On light
Issue 161 · 1993
This article by Lidia Stăniloae offers a theological meditation on light, bringing together scientific data, mystical experience, and Orthodox patristic tradition. Starting from the wave-particle duality highlighted by Louis de Broglie, the author establishes a phenomenological continuity between matter and light, which she extends into a reflection on the transfiguration of the cosmos. Drawing on Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint Symeon the New Theologian, and Saint Gregory Palamas, she shows that light constitutes, in Orthodox theology, the place of encounter between the human and the divine in Christ. The main contribution of the article lies in bringing modern physics into dialogue with the Palamite doctrine of uncreated energies, making it possible to think the "pneumatization" of matter and to articulate apophatic knowledge with the mystical experience of divine light.
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