The cave, the sun, and God

I have found myself listening to quite a bit of Mumford & Sons music lately.  Their style and sound are so unique in today's musical generation, and I find their lyrics always get my mind pondering.  One of my favorite tracks by them is called "The Cave."

Now, from my understanding, a lot of their lyrics having Biblical undertones, however one of the verses in this song in particular has always caught my ear.

"So come out of your cave walking on your hands
And see the world hanging upside down
You can understand dependence
When you know the maker's land."

For those that are familiar with the works of Plato, this rings loudly of his "Allegory of the Cave" found in "The Republic."  For those unfamiliar, or in need of a quick refresher, here is a quick excerpt from good ole' Wikipedia:

"Plato lets Socrates describe a group of people who have lived chained to the wall of a cave all of their lives, facing a blank wall. The people watch shadows projected on the wall by things passing in front of a fire behind them, and begin to ascribe forms to these shadows. According to Plato's Socrates, the shadows are as close as the prisoners get to viewing reality. He then explains how the philosopher is like a prisoner who is freed from the cave and comes to understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality at all, as he can perceive the true form of reality rather than the mere shadows seen by the prisoners."

Tied with the allegory of the cave, is the metaphor of the sun (again, stolen from Wikipedia):

The eye, Plato says, is unusual among the sense organs in that it needs a medium, namely light, in order to operate. The strongest and best source of light is the sun; with it, objects can be discerned clearly. Analogous things, he writes, can be said of intelligible objects (i.e., the fixed and eternal forms that are the ultimate objects of scientific and philosophical study): 

When [the soul] is firmly fixed on the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent it apprehends and knows them and appears to possess reason, but when it inclines to that region which is mingled with darkness, the world of becoming and passing away, it opines only and its edge is blunted, and it shifts its opinions hither and thither, and again seems as if it lacked reason. (The Republic bk. VI, 508d; trans. Paul Shorey) 

By "the world of becoming and passing away" Plato means the familiar visual or perceptual world we see around us. Thus if we attempt to understand why things are as they are, and what general categories can be used to understand various particulars around us, without reference to any forms (universals), we will fail completely, as if [we] lacked reason. By contrast, "the domain where truth and reality shine resplendent" is none other than Plato's world of forms--illuminated by the highest of the forms, that of the Good. Since true being resides in the world of the forms, we must direct our intellects there to have knowledge, in Plato's view; otherwise, we are stuck with mere opinion of what may be likened to passing shadows.

So how does God come into this equation?  Well, within Islam there is the paradox of tanzih and tashbih; that at all times we are completely and utterly independent of God, but at the same time we share all the same attributes as Him, because for us to exist, He had breath his spirit into us.  To analogize, God is given many "names" in Islam, or "attributes."  One of the most commonly given names of God is mercy, therefore a Muslim would say that God IS mercy.  So under the concept of tashbih, since we all share the attributes of God, we can be merciful; but under the theory of tanzih, we can never BE mercy.

Ok, so how does this relate to the allegory of the cave and the metaphor of the sun.

Well, another common analogy in Islam is that of light, in relation to nearness and distance of our souls and God.  As you may remember from high school science class, when you see an object, your eyes are not technically seeing the object itself, but the reflection of light upon the object.  So let's say you are standing so far from a light source, that when you look down at your body, you see almost nothing.  There is so little light emitting onto your person that you are dark, void of details and life.  As you move closer to the light source, the more your body is illuminated, and all the details that make up yourself become visible (the color of your skin, your hairs, your wrinkles, etc.).

Now, if this light source is a man made light source, artificial light if you will, it can affect the way that you appear.  Not just your person, but also your surroundings.  If you have a flashlight in a dark room, you only see what the beam of light allows you to see.  Compare that to the way the world around you appears when illuminated by the Sun, which is widely considered to be the "purest" source of light in our existence.  It illuminates and provides light/life to our world without any human alteration.  As much as human made light attempts to illuminate the world around us, it can never offer the complete illumination and perspective of the light emitted by the Sun.

Now consider the light emitted by God.  In Islam, God IS light, He is the purest generator of light in "our" universe, our existence.  It is said that the closer we allow ourselves to become to God, the more his light illuminates our souls, the more beauty we see in the world, and the more we reflect his attributes of mercy, compassion, love, etc.  In contrast, the more we remove ourselves from God's light, the more our souls feel distant from him, and devoid of the beauty He shines into our existence.

So that sheds light on the metaphor of the sun and it's relation to God (pun intended), but how about the allegory of the cave, and Mumford & Sons?  I mean, wasn't this whole rant triggered by a couple of lines in a random song?

Well, many people live their lives confined within the cave.  They build their opinions of the world purely on man made shadows and illuminations around them.  They attempt to make sense of tragedies and other things in the world purely through comparison to their interactions with, and expectations of, other humans.  In doing so, they may never fully understand their existence, because their perspective is restricted to only those illuminations created by man.  In their attempt to make sense of the world around them, they never allow the purest source of light to break through and illuminate the entire world around them.

Pretend you are standing on the surface of the earth.  A light is triggered on and illuminates a group of five people murdering an innocent person.  If that is all you are allowed to see of the world around you, your opinion of the world is that it is a dark evil place.  If instead a light is illuminated and all you witness is a single person tending to and caring for a group of sick persons, your opinion of the world will be that there is sadness in the world, but there is goodness as well.  It is only through illumination of all of your surroundings that you can gain a proper understanding of your world, and how the things within it interact with each other, and they they interact the way they do.

Just as one must remove himself from the cave of man made shadows in order to fully understand what the world around him looks like, we must remove ourselves from the cave of only human interactions and expectations, and let the purest source of light illuminate our souls for us to gain a proper understanding of our existence.

And that is why I enjoy the music of Mumford and Sons.

/rant

Time to make some chex mix and watch football!