Inner light

Light of God, Light of Christ, Christ within, That of God, Spirit of God within us, Light within, inward light and inner light are related phrases commonly used within the Religious Society of Friends as metaphors for Christ's light shining on or in them. The inward light is a much older phrase used by early Friends to refer to Christ's light shining on them; whilst the inner light is a twentieth century doctrine of the liberal branch of the Religious Society of Friends. The doctrine of the inner light was defined by Rufus Jones, who first brought the phrase into popular use in 1904, thus: "The Inner Light is the doctrine that there is something Divine, ‘Something of God’ in the human soul". Jones argued that the doctrine of the inner light was something shared by George Fox and other early Quakers, but some Quaker theologians and historians, most notably Lewis Benson reject this viewpoint.