Plan B

At the outset of Creation, He removed all light. And that is the source of all that ever goes wrong.

Why did He remove the light? Why did He choose that things could go wrong?

Sometimes we say He wanted darkness as a background, a place to shine a new light and make a world of light. The darkness, we say, is there for the sake of light. Pain exists for the sake of healing.

But this could not be the entire answer.

Why? Because darkness for the purpose of light is not complete darkness. This darkness was absolute, a void, an emptiness, the diametric opposite of the Infinite Light that preceded it. And so, too, we find evil in the world that has no explanation, no answer, no light to shine.

The entire answer must be that in Light alone, God cannot be found. For He is beyond dark and light, presence and absence, being and not being.

And so, just as darkness is there for the sake of light, so is light there for the sake of darkness—to reveal its true purpose, to allow knowledge of a wholly transcendent God to enter His world.

T. Freeman