I agree with Mojo. And

"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the glory of God did light it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."—Revelation 21:23.

Before the world ever was - before there was the heavens and the earth - there was the Father and the Son in the unity of the Holy Spirit in glory [cf. John 17:5].

St. Peter, writing in 2 Pet 1:18, speaking of the Transfiguration, tells of

Jesus receiving honor and glory from God the Father and the voice was borne to him by the Majestic Glory

(When they were with him on the holy mountain, he was transfigured before them, and his garments became glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on earth could bleach them.)

The Christian Faith professes

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,

From the above, God is Light by his very nature, by his very essence.

Therefore before the world was made, only the True Light that is God existed.

Evil, darkness, do not exist on their own, they are properly understood as the absence of the perfections of good and light respectively.

God by his almighty creative power [it is said] is able [and does] make innumerable copies of his essence¹. The created light is a copy of the uncreated Light he is.

The following scripture is a fitting end to the answer:

Psalm 104:2 (RSVCE)

2 who coverest thyself with light as with a garment, who hast stretched out the heavens like a tent,

1 Tim 6:16 (RSVCE)

16 who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

^{1. cf. Divine attributes | New Advent and e.g. Ps 19:1.}

Seers vision and testimony:

The third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima, on 13 July 1917. [cf. THE MESSAGE OF FATIMA | CDF]:

And we saw in an immense light that is God:

No one seems to answer the question in a direct and concise manner. Genesis 1:2 states that darkness was over the surface of the deep and, in Genesis 1:3, the Spirit of God said let there be light. Furthermore in Genesis 1:4 he separate light from darkness.

Now there are a few things occurring that must be made clear. Number 1, before their was light there was darkness and God was right there with this darkness. Number 2, after he created light he separated the light from darkness. They coexisted together at one point in time.

Based on what scripture is stating. Would it not be a fair assumption to state that God is light or a kind of light and that the physical light we know and see was created after darkness?

I like to wonder this like is written in Revelation Book:

(Rev 22:5) And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

In the Bible light is used to represent goodness, knowledge, freedom, etc... while darkness is used to represent evil, suffering, ignorance, etc...

But it must always be kept in mind that this comparison is given to make it easy for us to understand the great war between good and evil.

The physical light or the physical darkness does not mean good or evil. It was God who created light and God who made night too. If God had wanted He could have obliterated the night and made it perpetual day. Infact Revelation says that is how it will be in the new heavens and new earth:

Revelation 22:5: And there shall be no night there; and they need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord God giveth them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever.

God saw the need for a 12 hour dark period and that's why He created night. You can see that almost everything in nature has a day-night pattern. There are various biorythms that operate on 24 hour basis which needs light and darkness to operate correctly.

That said, coming to the direct answer, I am quoting a few scriptures which say God uses Darkness as a cover.

Exodus 20:21: And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was. (see Deuteronomy 5:22, 23 for the more details on the same event)

2 Samuel 22:10: He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.

2 Samuel 22:12: He made darkness his canopy around him— the dark rain clouds of the sky.

And the gem which would sum up my thought:

Psalm 139:11 - 12: If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me; even the night shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

There are 3 types of Heavens

• Heaven 1- is the Sky
• Heaven 2- is the Universe called Heavens
• Heaven 3- is where God dwells

the light God created was not physical light but actual light to see.

in a dark room, if you light a match, you will see the light of the match. If God did not create light, even though you light a match, it will still be dark. That is why God had to separate light from darkness, as you already know.

yes the Light that God has is different to our light, because we cannot approach God's light, it is too much to bare or handle.

and God was not dwelling in Darkness. If God is made of light, how can he dwell in darkness?

god bless

God doesn't reside in the physical universe.

Whether or not light existed in the universe is moot. God is spirit and does not live in the physical universe. When God created light, he created it in the physical universe. If it never existed before, then it was never needed before. If it existed in some other realm, it would still be "creating it" to speak it into existence in our world. The concept of light could have existed prior to its creation and God's action in Ge 1:3 would count as creating it, because it did not exist in this realm.

