“For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.”
Everyone who does evil hates the light, for fear their deeds will be exposed — the mechanism of judgment: light's nature is revelatory; those whose deeds are evil hate the light because it exposes what darkness hides. Fear of exposure drives the hostility toward light. This explains the world's rejection of Jesus without appealing to intellectual incapacity; moral corruption produces spiritual blindness.
Church Fathers on John 3:20
Here is the reason why men believed not, and why they are justly condemned; This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world.
As if He said, So far from their having sought for it, or labored to find it, light itself has come to them, and they have refused to admit it; Men loved darkness rather than light, Thus He leaves them no excuse. He came to rescue them from darkness, and bring them to light; who can pity him who does not choose to approach the light when it comes unto him?
He calls Himself the light, whereof the Evangelist speaks, That was the true light; whereas sin He calls darkness.
Read all 11 entries in the readerCatena Aurea · St. Thomas Aquinas, tr. J. H. Newman · public domain
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