Meister Eckhart's Conception of Union with God

1978 ◽  
Vol 71 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 203-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Kieckhefer
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Cloud Of Unknowing ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Mystical Tradition ◽  
Union With God

Although Meister Eckhart himself might have been puzzled by the term, he is traditionally known as a mystic. The designation surely does apply, in the sense that Eckhart sought and recommended a kind of union between the soul and God. But as soon as one proceeds to analyze the precise nature of that union, difficulties abound. In recent literature it has become clear that the Christian mystical tradition has employed various distinct concepts of union with God, and scholars have inquired what sort of union one or another mystic sought. This effort has been made, for example, in studies of John Tauler andThe Cloud of Unknowing. In examining these and other mystics, particularly those of the Western medieval tradition, scholars have asked whether they viewed union with God as a momentary experience or as an ongoing way of life, and whether they saw this union as continuous and compatible with ordinary religious experience and knowledge or as discontinuous and incompatible. The present article will attempt to answer such questions in regard to Meister Eckhart, in hopes of clarifying an aspect of his thought which, though fundamental, is most commonly approached only tangentially in the literature.

Living Religion

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-143
Author(s):  
James W. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Relational Model ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
Ordinary Sense ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Cloud Of Unknowing ◽  
Human Understanding

An embodied approach to human understanding can ground the case for a “spiritual sense” and for understanding religious knowledge as a form of perception, especially if proprioception (and not just ordinary sense perception) is used as an analogue. The long-standing tradition of the existence of a spiritual sense is brought up to date by linking it to various contemporary neuroscientific theories. An embodied-relational model offers several avenues for understanding our capacity to transform and transcend our ordinary awareness. Two classical Christian theological texts on religious experience—the Cloud of Unknowing and Scheiermacher’s The Christian Faith—are also discussed.

The Library of John Blacman and Contemporary Carthusian Spirituality

1992 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Lovatt
Keyword(s):  
Conference Proceedings ◽  
Medieval England ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Comprehensive Collection ◽  
Mystical Tradition ◽  
Late Medieval England ◽  
The Relationship

The library of John Blacman represents the largest and most comprehensive collection of devotional and mystical writings known to have been owned by any individual in late medieval England. On that ground alone it would merit attention. Buthis library repays study for other reasons. Firstly it is possible to place it within a detailed context. We know a considerable amount about Blacman himself and this knowledge of the man is paralleled by our knowledge of his books. Our perception of the private libraries of late medieval England is normally based on bald lists of books, occasionally supplemented by a handful of surviving manuscripts. These lists are usually derived from wills, which can all too frequently be shown to be seriously defective as a complete record of the libraries concerned. And, in particular, such lists can give only a static and skeletal picture of the relationship between the books and their owners. However, in the case of Blacman's library, while our major source is indeed a list of his books, it is a list which is exceptionally revealing. To some extent this is because part of the list is more informative than usual in providing the complete contents, insteadof a single portmanteau title, for about a third of the books. Hence we can reconstruct the precise nature of a number of the composite volumes in the library. More important is the fact that we have, properly speaking, not This article began life, in very different form, as a paper given to the Exeter Conference on ‘The medieval mystical tradition in England’. I am much indebted to the kindness and forbearance of the editor of the conference proceedings, Miss Marion Glasscoe.

Martin Luther and Relational Thinking

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Risto Saarinen
Keyword(s):  
Human Subject ◽  
Martin Luther ◽  
The Other ◽  
First Person ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Relational Thinking ◽  
Natural Properties ◽  
Rich Variety ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
To Receive

Luther believes that a Christian needs to constitute his identity “outside of himself” (extra se). This is because the justification of sinners and our spiritual existence are based on an external grounding, not on our own properties or contributions. In such relationality, Christians are heteronomous beings. Their actions, desires, and even bodily properties are attributed to them from outside as gift. This relationality is strongly present in Luther’s texts. While Luther employs a rich variety of relational phrases, for instance, “before God” (coram Deo) and “for me” (pro me), he does not employ the concept of relation frequently. When this concept is used, it typically points to a situation in which the person must renounce his old, carnal, and natural properties and seek help from God. The new, spiritual way of life consists of the reception of God’s gifts that are external to oneself. This view is based in monastic theology. Luther is not content with the monastic renunciation of one’s own properties. He employs mystical terminology without, however, aiming at dissolving the human subject in the manner of Meister Eckhart. Instead, Luther thinks that there is a new path of constituting the Christian person as something that is “external to oneself.” While this view differs from medieval mysticism, it can also be interpreted as a certain “intensification” of its aims. Proceeding on this path, the Christian no longer considers his hands, his feet, his choices, his actions as his own contribution. They are rather something that is attributed to him, a passive attachment. Luther’s view of relationality helps to understand what he means by the Christian’s first-person involvement in phrases like “my faith” and “for my sake.” He does not have the post-Enlightenment sense of subjectivity in the manner of Pietism or other individualist variants of modern Christianity. On the other hand, the ideas of passive attachment and the attribution of gift-like properties to a believer enable a robust first-person involvement in faith. Within this framework of relational passivity, faith and its acts are not contributions in the sense of human works. At the same time, the Christian has the ability to receive good gifts and participate in them. There are certain parallels with the Stoic view of oikeiosis, the primary social attachment taught by Cicero and many Christian thinkers. Luther is also well aware of the Augustinian view of divine persons as relations. For this reason, he can also understand in which sense relations can be primary “things” in theology. Sometimes the interpreters of Luther have extended the issue of relationality to cover all kinds of themes that assume a communicative interplay of different parties. Such extension can often highlight adequately the biblical background of an idea that is narrative rather than philosophical.

