The God beyond God: Theology and Mysticism in the Thought of Meister Eckhart

Author(s): Bernard McGinn

Source: The Journal of Religion , Jan., 1981, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Jan., 1981), pp. 1-19
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

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The God beyond God: Theology and
Mysticism in the Thought of
Meister Eckhart*

Bernard McGinn / University of Chicago

To write about the relation of theology and mysticism is not an easy

task. On the one hand, there are those who think that mysticism is by
definition so foolish that the only wise word to be uttered about it is a
word of dismissal; on the other, we have the virtually unanimous
teaching of the mystics, Christian and non-Christian, that the goal of
the mystic path, be it union with God, the universe, or some form of
transformation or annihilation of our present condition, is beyond the
power of human concepts or speech to describe. Despite these and
other difficulties, there are figures in the history of Christian thought,
and I intend to argue that Meister Eckhart was certainly among them,
whose works compel us to take up the question of the theological status
of mysticism and whose positions challenge us to test their coherence
and validity in the light of our own theological programs.
An important qualification needs to be made at the outset. In this
essay I do not intend to try to define mysticism, though I hope that
the sense in which I will be using the term will gradually become clear.
"Mysticism" is one of those words, like "religion" itself, which we all
use and to some degree understand, but which proves difficult to define
and therefore productive of endless methodological disputes. I have no
wish to deny the importance of methodological questions, but the limits
of this paper preclude any lengthy prolegomenon. While it may be
possible and even useful to work out an abstract and therefore uni-
versal definition of a term that is, after all, an anachronistic one when

*This paper was presented as an inaugural lecture at the Divinity School of the University
of Chicago in October 1979.
? 1981 by The University of Chicago. 0022-4189/81/6101-0001$01.00

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The Journal of Religion

applied to authors prior to the eighteenth century,1 we must also be

attentive to the work of recent scholars who have emphasized the
variety of mysticisms present in world religions rather than the elusive
search for a common core and definition of all mysticism.2
This paper is an attempt to analyze the theological character of one
specific form of western Christian mysticism, that put forth by a
German Dominican who died about 1328. Eckhart is arguably the
most profound and influential, as well as the most controversial, late
medieval mystical author. What makes Eckhart so specially suited for
our theme is that no other figure combines as well as he the dual roles
of professional theologian and mystical preacher and writer. A master
at the University of Paris for two periods during the early fourteenth
century and a teacher at the Dominican theologates at Strassburg and
Cologne, he was also a powerful preacher (both in Latin and in the
vernacular) who took as his central theme the union of God and the
soul. The number of surviving manuscripts of his German sermons
and treatises -let alone the numerous vernacular texts falsely ascribed
to him-testify to his fame and influence as a preacher. To know
Eckhart alone is not to know the whole of late medieval mysticism,
but not to know Eckhart is to be virtually ignorant of the subject.
Interpretations of Eckhart over the centuries have been deeply
colored by the posthumous papal condemnation in 1329 of twenty-
eight propositions drawn from his works. Many interpreters who have
stressed the distance between Eckhart's thought and traditional
Christian belief have taken considerable delight in the condemnation,
but their own expositions of Eckhart frequently seem to be motivated
by concerns that are quite distant from those of the Dominican's own
Christian theological positions. Even those who have sought to under-
stand the Meister within the framework of his own thought, however,
have had considerable difficulty in giving us Eckhart whole. This is
illustrated by the continuing debate over the relative weight to be
accorded the Latin and the Middle High German works in interpreting
the Meister. Scholars who have sought to rescue Eckhart from misin-
terpretations largely founded on readings of the vernacular works have
tended to stress the importance of the Latin treatises as the key to his
careful and mature thought,3 but their approach has not been convinc-

'The first appearance of "mysticism" in English noted in the Oxford English Dictionary is dated
1736.

2See the papers in S. T. Katz, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1978), and esp. the remarks on p. 8.
3This approach was begun by H. Denifle, who first uncovered Eckhart's Latin writings at the
end of the last century. For a survey of the history of Eckhart scholarship, see I. Degenhardt,
Studien zum Wandel des Eckhartbildes (Leiden: Brill, 1967).

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 The God beyond God

ing to those who, while admitting the importance of the Latin works,
claim that Eckhart's true originality and real influence must be sought
in the more lively vernacular sermons and treatises.4 My purpose is to
try to break through this conflict of interpretations and to present the
broad lines of the integral Eckhart.
One classic entry into the problem of Eckhart's thought is through
the investigation of the distinction between the manifested trinitarian
God and the hidden Godhead. To choose this route is not to deny the
validity of other ways of approaching the unity of Eckhart's thought.
His writings display a coherent, if at times obscure, system, and hence
no key issue can be fully understood in isolation from the whole; but
there are distinct advantages to choosing this route that I hope will
become evident below.
In a number of the vernacular sermons the Meister distinguishes
between God and the Godhead or between God and God.5 Thus, in the
famous sermon 52, "Blessed Are the Poor," he says: "Therefore, we
beg God to rid us of God so that we may grasp and eternally enjoy the
truth where the highest angel and the fly and the soul are equal."6 In
sermon 83 we read: "When [the soul] sees God as he is God or as he is
form or as he is three, there is something inadequate present in it; but
when all forms are detached from the soul and she gazes only upon
the One alone, then the pure being of the soul finds that it bears hidden
in itself the pure formless being of divine unity that is being beyond
being."7
This distinction between the trinitarian God and the hidden unity of
the Godhead might be interpreted as a breakthrough beyond Christian
trinitarianism to a form of mystical unitarianism.8 One recent inter-
preter has seen Eckhart's language of breakthrough as a foretaste of
the death of the metaphysical notion of God in modern existentialist

