument: “Darkness is simply the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness cannot. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there’s lack of light.”

Almost instinctively, I texted a colleague of mine to hear what he had to say to such a philosophical premise.  The next day I was surprised to receive not just a texted message but an email from him which explains his insights.  Here is what my friend; Michael L. Arcangel had to say:

We are all aware that according to the book of Genesis: God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. God made two great lights -- the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.

He also made the stars. God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening, and there was morning.

These verses show how God brought an orderly universe out of the primordial chaos of nothingness. God never intended us to ever be in total darkness. He made the sun to illuminate the day. Then, he made the moon and the stars to light up the night.

You can go outside at night-time, and once your eyes (through the visual cortex) adjust you will still be able to see the things around you. Maybe not as well as during the day but you can still see to get around. Thus, God purposely designed us and our world so we would never be in darkness, there would always, however dim it may be a light shining through.

According to science (as argued by the priest in his homily), darkness is simply the absence of light. In scientific laws, light is defined as a portion of electromagnetic radiation; a form of energy that can be visible or non-visible to the human eye.

The properties of light such as; intensity, propagation direction, frequency or wavelength spectrum and polarization, while its speed about 300,000,000 meters per/r second in a vacuum, are few of the fundamental constants of nature.

So does darkness really exist? The answer is darkness as an entity that does not exist. We can study light but darkness we cannot. Darkness cannot be measured, light on the other hand can be measured.

With this theorem we can now answer the question, how dark a certain space is? We measure it through the amount of light, and in some cases, if light is absent; we find other unit of measurement like other forms of energy and mass, like what scientists do when studying blackholes.

Blackholes are astronomical bodies with enormous amount of gravity that even light cannot escape.

One way scientists can study black holes is through a binary system, if the blackhole is in sufficient proximity with a light emanating celestial body, distant enough for it to pull the light particles from the star.

This is a fine example of how light illuminates the unknown, of how light can be use to study the darkest portions of the universe.

In the beginning of life, there was only God.  From God, He gave us light... something we humans can study and measure, and a tangible reality that proves His existence.

Darkness on the other hand (outside the realm of science) is a life without recognizing God in it. And because of sin we are lured to believe that darkness exists. But God gave us not only the sun, and the moon to light our earthly home. He gave us the true light of the world...

His Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ! And as the “Word Made Flesh,” the passion, death and resurrection of Christ broke through the darkness which illuminated the world with a light that can never be extinguished.

His light is a supernatural force that can heal us, deliver us, and set us free from the prince of darkness (the Devil) and the worldly pleasure he promises.

So, through science and the Bible we have proven two things. The first is that darkness does not exist if we do not recognize God and His creations. Darkness is simply living our lives for our own sake. It is the negation of God in our lives. And secondly, Evil uses any means possible to attempt to block out God’s light from us.

“People walking in darkness have seen a great light, and to those living in the land of the shadow of death (this great), light has dawned upon them.” I believe that the Prophet Isaiah was referring to Jesus in this passage. Christ is this great light that we who have been walking in sin (darkness) have seen. This is affirmed when Jesus spoke again to the people, uttering, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Always remember that when darkness befalls on our lives, and despair overwhelms us to a point when we think we will never see the light again, we should gaze upon the cross to be enlightened by the light that Jesus brings. Just as physics teaches us, a single ray of light can split the darkness, and illuminate the darkest space. That light is JESUS CHRIST.

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