Dark Energia

“The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these” Isaiah 45:7.

Physicists christened the force responsible for the acceleration of the expansion of the universe as “dark energy.” Space was once thought to be empty with nothing between the bodies of mass it holds, and its expansion from its initial Big Bang was believed to be slowing down. The radical theory and subsequent observation that the universe is instead accelerating in its expansion led to the discovery of what literally fills that so called empty space: dark energy. Physicist Alan Lightman says, “…dark energy apparently hides out in empty space… and comprises a whopping three-quarters of the total energy of the universe” (The Accidental Universe, p.15). It is the massive force that is ever pushing the universe’s boundaries outward and at an increasing rate.

Dark energy is not something we can see; it is invisible, and no one knows exactly what it is. What is widely agreed upon, however, is that if there were more or less dark energy in the universe than there is, life could not have come into existence. Too much and the universe would have expanded at too fast a rate for bodies of space to form or atoms to even unite, and too little and the universe would have collapsed back in on itself quickly after it had erupted. Our existence was made possible by the presence of this oh-so-perfect amount of dark energy in our universe. In this respect, we owe our lives to dark energy.

The “central doctrine of science” is what Lightman calls the belief most scientists hold which, in his words is this: “All properties and events in the physical universe are governed by laws, and those laws are true at every time and place in the universe.” The purpose of such a doctrine, though the doctrine itself is not something most scientists discuss, is to guide their work, give it parameters, and ultimately give them hope that their efforts will one day render an explanation for the wonders of the universe. In essence, this central doctrine is the means to finding a Final Theory or a Theory of Everything. Though scientists had long believed that the universe was slowing in its expansion, the application of the central doctrine kept them searching and testing. Their hope for a Final Theory led them to the detection of dark energy.

I have my own central doctrine in regard to our universe and God. It goes something like this: “God is in, but not contained by nor governed by, all that exists, both known to man and unknown; and there is no time, place, or event where God is wholly absent.” This belief is a driving force behind my explorations of scripture, the natural world, and man. I stand firmly with Paul in this central doctrine: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

I recognize the potential danger of having such a central doctrine. It can cause blindness. Such a belief can create a scenario where reality must bend to fit predicted outcomes. Physicists have found great comfort in their central doctrine only to have it deeply shaken by the entrance of new ideas. The principle, which guided all of their theories and all of their math, that the laws of the universe must be “true at every time and place in the universe” falters at the theory of the multiverse. If there is only one universe to study and unravel, the doctrine can remain -- all of the fundamental principles can stay, but if there are many universes, as has been theorized in relatively recent times, then the absoluteness of those laws and principles is suddenly undone. Forcing those “universal” laws to remain and applying them in such circumstances as multiple universes is unsound science, and physicists feel it acutely. 

Beyond the potential danger of a central doctrine, and hopefully overshadowing it, there is the hope that it will lead to a greater understanding of who God is. It is the thing which keeps me searching and testing what I know. It is the thing that calls me to look into the darkness and where my central doctrine is both tested and fortified.

In Eastern Orthodox theology in regard to the understanding of God there is a distinction made between the essence of God (ousia) and the energies or activities of God (energeia). The ousia of God was described by God himself when he said to Moses, “I am who I am” (Exodus 3:14). St. John of Damascus (675 – 749) in his Dialectic said, “Ousia is a thing that exists by itself, and which has need of nothing else for its consistency. Again, ousia is all that subsists by itself and which has not its being in another.” Though we may know that God has this ousia, or that the I am is his essence, our experience and understanding of God comes through his Energeia, or through his activities.

These Energeia have been called “Uncreated Energies.” Peter Chopelas describes it this way: “The Energy is Uncreated because it existed before creation, it is the Light and Truth and Grace and Love and Life that IS God.” In his book, A More Christlike God, Brad Jersak says, “Note that the energies are not merely considered attributes of God… when we say, ‘God is love’ or ‘God is good’ or ‘God is light,’ we aren’t merely describing his characteristics. We are saying God is love, goodness and light in his energies, just as we say God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit in his persons." Neither the ousia of God nor his Energeia are ever associated with darkness.

And here is the beginning of what I am asking: if darkness exists, which it certainly does, is it part of God either in ousia or Energeia? How could anything in existence not be in one or both of those realms or aspects of God?

In the study of God, who he is, and how he interacts with creation, my central doctrine encounters difficulty when “darkness” enters the equation. For example, when I study verses like I John 1:5b, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all,” my thinking goes something like this: besides the idea that God is light and has no darkness, does the verse also mean to say that in darkness there is no God? In this context, what is darkness? Is darkness an entity? Is there any part of anything where God is not present? But darkness is not dark to God, is it? “Even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you” (Psalm 139:12). Or something like that.

Defining darkness is quite easy on one hand and complex on the other. It can simply mean the absence of physical light, but it can also mean “an ignorance of spiritual things, even to the point of wickedness” (Strong’s Concordance) and a few other ideas in between. The Hebrew (as in Psalm 139:12) and Greek (as in I John 1:5b) don’t always narrow it down for us beyond a shadow of a doubt (no pun intended, but allowed). Context clues are helpful, but when we come to verses with our preconceived ideas about what the passage is supposed to say, we may still miss its intended meaning. And when it comes to understanding the essence of who God is, we may never be able to speak definitively.

Out of darkness, the earth was formed. Certainly God was in that physical darkness. “The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters” (Genesis 1:2).

Out of the darkness of the grave and at night (so both physical darkness and the darkness of sorrow), our Savior rose. “…while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance” (John 20:1).

And for our darkened hearts (sin-sick, fear-drenched hearts of darkness): “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God's glory displayed in the face of Christ” (II Corinthians 4:6).

The light of creation which is life was made possible by the darkness we call dark energy, a creation of the Father’s. Or perhaps dark energy is not a creation and is an Uncreated Energy. And there is our first shot in the dark at understanding this aspect of our universe and how it relates to God.

The problem of evil, another form of darkness, is something I have yet to comprehend and may never come close at all, but I feel there is an answer beyond what we perceive at present, as if we see only dimly. The Eastern Orthodox explanation of “hell,” for example, is very different from a place separated from God where the evil are tormented. It is instead a result of God’s Energeia, the Uncreated Energy of Light which God emits – a radiant glory to those who worship him, but a “refiner’s fire” to those who do not.

We know light gives life, but too much can destroy life or burn it up. We’ve discovered that dark energy is what makes life possible, our existence viable, but the wrong amount makes all life impossible. God’s radiance is deadly if we are unprepared. Moses was only allowed a glimpse of God’s head, not his radiant face or he would have died (Exodus 33:20). If darkness is as light to God, is there something we are misunderstanding about it?

Pastor and author, Curtis Tucker, puts it this way, “God uses the darkness or creates it for His purpose to restore and refine (Isa. 45:7; and, for example, all passages about the outer darkness), but there may be a side/aspect/element of darkness which was created by another (i.e., rulers of darkness over a domain of darkness) which God intends to dispel until one day when there is no more darkness at all. – Some darkness is good…if used for the purpose for which God uses it.”

Could there be refinement, purification, and redemption as what is made from God’s radiant glory for all that is evil? For the darkness? Or even for death itself? Is there, could there be, a sense in which our experience of God’s darkness is parallel to our experience of God’s light?

Could there be the Uncreated Energy of Darkness and it be consistent with the other Uncreated Energies of God?

Could evil be something good… somehow?

I don’t know.