4Two recent works make this claim: R. Schiirmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and Philosopher
(Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1978); p. xii (hereafter cited as Meister Eckhart); and J.
Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger's Thought (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1978), pp.
161, 230 (hereafter cited as The Mystical Element).
5For an introduction to this distinction, see S. Ueda, Die Gottesgeburt in der Seele und der Durch-
bruch zur Gottheit (Gfitersloh: Mohn, 1965), pp. 113-19.
6Predigt (hereafter Pr.) 52, as found in J. Quint et al., eds., Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und
lateinischen Werke (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1936-) (hereafter Die deutschen Werke will be abbrevi-
ated as DW and Die lateinischen Werke as LW). This text is to be found in DW 2:493.7-9. The
translation used is that of Schurmann, Meister Eckhart, p. 216, with one emendation.
'DW 3:437.11-438.1 (here and throughout, the translation is the author's unless otherwise
noted).
8D. T. Suzuki's remarks in Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist (New York: Macmillan Co., 1957),
pp. 13-15, 19-20, seem to come close to this position

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The Journal of Religion

philosophy.9 Further, the fact that the distinction appears primarily in

the vernacular works might seem to confirm the views of those who
contrast the originality of the German preacher with the at least rela-
tive sobriety of the university professor. A study of both the Latin and
the German works, however, enables us to see the shortcomings of
these interpretations and to grasp something of the coherence of
Eckhart's system.
Like all medieval theologians, Eckhart saw himself as a follower of
Augustine. In his defense of his teaching first at Cologne and then at
Avignon there was no authority to whom he appealed more frequently
than to the bishop of Hippo.10 But among the many Augustines, or
many aspects of Augustine, the one that was nearest to Eckhart's heart
was the Augustine of the Soliloquies who addressed Reason in the
following dialogue:

A(UGUSTINE): Behold, I have prayed to God. R(EASON): What then do you

wish to know? A: All the things I have prayed for. R: Sum them up in brief.
A: God and the soul, that is what I desire to know. R: Nothing more?
A: Nothing at all.11

God and the soul-that too is what Eckhart desired to know.

Nothing more, but nothing less either. At one place in the fifty-
of the German sermons the Meister summarizes the content of his
preaching in terms of four general themes that are really aspects of the
correlative mysteries of God and the soul:12 "When I preach I always
speak of detachment (abegescheidenheit) and that man shall be free of
himself and of all things. Second, that man shall be formed anew
(ingebildet) in the simple goodness that is God. Third, that man shall
think of the great nobility that God has bestowed on the soul in order
that he miraculously come to God. Fourth, [I speak of] the purity of the
divine nature-any brightness that is in the divine nature is ineffable.
God is a word, a word that is not spoken."13 Eckhart's proclamation of
the necessity of inner detachment from the self and from all created
things is a necessary precondition to union with God because only a

9Schiirmann, Meister Eckhart, pp. 165, 213. Schiirmann does admit, however, that Eckhart's
intention was not that of modern atheism (pp. 117-18).
'?See my paper, "Eckhart's Condemnation Reconsidered," Thomist 44, no. 3 (1980): 390-414.
"Augustine Soliloquies 7, trans. of C. C. Starbuck, in Basic Writings of St. Augustine, ed. W. J.
Oates (New York: Random House, 1948), 1:262.
12The Meister frequently noted that both God and the soul were ineffable: e.g., Pr. 17 (DW 1:
242), Pr. 77 (DW3:337-38), and Sermo 55.4 (LW4:458).
13DW2:528.3-529.2. For a consideration of these four themes, see Schiirmann, "Eckhart and
Soto Zen on Releasement," Thomist 42, no. 2 (1979): 285-312.

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 The God beyond God

totally naked soul can receive the naked hidden God-"the greater the
nudity, the greater the union."14 Man must make a pilgrimage into
the desert within him in order to encounter the wilderness (einoede,
wiestunge) of the hidden Godhead.15 Perfect union with God on the one
hand is a reformation, a recreation, a remaking (inbilden) of man back
into the simple ground of God; on the other, it is a recognition of the
godlike nobility that the soul never loses, an intellectual conversion to
the noble part of the soul that Eckhart speaks of as the viinkelin, the
biirgelin, or the grunt. 16 Finally, since the soul is truly divine in its inner-
most ground, and since the goal of life is the attainment not just of
similarity and unity but of true and undifferentiated oneness with
God, 17 the pure ineffability of the divine nature will always be the
most fundamental theme of the mystical preacher's message. These
four themes suggest that we must begin with the study of the problems
of Eckhart's language about the divine nature in order to be able to
understand the specific character of his teaching on the nature and
destiny of the soul.
The most evident problems in Eckhart's language about God, as I
have suggested elsewhere,18 are three: first, the relation between esse
("existence") and intelligere ("understanding") as terms used of God;
second, the God/Godhead distinction that is our central topic of con-
cern; and third, the problems of Eckhart's teaching on the birth of God
as Son or Word in the soul. The solution of each of these problems
mutually implies the others, and a study of these implications can
point the way toward an integral understanding of what Eckhart
thought about God and the soul.
The paradoxes of Eckhart's language about God cannot be solved on
the basis of the vernacular works. While many key themes of his

'Liberparabolorum Genesis (In Gen. II), n. 32 (LW 1:501.4).

'5The desert metaphor occurs primarily in the German works, where it is usually applied to
God and only occasionally to man. See Pr. 10 (DW 1:171.15 and 1:172.1), Pr. 12 (DW 1:193.4),
Pr. 28 (DW 2:66.6) (an application to the soul), Pr. 29 (DW 2:77.1), Pr. 48 (DW 2:420.9), Pr.
60 (DW 3:21.1-2), Pr. 81 (DW 3:400.4), Pr. 86 (DW 3:488.19), and the Liber benedictus (Lib.
ben.) (DW5:119.2-7). In the Latin works we find it in In Gen. II, n. 149 (LW1 :618.11-619.1).
16These metaphors for the innermost part of the soul have been widely discussed' in the
Eckhart literature. For a survey of their meanings, see B. Schmoldt, Die deutsche Begriffsprache
Meister Eckharts (Heidelberg: Quelle & Meyer, 1954).
'7Eckhart says that the soul does not seek the uniting of two things that remain distinct, but the
true union in which no distinction can be found (e.g., Expositio libri Sapientiae [In Sap.], n. 282
[LW 2:614-15]). In the German sermons the same point is made at length in Pr. 64 (DW
3:86-90).
"8See my paper, "Meister Eckhart on God as Absolute Unity," to be published in the proceed-
ings of the International Conference on Neoplatonism in the History of Christian Thought held
in Washington, D.C., in October 1978.

