Every theistic religion is centered around God. But who or what is God?

Christian religions use the Bible to describe God, the Father and the Creator. Similarly, Judaism and Islam have sacred texts that describe God, Jehovah for Jews and Allah for Muslims. But these descriptions are based primarily on anecdotal stories written thousands of years ago. Is it possible to describe God in more relevant terms?

Religions for the past two thousand years have not moved very far from original descriptions of God. While each religion has different versions of their God, there is one attribute that is common to all religions. In western religions (and many eastern religions), God is often referred to as the “Light of the World.” There are many examples in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Qur’an that describe God as Light. If it seems reasonable to propose that God is Light, could Light be the common ground of theistic religions?

On the other hand, science for the past two thousand years has moved from the “black arts” to the creation of an enormous body of knowledge that is incredibly rich, precise, and powerful. While avoiding the application of “God” to explain any part of science, scientists have developed, tested, and verified amazingly predictable laws and theories that explain the way our universe works from the microscopic to the astronomic. While we might not expect there is a common factor between quantum mechanics, relativistic physics, classical mechanics, and astrophysics, there is! In every area of science, light plays a fundamental role. Without going into great detail, the Big Bang started with light energy, expanding and creating our universe, and that light is still visible on earth in the form of the cosmic microwave background. Relativistic physics led Einstein to develop the most famous equation in the world, E=mc2 , which connects all matter and energy to the square of the speed of light. Quantum mechanics connects wave functions to observability, both connected to light. And finally, all light can be described as a duality, both wave and photon particles. If these aspects of modern science are related to light, could light be the common ground of science?

The leap to “Light is God” is a proposition. There is no proof that God created the universe or that the universe is God. A more reasonable hypothesis is that the “universe is based on light”. Certainly, there are black holes, dark matter, and dark energy in our universe, but these phenomena are the absence of light. The 100 billion stars in each of the 100 billion galaxies that we now can observe are suns creating light. The sun in our own galaxy provides the light to our planet that has led to our human origins and supports our earthly existence. As we try to understand ourselves, our meaning, our world, and our universe, we use both spirituality and science to help us. Since Light is in both areas, could God be in both areas? Could God be Light? Could Light be God?