A Preface to the Light Metaphor

The conceptuality of good and evil that controls in the Gospels is the idea of light and dark.  That a person is to be oriented to the light is expressed in the Gospels in precisely such terms--one is to go to the light and to avoid the dark.

Light and dark are not quantified in the Gospels, even so much as in general terms.  Light and dark are matters of orientation.  This matters in itself in the way we are to understand our proper aspirations.  If the "light" metaphor is allowed to control, then we will not be distracted or tempted by notions such as being good, doing good, or--God forbid--creating good.

Perhaps the best way to understand our proper orientation to light--to good--is derived from the metaphor's mundane derivation.  What we understand of "the world" (or more inclusively, "the universe") is--if taken as a binary, light-versus-dark metaphor--a question of how much of the surfaces of irregular objects is exposed to light.