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TheJournal of Religion

discussion of the divine nature find striking expression in the German

sermons and treatises, their inner coherence is available to us only
through the Latin writings, especially the technical questions and
commentaries. 19 This is a good example of the symbiotic relation that
obtains between the two sides of the Meister's literary production. The
Latin works are designed primarily, but not solely, to lay out the major
themes of a systematic speculative theology, while the vernacular works
have as their purpose the communication of the religious implica-
tions of this theology to a broader audience.20
The initial problem, though, is that the technical Latin works them-
selves seem confused or contradictory in the way in which they speak of
God. The early Parisian Questions deny the Thomistic identity of esse
and intelligere in God to argue for the supremacy of the latter. "I
declare," Eckhart writes, "that it is not my present opinion that God
understands because he exists, but rather that he exists because he
understands. God is an intellect and understanding, and his under-
standing itself is the ground of his existence."21 But the prologue to his
unfinished masterwork, the Opus tripartitum, places esse est Deus ("God
is existence") as the first theological axiom from which all else flows.22
When we read through the sermons and treatises, both Latin and
German, we find numerous texts that identify God with pure existence
(esse or luter wesen, etc.), 23 but others that claim that we must get beyond
existence in order to enter the true divine realm.24 Despite these con-

g9The key texts in the LW for Eckhart's treatment of the divine nature are the Parisian Questions,
the prologues to the Opus tripartitum, and the dialectical texts to be found in LW 2:110-17, 270-
90, and 481-94.
20It is instructive to note the interplay of themes between the two sides of Eckhart's literary
oeuvre. Some basic issues, such as the birth of the Son in the soul, the distinction between God
and the Godhead, and the desert motif, occur largely in the German works, but have parallels,
implicit or explicit, in the Latin writings; others, such as the analysis of the relation between the
just man and justice, the dialectic of distinction and indistinction, and the notion of the negation
of negation, are more prevalent in the technical scholastic treatises. Some omnipresent concerns,
such as the advantages and disadvantages of esse (wesen) as language for God, are equally present
on both sides.
2L W5:40.5-7.
22Both the Prologus generalis and the Prologus in opus propositionum advance this position (L
1:156-65 and 1:166-82).
23E.g., Expositio libri Genesis (In Gen. I), n. 143 (LW 1:297); Expositio libri Exodus (In Exo
nn. 14-21, 51, 161-69 (LW 2:20-28, 55, 142-48); In Sap., n. 112 (LW 2:449); Expositio san
evangeliisecundumIohannem (In o.), n. 60 (L W3:49-50); Sermo 4.1 (LW4:24-25). In the Ger
works, see Pr. 39 (DW 2:266), Pr. 77 (DW 3:339-41), Lib. ben. 1 (DW 5:28-29), and V
abegescheidenheit (Von ab. ) (DW5:431).
24E.g., Sermo 11.2 and Sermo 29 (LW4:112, 270). In the German works, see Pr. 71, Pr.
and Pr. 83 (DW3:231, 431, 442), as well as Von ab. (DW5:423).

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 The God beyond God

trasts, there is a coherent structure to Eckhart's language about God.

It is to be found by an analysis of the way in which a dialectical under-
standing of God as unum (this is, the One, or Absolute Unity) resolves
the antinomies of God as esse and God as beyond esse. A study of the
Meister's theories of predication and analogy inelectably leads toward
a Neoplatonic dialectic that receives an explicit treatment in a number
of places in the Latin works, most notably in his commentary on
Wisd. 7:27: "And since Wisdom is one, it can do all things."25
In this text Eckhart shows how the dialectical consideration of the
term unum gives us the clearest insight into how God can be at once
indistinct, or immanent, in all things at the same time as and precisely
insofar as he is completely distinct from, that is, transcendent to, all
things.26 The key to the analysis is to understand unum as the "not-to-
be-distinguished." That is its distinguishing mark. To conceive of God as
unum is to conceive of him as simultaneously distinct and indistinct,
at once immanent and transcendent. "Everything that is distinguished
by indistinction is the more distinct insofar as it is indistinct, because
it is distinguished by its own indistinction. Conversely, it is the more
indistinct insofar as it is distinct, because it is distinguished by its own
distinction from indistinction. Therefore, it will be the more indistinct
insofar as it is distinct and vice-versa. But God is something indistinct
distinguished by his indistinction."27
The dialectic of unum manifests the way in which esse can be affirmed
of God. Esse can be understood in two ways. When it is used primarily
as a general metaphysical term applicable to created reality, as in the
Parisian Questions, 28 it implies division and posteriority and hence is less
suitable to God than is the term intelligere. But when esse is understood
transcendentally, that is, as signifying the reality of God and cosignify-
ing the nothingness of creatures, it is legitimately affirmed of the
ineffable God. By noting the dialectical character of these two under-
standings (what is affirmed of God must be denied of creatures and
vice versa) the nature of the relation between esse and unum begins to
come clear. Eckhart tells us that unum as the "not-to-be-distinguished"
is a term that is negative in appearance only. Its reality is positive - not

25For a more detailed treatment of Eckhart's dialectic and its relation to Christian belief, see
my "Meister Eckhart on God as Absolute Unity."
261n Sap., nn. 144-57 (LW 2:481-94). See the discussion of this text in V. Lossky, Thiologic
nigative et connaissance de Dieu chez Mditre Eckhart (Paris: Vrin, 1960), pp. 261-65.
27LW 2:490.4-7. In Io., n. 99 (LW 3:85), and a variety of other texts also teach that God is
distinguished by his indistinction. A similar dialectic informs Nicholas of Cusa's treatise De non
aliud.
28E.g., LW5:47.7: "Unde statim venimus ad esse, venimus ad creaturam."