God does not "dwell" in darkness, because he has never "dwelt" in this universe.

Does God need light?

God knows everything. He doesn't need light. "Darkness is as light to you." (Ps 139:12) Darkness doesn't make it any harder for God to know everything, and light doesn't make it any easier for him to know everything.

Light and darkness are metaphors.

Frequently, when the Biblical authors use light and darkness in this way, they are speaking of good and evil. "In him, there is no evil at all."

I believe the consensus interpretation of the Fathers to be:

• The "light" that is continually attributed to God's nature is its own concept, which we commonly speak of using "optical" language. God has never been without it. Its absence is spiritual darkness.
• The "light" of Genesis 1:3 refers principally to the creation of certain spiritual things - heaven, the angels, etc.
• Secondarily, this "light" is some sort of primordial energy, which may include the kind of light that we experience in everyday life, but isn't limited to that. (This is not necessarily cleanly distinguishable from the spiritual light of the previous bullet point, though; we with our scientific knowledge want to say that light is just a simple matter of physics, but the Bible was not written in the time of Maxwell.)

In the Bible, light is associated above all with God, as in your quotation from 1 John. This light illuminates us, so that being "in darkness" means being dissociated from God (in a state of sin, deprivation, etc.) and being "in light" is the opposite. Some more examples from the New Testament (NRSV) are John 1 (or actually pretty much anywhere in John):

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

Ephesians 5:

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.

and 1 Thessalonians 5:

But you, beloved, are not in darkness, for that day to surprise you like a thief; for you are all children of light and children of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness.

Moreover, heaven, the angels, and the saints are all described in terms of light, for example in the Revelation. It would appear that 1 John 1:5, "God is light", should be talking about this kind of light, as opposed to the electromagnetic phenomenon that resembles it. This interpretation is supported by the writings of the Fathers. For example, Augustine reads the creation of light in Genesis 1 as mainly referring to the creation of the heavenly realm and its angels (City of God 11.7, 9):

Under the name of light the holy city was signified, composed of holy angels and blessed spirits. [...] When God said, Let there be light, and there was light, if we are justified in understanding in this light the creation of the angels, then certainly they were created partakers of the eternal light which is the unchangeable Wisdom of God, by which all things were made, and whom we call the only-begotten Son of God; so that they, being illumined by the Light that created them, might themselves become light and be called Day, in participation of that unchangeable Light and Day which is the Word of God, by whom both themselves and all else were made.

Similar remarks can be found in Basil's Homilies on the Hexaemeron, Chrysostom's Homilies on Genesis, and so on. Ambrose, in Exposition of the Christian Faith 1.13(79), has a particularly relevant comment: "Think not, then, that there was ever a moment of time when God was without wisdom, any more than that there was ever a time when light was without radiance." God could certainly not have been living in spiritual darkness. The heavenly city, created under the name of "light", should be understood as reflecting the glory of God's eternal "light". (The optical metaphor of reflection is very common in these writings.)

It is true that Augustine (et al.) also see in Genesis 1:3 the creation of "ordinary" light, though they are at a loss to explain exactly what it means for light to exist without some light-giving body (only created in verses 14-19). Augustine says: "What kind of light that was, and by what periodic movement it made evening and morning, is beyond the reach of our senses; neither can we understand how it was, and yet must unhesitatingly believe it." (11.7). Basil suggests that the light here created was, at least, a special sort of light of indescribable beauty (2.7). In contemporary speculation, and certainly up to the scholastic period, the light meant some kind of abstract energy, not limited to what we perceive as visible light. It is primordial light, analogous to the primordial, unformed, chaotic matter of Genesis 1:2; writers of this period were strongly influenced by Plato's Timaeus and its account of the progressive formation of all things from "raw" substance, the ylem.