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One of the first things you learn in icon-paint- ing class is that there is “repentance.” You can always correct a mistake (with a few brush strokes or layers of paint). That intervention, in a way, corrects the past. But from a human point of view, can anything that has happened in the past be altered, or is it possible (and not less admirable) to wipe out the negative consequences of previous actions?
This so-called quantum eraser dilemma in quantum mechanics is expounded by an American theoretical physicist Brian Greene in The Fabric of the Cosmos. Noting that “the past cannot be altered in any way by present actions,” Greene poses a seemingly “theological” question: “If you cannot change something that has already happened, can you do the next best thing: erase its impact on the present?” Apart from being intriguing, this ques- tion is also an example of how cosmology approach- es philosophy and even crosses into theology.
Some speak of repentance as the most realistic self-knowledge: having seen our failure in the light of the goal God has set for us, we come to under- stand our position in relation to God, our neighbor, time, space, cosmos ... only then can we see clearly the thick veil settled over our hearts and the blem- ishes that cover the whiteness of the original image. We can draw a similar analogy about a pure white canvas: when it is well-painted it delights us, when
smeared, it baffles us. The first painter who began the practice of leaving areas of the canvas unpaint- ed is not known. Namely, parts of the composition can appear lighter by using a little trick: simply leave desired areas of the canvas unpainted. In that manner, Edgar Degas kept some parts of the white canvas untouched when applying the brush in or- der to convey a sense of the volume of the dress of his model or the chair on which she was seated. Cézanne, like Degas, left the whiteness of the can- vas unpainted to make us more aware of the way brush strokes were used; that is, leaving white ar- eas in order to achieve transparency, and applying colors and gradients to create the effect of depth.
Following that painting method, I once tried to tone down an overly bright yellow color by adding white, but, much to my chagrin, I was unsuccessful. Attempts to return to primal purity sometimes feel like a Sisyphean task. But there is hope: if we un- derstand purity not as a return to the past (which, as we know, is impossible) but as a glimmer of what is yet to come, then it is possible to obtain purity and shine more clearly than in the beginning (“the one who conquers shall thus be wrapped in white gar- ments,” Rev. 3:5; cf. 7:9). The major obstacle to gain- ing this knowledge is the working of our fallen mind, which prefers to imagine the archetypal rather than the future state of being.
The Pure White Canvas
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