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The Journal of Religion

a negation, but "the negation of negation which is the purest affirma-

tion and the fullness of the term affirmed."29 Hence it signifies the
purity and core of meaning of transcendental esse better even than
esse itself does by revealing the immanence hidden in transcendence.30
In a similar way, the dialectical understanding of unum shows us
how intelligere in some contexts can be used as the preferred term for
God. What does "understand" mean if not to become one with what is
understood?31 Intelligere transcendentally understood signifies the
perfect oneness that is found in God alone. As the Meister put it in a
well-known Latin sermon: "The one God is intellect and intellect is the
one God."32 But intelligere taken by itself does not display the mutual
implication of both poles of the dialectic as explicitly as does the term
unum.

What is the relation of the soul to God considered as the unum who is
at once esse and intelligere? For Eckhart the soul finds its true beatitude
in knowing God, that is, becoming one with him in a transcendental
union. There are many ways in which Eckhart discusses how this
union is to be achieved. The most striking of these, omnipresent in the
German sermons,33 more sparsely treated elsewhere,34 is that of the
birth of the Son in the soul.35 Over and over again Eckhart speaks of
the Father's eternal begetting of the Son in that noble part of the soul
that stands outside place and time. He often expresses this in terms that
seem to deny any distinction between the self and the Son, and at times
even the distinction between the self and the Father, as in German
sermon 6, where we read: "The Father gives birth to the Son unceas-
ingly, and I say yet more - he gives birth to me as his Son and the self-
same Son. I say further that he gives birth to me not only as his Son, he

29LW 2:485.5-7. With the exception of Pr. 21 (DW 1:361-63), the negation of negation
appears explicitly only in the Latin works. The Latin writings also contain analogous formula-
tions, such as the notion of quies as the privatio privationis in In Gen. I, n. 158 (LW 1:306).
3?LW2:486.3-5. The same conclusion can be found in the German works, especially in those
statements that emphasize ein or einicheit as the grunt des wesens (e.g., Pr. 13 in D W 1:219).
31The esse of the intellect is an esse ad aliud, i.e., one aimed at oneness with the object (e.g.,
Sermo 14.2 in LW4:144).
32Sermo 29 (L W4:270.1-2).
33It is found in Pr. 2, 4, 5b, 6, 11, 14, 19, 22, 25, 28-31, 38,39, 40-42, 44, 46, 49, 50, 59,and
75 (more important treatments italicized).
34In the German treatises we find it in the Lib. ben. 1 (DW 5:11-12, 41). In the Latin works,
see In Gen. II, n. 180 (LW 1:650), In Sap., nn. 281, 283 (LW 2:613, 615-16), and In Io., nn.
118-19 (L W3:103-4).
35Virtually every major study of Eckhart has something to say on this topic. For the sake of
brevity, I mention only the work of Ueda referred to above (n. 5) and the study of K. Kertz,
"Meister Eckhart's Teaching on the Birth of the Divine Word in the Soul," Traditio 15 (1959):
327-63.

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 The God beyond God

gives birth to me as himself and himself as myself, and myself as his

being and nature."36 Three passages of this nature were included in
the papal condemnation.37 Eckhart was at least equally daring in
insisting that the Father not only eternally begets the Son in the soul,
but also that the soul itself, after it has become a virgin by stripping
itself of all things through detachment, must go further and become a
wife, that is, must in turn beget the Son with the Father and beget
itself as the selfsame Son in the Father.38 While Eckhart's language
here may seem pantheistic, we must note that the birth of the Son or
Word in the soul has deep roots in Christian thought39 and that a
number of interpreters have stressed the conformity of Eckhart's views
with Christian teaching on the divinizing power of grace.40
This is not the place to attempt an investigation of the question of
whether or not Eckhart's notion of the birth of the Son in the soul is
pantheistic or not. For our purposes it is more important to note that
the peculiar twist that Eckhart's doctrine of divinization took was
primarily due to the fact that for him "gottes grund und der sele grund
ain grund ist" ("God's ground and the soul's ground is one ground").41
The Father gives birth to the Word in the soul and the Father and the
Son together engender the Subsistent Love that is the Holy Spirit there
because in its deepest reality the source of the trinitarian processions
is one with the source of the soul. This insight enables us to solve at
least one of the paradoxes connected with the birth of the Son in the
soul in the Meister's writings, and it will also have implications for the
related paradox of the God/Godhead distinction. It has long been
noted that there is another series of texts in Eckhart that seems to say
that it is the soul's breakthrough (durchbruch) to the hidden Godhead
rather than the birth of the Son that is the ultimate goal of the mystic

36DW 1:109.7-10.
37Bull In agro dominico, propositions 20-22.
38E.g., Pr. 2 (DW 1:27-32). The root of this is Eckhart's claim that being born and b
(i.e., being a mother) are dialectically inseparable (e.g., Pr. 76 in DW 3:325). This teac
the foundation of many of the paradoxical statements, found especially in the vernacular
to the effect that man is in some way responsible for the Godhead of God (e.g., Pr
DW 1:240 and Pr. 52 in DW2:486-506).
39See H. Rahner, "Die Gottesgeburt: Die Lehre der Kirchenvater von der Geburt Chris
Herzen der Gliubigen," Zeitschriftfiir katholischen Theologie 59 (1935): 333-418.
?4See esp. the article of Kertz referred to above. It should be noted that Eckhart argued th
intended nothing more than what the Fathers had said about the divinization of man, a
frequently quoted a favorite text from Augustine (In ep. Io. ad Parthos. 2.14; see Patrologi
35, 1997) in this connection (e.g., LW 2:174, 355; LW 3:40; LW 4:462; and DW 2:23
278, 343).
41Pr. 15 (DW 1:253.5-6). See also Pr. 5b, Pr. 10, and Pr. 24 (DW 1:90, 162, 415).

