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89 RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA Eckhart

The absolute, unqualified being of the Deity Eckhart also calls unnatured nature. This unnatured nature, however, manifests itself in the natured nature, the three persona. The Trinity is the self-revelation of the Deity (540, 31; 390,12-22). In it God comprises himself. Accordingly, Eckhart attributes to the Father a sort of genesis; only the Deity is absolutely without any progression and reposes everlastingly in itself. The Father was made through himself (534, 17). This self-revelation of God Eckhart designates as a cognition, a speaking, or a demeanor. The Father perceives the wkole fulness of the Deity (6,8); or, what is the same, he speaks a single word, which comprises everything (76, 25). He procreates s. The the Son (284, 12); for the Father is Trinitarian father only through the Son. The

Process. Son, however, is in everything like the Father, only that he procreates not (337, 3). The essence of the Father is also that of the Son, and the essence in both is no other than that of the Deity. From the pleasure and love which both have for each other springs the Holy Ghost (497, 26). Eckhart leaves no doubt that the entire trinitarian process must not be con ceived of as a temporal one, but as a process ex tending throughout eternity (154, 10). Preger thought that Eckhart's distinction between Deity and God should be interpreted as a distinction be tween potentiality and actuality. To this inter pretation Denifle (ALKG, ii. 453 sqq.) has strongly objected and cited Eckhart's Latin writings, in which he, with Thomas Aquinas and others, desig nates God as actus purazs, thus excluding all poten tiality. Denifle is right, in that Eckhart does not consciously and deliberately make any such dis tinction; but it can not be denied that his concep tion leads to it. Especially significant is Eckhart's explanation in 175, 7 sqq. where he tries to illus trate the relation between the fatherhood as it is determined in the Deity and the paternity of the person of the Father by the relation between the maternity peculiar to the Virgin as such, and the maternity which she acquires by bearing. But this is exactly the relation of potentiality and ac tuality (cf. also the peculiar passage 193, 33). It must be admitted that Eckhart here expresses two views which can not be harmonized with one another, though the second is not fully developed. Eckhart had a wealth of ingenious ideas, but he was unable to systematize them. The self-manifestation of God in the Trinity is followed by his manifestation in his creatures. Everything in them that is truly real is God's eternal being; but God's being does not manifest itself thus in its entire fulness (101, 34; 173, 26; 503, 26). In this antithesis may be expressed the relation of Eckhart's philosophy to pantheism, both as regards similarities and differences. Accord ing to Eckhart God's creatures have 3. God in not, as Thomas Aquinas held, merely Creation. ideal preexistence in God, i.e. their conceptual essence (essentia, quidditos) coming from the divine intelligence, but their ex istence (esse) being foreign to the divine being. Rather is the true being of the creatures immanent

in the divine being. On the other hand, every peculiarity distinguishing creatures from each other is something negative; and in this sense it is said that the creatures are a mere nothing. Should God withdraw from his creatures his being, they would disappear as the shadow on the wall disappears when the wall is removed (31, 2). This perishable being is the creature confined within the limits of space and time (87, 49). On the other hand, every creature, considered according to its true entity, is eternal. It is obvious that this necessarily involves a modification of the idea of creation. Even Augustine and the Schoolmen felt this difficulty. While they did not, like Eckhart connect the existence of the world with the being of God they did consider it unallowable to attribute to God any temporary activity. Albert the Great tried to avoid the difficulty with the sentence, " God created all things from eternity, but things were not created from eternity "; but this is more easily said than conceived. According to the bull of 1329 (p. 2), Eckhart asserted that " it may be conceded that the world was from eternity." It is impossible here to investigate this view further; but reference must be made to the close relation into which Eckhart brings the process of the Trinity and the genesis, or progress, of the world, both of the real and the ideal world (76, 52; 254, 16; 284, 12; cf. Com. in Genes., ALKG, ii. 553, 13-17).

The unqualified Deity, the Trinity (birth of the Son or of the Eternal Word), and the creation of the world are to him three immediate moments, which follow each other in conceptual, not temporal sequence. All creatures have part in the divine essence; but this is true of the soul in a higher degree. In the irrational creature there is something of God; but in the soul God is divine (230, 26; 231, 4). Though God speaks his word in all creatures, only rational creatures can preserve it (479, 19). In other words, in the soul, where he has his resting-place, God is subjective, while in the rest of creation he is merely objective. The

soul is an image of God, in so far as 4. The Re- its chief powers, memory, reason, and lation of will, answer to the divine persons the Soul (319, 1). This accords with the view to God. of Augustine. Just as there is the

absolute Deity, which is superior to the persons of the Godhead, so in the soul there is something that is superior to its own powers. This is the innermost background of the soul, which Eckhart frequently calls a " spark," or " little spark." In its real nature this basis of the soul is one with the Deity (66, 2). When Eckhart sometimes speaks of it as uncreated (286, 16; 311, 6), and then again as created, this does not involve a contradiction. While, on the one hand, it rests eternally in the Deity, on the other it entered into the temporal existence of the soul, i.e. was made or created through grace. But it is not in this original unity with God that the soul finds its perfection and bliss. As it has a subjective being, it must turn to God, in order that the essential principle implanted in it may be truly realized. It is not enough that it was made by God; God must come and be in it. But this has taken place without