If someone is blind to the Sun, they cannot see anything. It is only by seeing the Sun, in a sense, that one can see anything else. We don’t see illuminated objects except by the reflection of light. If you cannot behold anything by the greatest light, lesser lights will prove insufficient.
The crowd doesn’t see the Son, and Son blindness is total blindness. A physically blind man who sees the Son, sees more than a spiritually blind man who can see the Sun. Spiritual sight is superior to physical sight. A child of God who knows that Yaweh created the heavens sees them more clearly than the most brilliant astronomer. Certainly, by God’s grace, an astronomer can learn things that we do not, things that could further fuel our worship, but the believer has an epistemological trump card he can always play, “Yes, but I know the one who made that star and why He ultimately made it.” The unregenerate astronomer may be able to tell us all kinds of whats, and hows, but only a child of God knows the ultimate why. Certain archeologists could stun you with their knowledge of Stonehenge and how it relates to light, solstices and such, but dig up some chap that was alive and participated in whatever it was that went on there, resurrect him, and he has that trump card. His knowledge may be far less sophisticated and exact, but he knows why.
When you make an idol of creation, when you make it god, you end up enjoying it less, not more. If someone tries to enjoy a hammer as a screwdriver, they will enjoy it less. When you try to make creation god, you don’t see creation as it is. It isn’t illuminated by the Son. They don’t see that all things are from, through, and to the Son. The light comes from Him, and is reflected back to His glory. If you are blind to the Luminous, you cannot behold the illuminated. Thus the superiority of spiritual sight.
Satan most deeply labors to blind us not from the blazing Sun at the center of our solar system, but the all glorious Son at the center of the universe. Before these blind men see, they appear to have already received the greater sight.
[T]he god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. —2 Corinthians 4:4-6 (ESV)
If you see the Son, even if you remain blind until the kingdom fully comes, you see everything more clearly.
The emanation or communication of the divine fullness, consisting in the knowledge of God, love to him, and joy in him, has relation indeed both to God and the creature: but it has relation to God as its fountain, as the thing communicated is something of its internal fullness. The water in the stream is something of the fountain; and the beams of the sun are something of the sun. And again, they have relation to God as their object: for the knowledge communicated is the knowledge of God; and the love communicated, is the love of God; and the happiness communicated, is joy in God. In the creature’s knowing, esteeming, loving, rejoicing in, and praising God, the glory of God is both exhibited and acknowledged, his fullness is received and returned. Here is both an emanation and remanation. The refulgence shines upon and into the creature, and is reflected back to the luminary. The beams of glory come from God, are something of God, and are refunded back again to their original. So that the whole is of God, and in God, and to God; and he is the beginning, and the middle, and the end. —Jonathan Edwards
No Other Boast 