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 TheJournal of Religion

path.42 Such texts could also be used to confirm the interpretations

of the God/Godhead distinction that see in it an at least inchoate
abandonment of the Christian doctrine of God. But the teaching that
God and the soul have one ground provides the clue to the mutual
relation of the two themes of birthing and breakthrough thatJ. Caputo
has recently pointed out: "We have therefore two contrasting formula-
tions of the relationship between the breakthrough to the Godhead and
the birth of the Son. In the one, the breakthrough to the Godhead is
more radical than the birth of the Son and indeed the ground and basis
of it. In the other, the birth of the Son crowns and perfects the unity
with the Godhead as fruitfulness perfects virginity."43 Because the soul
has broken through and become one with "das vinsterniss oder das
vnbekanntnis der verborgenen gothait,"44 it must always be giving
birth to the Son. A number of texts in the vernacular sermons speak
of this, none more hauntingly than a passage from sermon 71: "When
the soul comes into the One, entering into pure loss of self, it finds
God as in Nothingness. It seemed to a man that he had a dream, a
waking dream, that he was great with Nothingness as a woman with
child. In this Nothingness God was born. He was the fruit of Nothing-
ness; God was born in Nothingness."45
What is the relation between this "Nothingness," this "verborgene
gothait," and the three Persons of the Christian Trinity? Is the God
beyond God with which the ground of the soul is one a move beyond
Christianity implying a sort of mystical atheism?46 Though it must be
admitted that in seeking to express the mystery of the relation of the
Trinity and the Unity in God Eckhart strains language to its limits,
I do not think that this is the case.
The first thing we must note is Eckhart's constant protestation of
the absolute ineffability of God.47 In the long and hallowed tradition

42The literature on the breakthrough motif is extensive, and the texts are many. For a few
classic passages, see Pr. 26, Pr. 29, and Pr. 52 (DW 2:31-32, 76-77, 504-5), and Pr. 69
(DW3:178-80). For background and discussion, see Ueda.
43J. Caputo, "Fundamental Themes of Meister Eckhart's Mysticism," Thomist 42, no. 2 (1978):
197-225 (quotation from p. 224) (hereafter cited as "Fundamental Themes"). See also his
discussion in The Mystical Element (n. 4 above), pp. 127-34, as well as Ueda, p. 145.
Pr. 15 (DW 1:253.1).
45DW3:224.4-225. 1.
46The phrase "mystical atheism" is from Caputo, "Fundamental Themes," p. 211.
47To cite just a few examples: In Ex., nn. 45-78, 170-84, sections that form two import
treatises on the divine names (LW2:50-82, 148-58); Sermones et lectiones super Ecclesiastici c. 2
-31 (In Eccli.), nn. 62-63 (LW 2:291-93); In Io., nn. 195, 206 (LW 3:163, 173); Sermones 4.
21.2, 37, and 55.4 (LW 4:31-32, 112, 320, 458); Pr. 7 (DW 1:123); Pr. 51 and Pr. 53 (D
2:476-77, 529); Pr. 76 and Pr. 83 (DW3:322-24, 441-42).

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 The God beyond God

of Christian negative theology, the Meister takes a special case, not

only for the intricate dialectic of his technical expositions of the limita-
tions of our knowledge of God, but also for the poetic daring with
which he proclaimed this to his vernacular audience. "How then
should I love him [God]?" Eckhart asks his audience. "You should
love him as he is-a non-God, a non-Spirit, a non-Person, a non-
Image. Yet more, [you should love him] insofar as he is a sheer, pure
and clear Absolute Unity differentiated from all duality. Let us
eternally sink down into this Unity from something to nothing."48
From the standpoint of such negation, neither Trinity nor Unity are
fully adequate terms to give knowledge of a God who is "one without
unity and three without trinity."49
The divine ineffability did not reduce Eckhart to silence, any more
than it did the authorities upon whom he relied. A favorite Augustine
citation of the Dominican was from On Christian Doctrine 1.6, where
the bishop of Hippo had pondered the paradox of statements about the
ineffable, remarking: "If what is said were ineffable, it would not be
said. And for this reason God should not be said to be ineffable, for
when this is said something is said. A contradiction in terms is created,
since if that is ineffable which cannot be spoken, then that is not
ineffable which can be called ineffable."50 To understand how Eckhart
dealt with this paradox we must be constantly attentive to the inter-
lacing complexity of all the ways he uses language when he speaks of
God. The technical virtuosity of the Latin works and the lyrical
outbursts of the vernacular writings provide strategies not for express-
ing what is inexpressible but for suggesting what lies beyond speech.
Each strategy is partial-the two sides of the corpus are meant to be
complementary, but even in combination they do not give us a
doctrine in the sense of a set of truths to be summarized, or a map
of any terrain.51 They are more pointers toward a horizon that
continually eludes us.
The God/Godhead distinction as found in the German works is by
no means uniform. Frequently, it is used to distinguish the Father as
the source of the other Persons of the Trinity, as when we read: "The
Father is an origin of the Godhead for he comprehends himself in

48Pr. 83 (DW3:448.7-9).
49Sermo 11.2 (L W4:112.6).
5?Augustine On Christian Doctrine, trans. D. W. Robertson (New York: Library of Liberal
Arts, 1958), p. 11.
51A similar point is made regarding Aquinas' discussion of God by D. Burrell, Aquinas: God
andAction (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979), esp. chap. 3.

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The Journal of Religion

himself."52 Such usages can be squared with traditional trinitarian

theology and bring Eckhart close to a number of his immediate
predecessors, such as Bonaventure.53 At other times, however, this
language is invoked in more radical fashion to distinguish between the
three Persons and their hidden ground, the God beyond God men-
tioned in sermon 52. Among the passages in this vein, there is a
striking text from sermon 48, whose splendor is unfortunately much
diminished in translation: "I intend to say something else that sounds
even more astonishing. I say on the basis of solid truth, eternal truth,
perpetual truth, that this same light (the spark of the soul) is not
satisfied with the simple immobile divine being that neither gives nor
takes. Further, it wants to know where this being comes from. It wants
to penetrate to the simple ground, the silent desert where distinction
never gazed, where there is neither Father, nor Son, nor Holy
Spirit."54
It has been said that the God beyond God problem does not arise
in the Latin works.55 This is not really true, since not only are there
some passages that parallel the first form of the German sermons,
where, following the authority of Augustine, unity is ascribed to the
Father as the origin and source of the divinity of the other Persons;56
but there is also a series of texts that offer at least an analogy to the
second form by distinguishing between the Trinity and its ground, the
divine essence or substance, according to the four transcendental
terms.57 It is necessary to turn to a variety of passages in the Latin
works in order to put this second class of statements, those distinguish-
ing between Trinity and ground, in the proper theological perspective.
A brief consideration will also suggest that the God beyond God of the
vernacular writings is a special form of the way in which the Meister

52Pr. 15 (DW1:252.2-3). For'similar texts, see Pr. 12, Pr. 13, Pr. 21, and Pr. 22 (DW1:193.8-
194.8, 217.2-5, 363.9-10, 389.9-10); Pr. 26 and Pr. 49 (DW 2:29.1-2, 31.1-32.3, 434.1-4);
and Pr. 51 (DW3:470.2-10).
53See the discussion of "Father as 'Fontalis Plenitudo,'" in E. Cousins, Bonaventure and the
Coincidence of Opposites (Chicago: Franciscan Herald Press, 1978), pp. 52-54.
54DW 2:420.4-10. For other texts, besides those mentioned in nn. 6 and 7 above, see Pr. 2
(DW 1:43.3-44.2) and Pr. 67 (DW 3:132.1-134.1), where the distinction is between the pure
being of God as intellectus and the Three Persons; and Pr. 80 (DW 3:379.6-380.2), which is
similar.
55Schiirmann, Meister Eckhart (n. 4 above), p. 116.
56E.g., In Gen. II, n. 215 (LW 1:691); In Sap., n. 57 (LW 2:384). See also the discussion of
the distinct/indistinct relation of the Father to the Son in In Io., n. 197 (LW3:166).
57These come in two forms: a text where unum is the divine substance and ens, verum, and
bonum are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (In Io., n. 360, in LW 3:305-6); and texts where
esse is the undetermined and absolute divine essence and unum, verum, and bonum are Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit (In Io., nn. 511-13, 516-18, 562, in LW3:442-45, 446-48, 489-90).

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 The God beyond God

treats the priority of the divine unity over the Trinity of Persons in
the Latin commentaries.
Eckhart tells us that if we could see God's essence, the name that
we would give it would be unum, Absolute Unity.58 His sense of the
indescribable purity of Absolute Unity led him to a disagreement with
Thomas Aquinas on the question of the plurality of the divine
attributes. For Thomas, the plurality of attributes has a foundation
in the divine being as well as in our own intellects;59 for Eckhart, any
plurality is solely from the point of view of our own manner of
conceiving.60 Even when treating the notional acts founded in the
relations that are the Three Persons (i.e., the terms expressing the
distinguishing realities of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), Eckhart
strove to emphasize the prior role of Absolute Unity. "Nature always
originates from the One and returns to the One," he says; "in the
Godhead's notional acts [we find the same, for] the one essence is
their root and the Three Persons are the one essence."61 Eckhart also
seems to disagree with Aquinas on another important technical point
that emphasizes the priority of Absolute Unity. In his Commentary
on Exodus he quotes without any disapproval the suspect view of
Gilbert of Poitiers that in God the relations that constitute the Trinity
do not enter into the divine substance, but remain quasiforis stans--"as
if they were standing outside."62 Unum is one of the terms to be
reserved to the hidden ground of the divine nature, though both the
terms that are proper to the Persons of the Trinity (i.e., the notional
acts) and also the transcendental terms that are appropriated to them
like "being" to the Father, "truth" to the Son, and "goodness" to the
Holy Spirit, are all convertible with unum. 63
If we wish to be true to Eckhart, we must admit the grounding
priority of the hidden Unity of the Godhead, absolute and undeter-
mined esse, the God beyond God, over the Trinity of Persons. But if
we stop there and refuse to recognize that the unum dialectically
demands expression as a Trinity of Persons we shall also be false to
the Meister. A text from vernacular sermon 10 puts the dialectical

58In Ex., n. 57 (LW2:63).

59In ISent. d. 2, q. 1, a. 3; and STIa, q. 13, a. 4.
60In Ex., nn. 58 and 61 (LW 2:64, 66). These two passages were combined to form article 23
of the condemned propositions of the Bull In agro dominico. It is significant that the major par
of the condemned proposition is actually a quotation from Maimonides.
61In Io., n. 67 (LW 3:55.13-56.2). A similar formula can be found in Pr. 24 (DW 1:419),
where the Three Persons are one wesen in the ground of the divine being.
62In Ex., n. 65 (LW2:70). See Aquinas, De. pot. q. 8, a. 2; and ST. Ia, q. 28, a. 2.
63In Io., n. 360 (LW 3:305.9-306.2). The same convertibility holds when esse is dialectically
conceived as the divine ground: e.g., In Io., n. 562 (LW2:489-90).

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TheJournal of Religion

relation in a nutshell: "Distinction comes from Absolute Unity, that

is, the distinction in the Trinity. Absolute Unity is the distinction and
distinction is the Unity. The greater the distinction, the greater the
Unity, for that is the distinction without distinction."64 This text makes
explicit reference to the Latin sermons for Trinity Sunday65 and is
fully coherent with Eckhart's teaching on the Trinity when viewed in
global fashion. The Meister is affirming the necessity for an ineffable
source within God for the dialectic of immanence and transcendence
between God and creation. In Eckhart's thought the dynamic relation
between God and creation must be grounded in the inner dynamism
of the divine nature itself.66 God as the God beyond God is still
distinguished by indistinction and is therefore "the more indistinct
insofar as he is distinct," that is, the more one insofar as he is three
and vice versa. Only when we have reached the God beyond God,
when we have come to the inner unity where there is no Father, Son,
or Holy Spirit, will we realize why God must be three.
For Eckhart, Absolute Unity gives rise to the distinction that is the
Trinity in a dynamic fashion best seen in the notion of bullitio.
Bullitio (literally, "boiling") is simple formal emanation, the total
transmission of the pure essence of reality. Because of its formal
character, it has nothing to do with the extrinsicism of efficient or final
causality and thus remains completely within its principle. It is a con-
version of the principle in itself and upon itself- a silent inner redup-
lication, a negation of negation, metaphorically described as bullfire
("to boil"), intumescere ("to swell"), or parturire ("to bring forth").67 "The
One," he says, "acts as a principle. For this reason, properly speaking,
it does not produce something like itself, but what is one and the same
as itself."68 The divine inner bullitio, the emanation of the Persons of
the Trinity, provides the exemplary model for all ebullitio, that is, all
efficient and final causality, either creation of the part of God or the
making of one thing from another by secondary causes. In fine, the

64DW 1:173.2-5. This passage is not present in all manuscripts, but its authenticity is solidly
established by the arguments of the editor of the D W, J. Quint.
65Sermones 2-4 (L W 4:5-32). Quint (DW 1:173, n. 1) notes that no text in the Latin sermons
corresponds exactly to the German passage, but he cites a number of parallels from these sermons
and from other places in the Latin works.
66 This appears very clearly in the lengthy comments on the Prologue ofJohn (L W3:3-112).
67The key texts are In Ex., n. 16 (LW 2:21.8-22.9); In Sap., n. 283 (LW 2:615.12-616.4);
InIo., n. 25 (LW3:20.5-6); Sermones 25.1, 25.2, and 49.3 (LW4:236.4-8, 239.10-11, 425.14-
426.14). These should be compared with the treatment of the formal emanation of vita in In Io.,
nn. 61-69 (L W3:50-58).
68In Io., n. 342 (LW 3:291.4-6). One peculiarity about this text suggests a possible emenda-
tion. This is the only place to my knowledge where the text uses ebullitio and not bullitio (p. 291.8)
to describe the inner trinitarian emanations. Bullitio would seem to be closer to Eckhart's mind.

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 The God beyond God

divine unity is prior to the Trinity as the hidden ground of the bullitio
of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but it can never be considered alone
as standing in some sort of frozen immobility, nor could such a desert
without bloom be the goal of the soul's journey.69 The unum is not
negation, but negation of negation, the sum qui sum ("I am that I am")
of Exod. 3:14 that signifies the conversion of the ground of esse upon
itself.
To examine fully the import of the dialectical solution to the God/
Godhead distinction would demand an essay larger in scope than this.
Such an investigation would have to show not only that this resolution
brings us to the core of Eckhart's thought on the issue, but would also
have to take up the more complex question of the adequacy of this
approach to the expression of Christian belief. I would maintain that
in both these areas an affirmative response is indicated, in the former
not least of all because the dialectic answer to the God/Godhead
problem coheres so well with the dialectical resolution of the parado
of Eckhart's language about God as esse and intelligere.
It is time to take stock of the path so quickly traversed. In trying
make Eckhart's paradoxes clear I may seem only to have succee
in wrapping them deeper in the cloud of unknowing. There is s
legitimacy in such judgment, especially since the Meister hims
never claimed that he could solve the problem of God and the s
that he could provide clear and accurate information about that dese
where God and the soul become one. What Eckhart's extensive
writings do assert is that the effort to frame and explore the appr
ate paradoxes is not without its reward. Intellect, left to its quoti
functions, would never be in a position to note what mig
suggested by the limitations of its most spectacular fireworks.
Meister Eckhart was certainly a theologian, as I hope we have
by now. But what about Eckhart the mystic? Even though he has
almost universally considered a mystic-frequently a classic we
mystic-the appellation of "mystic" to the German Domi
deserves careful consideration. Indeed, one recent interpreter
refused to call Eckhart a mystic at all, but insists on referring to
as metaphysician alone.70 It seems more correct to insist that Eck
was a true mystic in the general sense of one whose efforts were

69I would disagree with Schurmann, Meister Eckhart, p. 115, on the sterility of the desert.
70C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
1977), pp. 107-8.

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The Journal of Religion

to understanding and achieving the union of God and the soul.71 But
the case of Eckhart does seem to force us to a critical differentiation of
types of mysticism that is important for the later Middle Ages and
may not be without significance in other contexts.
Meister Eckhart shows little interest in special states of religious
experience. If we define mysticism in terms of some experienced
awareness of divine presence, usually of transitory nature, as many
modern interpreters in dependence on the accounts of many mystics
have done,72 we must deny that Eckhart was a mystic or even a
theologian of mysticism. A careful search reveals that there are only
three treatments of raptus or what we would call mystical ecstasy in
his voluminous writings. Once in a vernacular treatise he mentions its
existence while laying emphasis on the superior importance of the
love of God,73 and twice in the Latin works he has perfunctory treat-
ments based on the discussions of Augustine and Aquinas.74 In addi-
tion, one text from a poorly attested German sermon seems to affirm
that we can experientially discern the presence of God;75 but even if
this be authentic, it is certainly not Eckhart's usual voice. The evidence
of the vernacular works, where one would expect considerable appeal
to the experience of his listeners, is especially revealing. The Counsels
of Discernment warn that feelings are misleading76 and teach that the
inner being of God's love is more important than any sensed mani-
festation.77 The sermons echo this warning against sensible consola-
tion.78 As the Meister puts it in one place: "There are people who want
to see God with the same eyes with which they look at a cow, and they
want to love God the same way they love a cow . . . for the milk and
the cheese."79 If sensible consolation is suspect, Eckhart does not make
sensible desolation the central factor in his mysticism either. It is true

71For a survey of some attempts to characterize Eckhart's mysticism and evaluate its
orthodoxy, see Ueda, pp. 140-45.
72To mention only one classic account, see W. James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New
York: MacMillan Co., 1961), chaps. 16 and 17.
73Von ab. (DW 5:420.6-421.4). Eckhart does discuss the raptus of Paul to the third heaven in
several places, notably Pr. 23 (DW 1:403-8).
7Sermo 22 (LW 4:202) cites the treatment of Aquinas in De ver. q. 13, a. 2. In the Sermo die
b. Augustini (L W 5:93-95) the Meister speaks of exstasis mentis as one of the three forms by which
the divine light raises the intellect to what is above it, citing the example and teaching of
Augustine.
75Pr. 56 (DW 2:589.2-6). The sermon is found in only three manuscripts, although Quint
does defend its authenticity (see D W2:586-87).
76Die rede der underscheidunge 15 and 20 (D W5:240-44, 262-74).
77Ibid. 10(DW5:215-24).
78E.g., God prefers to give rational rather than sensible consolation in Pr. 86 (D W3:482).
79Pr. 16b (DW 1:272). The translation is that of Schurmann, Meister Eckhart, p. 102.

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 The God beyond God

that in the vernacular Book of Consolation and elsewhere he argues for

the importance of learning to accept trials as the will of God,80 and he
appreciates the power of the Cross;81 but it is crucial to note that the
message of inner detachment and humble conformity with God's will
can be found by learning to accept any situation, good or bad, in the
proper frame of mind. Eckhart's real appeal is to an intellectual and
above all to a religious conversion, one in which our eyes are finally
opened to see what has always been the case. In one impassioned
sermon the Meister pleaded with his audience that if only they could
realize the joy and truth within themselves they would all be trans-
formed before they left the church that very night.82
Eckhart preached and wrote in the midst of a society that was
undergoing a remarkable outpouring of interest in new forms of
religious life and new styles of religious experience.83 Since the late
twelfth century, small groups of women and, less frequently, men,
generally called Beguines and Beghards, respectively, had begun to
form religious cells and houses in the cities of the Lowlands and
Germany. In addition, the Dominican order to which Eckhart
belonged had experienced a remarkable growth in its houses of relig-
ious women. Eckhart's vernacular works have often been studied in the
light of this historical background. Herbert Grundmann, for one, has
argued that the Meister's idea of total detachment or abegescheidenheit
can be seen as a theological higher synthesis of the stress on apostolic
poverty found among the Beguines.84 Gordon Leff, for another, in
studying the shift in the papacy from guarded encouragement to
disapproval of the new religious groups, see Eckhart's condemnation
as a form of guilt by association, a rap on the knuckles for a popular
preacher whose more extreme statements seemed conducive to the
errors of autotheism and antinomianism of which the Beguines and
Beghards came to be accused in the fourteenth century.85
There is another frequently unnoted connection between Eckhart's
teaching and the special religious background of his time. To anyone
with an acquaintance with some of the famous Beguine mystics, with

80E.g., In Io., nn. 76-77 (LW3:64-65), on the uses of adversity.

81E.g., Sermo 45 (LW4:380-87).
82Pr. 66 (DW3:113-14).
83The best study of this religious context is H. Grundmann, Die religiiise Bewegungen im
Mittelalter, 2d ed. (Hildesheim: Olms, 1961).
84H. Grundmann, "Die geschichtlichen Grundlagen der deutschen Mystik," in Altdeusche und
Altniederlindische Mystik, ed. K. Ruh (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964),
esp. pp. 82-97 (hereafter cited as "Die geschichtlichen Grundlagen").
85G. Leff, Heresy in the Later MiddleAges (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967), 1:208-10.

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TheJournal of Religion

a Mechtilde of Magdeburg, for instance,86 what will be immediately

striking about Meister Eckhart is his lack of interest not only in
visions, locutions, elevations, palpitations, and the like, but even in
ecstasy or raptus, the conscious experience of union. The lives and
writings of the Beguines, on the other hand, overflow with these
special experiences, from the highest to the lowest varieties.87
Eckhart will have none of this. I would suggest, then, that his
insistence that the union of God and the soul is not a matter of a special
state or experience outside the usual daily round, but is rather a special
awareness of the meaning of everyday life, should be seen as an
important criticism of aspects of the religious fervor of his time, a
criticism that may well have been forgotten by some of his followers.
If Eckhart is really a mystic - and I believe that we can use that term
of him-we must be more careful about distinguishing two types of
mysticism, at least in the history of Christianity. One type stresses
forms of extraordinary experience, unique moments of conscious
awareness of standing outside ourselves in union with God. Another
type, the Eckhartian type, aims at penetrating the ordinary in order
to reveal the extraordinary.88 It distrusts consolation and desolation,
or indeed anything that smacks of the transitory moment. It seeks a
new form of understanding that leads to a new way of life best
expressed by Eckhart's teaching about "living without a why" (sunder
warumbe). When I truly recognize the unity of ground of God and the
soul the Meister says that "here I am living from what is my own as
God lives from what is his own. . . . From this inner ground you
should do everything you do without a why."89
Had we time to survey the history of Christian mysticism in broader
fashion, I think it would become clear that the two types I have
suggested are really two tendencies, complementary approaches

86Mechtilde (c. 1210-c. 1280) lived as both a Beguine and later as the superior of a Cistercian
convent. Her great work, Dasfliessende Licht der Gottheit, was written down under the direction of
her Dominican confessor, Heinrich of Halle. For a translation of one version, see L. Menzies,
The Revelations of Mechtild ofMagdeburg (London: Longmans, 1953).
87Visions and sensible experiences of union are frequent in Mechtilde: see, e.g., bks. 2.4, 2.7,
2.8, 2.20, 2.25, 2.26, 3.1, 3.3, and esp. the brief autobiography in 4.2. For a broader discussion
of ecstatic experience among the Beguines, see Grundmann's remarks on the iubilus in "Die
geschichtlichen Grundlagen," pp. 87-90.
88Analogies to this type of mysticism are also found outside Christianity, as D. Duclow has
reminded me. See, e.g., M. Buber's witness to the hallowing of the everyday in Between Man
andMan (New York: Macmillan Co., 1965), pp. 13-14.
89Pr. 5b (DW 1:90.8-12). Living "without a why" occurs in a number of German sermons,
such as Pr. 5a (DW 1:80-81) and Pr. 26 (DW 2:26-27). There are echoes in the Latin works,
e.g., Sermo4.1 (LW55:22-23); InEx., n. 247 (LW2:201).

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 The God beyond God

frequently intermingled in those we call mystics. Meister Eckhart is a

remarkably pure example of mysticism of the second variety. His
message may well have been misunderstood in his own time and by
his immediate followers, but the power of his words have bridged the
centuries. Eckhart was fully capable of constructing theological argu-
ments of remarkable intricacy and depth, but his insights are no less
striking when couched in almost artless simplicity. After all the para-
doxes of his teaching on God have been exhausted, his message is
perhaps best expressed in such simple phrases as "Herze ze herzen,
ein in einem minnet got."90

90"Heart to heart, one in the One, so God loves" (Lib. ben. 1 [DW5:46.15]).

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