scholarly journals Double Tendance: The Photographic Message in the Egyptian Jewish Youth Magazine L’Illustration Juive, 1929–1931

Images ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-69
Author(s):  
David Guedj
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Old Testament ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Jewish Youth ◽  
Land Of Israel

Abstract The present article investigates the visual elements of the illustrated youth quarterly L’Illustration Juive, which was published in Alexandria between 1929 and 1931 in French and Hebrew. The analysis sets out to expose the ideologies and worldviews informing the publication’s editorial board, as well as the conscious or unconscious message that the quarterly tried to communicate to its young readership. The article explores more than 300 photographs and reproductions that featured in twelve issues published over the journal’s three years of existence. Analysis of the visual elements in this article shows that the quarterly featured many photographs of holy sites in the Land of Israel, as well as reproductions of artworks that reflected the religious Jewish way of life in the diaspora and Israel, including the Jewish calendar and Jewish life cycle. These works hold the Old Testament as a key book for Judaism, as well as for Jewish nationalism. Clearly evident in the visual elements, as in the overall visual messages of the quarterly, is the harmony struck between Jewish nationality, Zionism, and a religious Jewish cultural—or diasporic—world. It was this harmonious view that editor Rabbi David Prato sought to convey, upholding as he did a religious nationalist Jewish future, which he defined in the newspaper as a double tendance.

scholarly journals High on God: Religious Experience and Counter-Experience in Light of the Study of Religion

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 388
Author(s):  
Matthew Kruger
Keyword(s):  
Drug Use ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
William James ◽  
Tentative Conclusion ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Nishida Kitaro

Taking as its foundation a religious experience of my own, this paper explores the impact of the study of religion on the interpretation and significance of experience. My experience will be analyzed in relation to the work of William James, followed by a movement into neuroscientific research on null experiences, before turning to philosophic and theological treatments of experience in Nishida Kitaro and Meister Eckhart especially. These accounts of religious experience are then explored in terms of the potential connection they suggest with drug use in and out of religious settings. Finally, I will turn to a fundamental questioning of experience as seen in the work of Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Marion, all of which sets up a tentative conclusion regarding our approach to religious experience, whether as an object of study or our own.

The Confirmation of Scientific and Theistic Hypotheses

1977 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Schlesinger
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Religious Experience ◽  
Physical Science ◽  
World View ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Factual Claim ◽  
Real Entity

The idea that there might be empirical evidence for the existence of God has been largely discredited these days. Even among theists there are many who hold that it is not a fruitful idea and that there is no point in searching for evidence for theistic beliefs. Some who regard themselves as theists go to the extreme of denying that there is any possibility of there being empirical evidence to support a religious world-view since that view implies no factual claim, as it is essentially a commitment to a given set of values and a way of life and not to the existence of any physically real entity. Others are willing to assert that theism implies the belief in some special facts but that these are so far removed from the mundane experiences upon which physical science is based, that the latter could not possibly support such a belief. Yet others merely say that there is no need at all for confirmatory evidence of the kind employed in science since their beliefs are grounded in something much firmer and more immediate, like religious experience.

The complexity of governance change: reforming the governance of medical performance in Germany

2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 391-407 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viola Burau
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
New Governance ◽  
Relative Extent ◽  
Types Of Change ◽  
Governance Arrangements ◽  
Hybrid Forms

Abstract:The governance of medical performance is changing and new governing instruments are emerging. Existing analyses highlight the complexity of new governance arrangements, but the more or less dualistic perspective limits the possibility for exploring more fully this complexity. The present article therefore uses recent contributions to the literature on governance to explore the co-existence of different forms of governance with the aim of assessing the relative extent and the substantive nature of governance change. Using recent reforms of the governance of medical performance in Germany as a case study, the analysis suggests that the complexity of governance change takes three forms: first, the balance among (hybrid) forms of governance is shifting; second, the nature of individual (hybrid) forms of governance is changing; and, third, both types of change are reflected in tensions not only between but also within (hybrid) forms of governance. As such, the article also contributes to the recent literature on governance by highlighting the centrality of tensions in contemporary governance, which can also occur within both hybrid forms of governance and `pure' forms of governance.

Conceptions of Happiness and Human Destiny in the Late Thirteenth Century

Vivarium ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Henry Of Ghent ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
Coming To Know ◽  
Human Destiny

AbstractMedieval theories of ethics tended on the whole to regard self-perfection as the goal of human life. However there was profound disagreement, particularly in the late thirteenth century, over how exactly this was to be understood. Intellectualists such as Aquinas famously argued that human perfection lay primarily in coming to know the essence of God in the next life. Voluntarists such as the Franciscan John Peckham, by contrast, argued that ultimate perfection was to be achieved in patria through the act of loving God. The present article argues that Giles of Rome and Henry of Ghent defended a different sort of voluntarism with respect to the final destiny of human beings. Rather than claiming that the goal of human life lay in the perfection of the self, they argued instead that ultimate union with God was to be achieved mystically through an act of self-transcendence, which occurred through ecstasy or quasi-deification.

scholarly journals "Seeing All Things as Naught": Meister Eckhart and the Incarnation

Lumen et Vita ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Collura
Keyword(s):  
New Testament ◽  
The Other ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
Meister Eckhart ◽  
Creation Theology ◽  
Complete Obliteration ◽  
Union With God ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
The One

Books on popular spirituality often refer to Meister Eckhart's mystical theology as "incarnational," apparently due to its emphasis on the role of the Word made flesh, rather than of the Passion or of the Resurrection of Christ, in our salvation. In fact, Eckhart is ambivalent at best about our incarnate reality, seeing it as a fall from the perfect oneness and wholeness of God, to whom all of creation is called to return. For Eckhart, this return implies a radical death to self, the complete obliteration of our individual identities in the pure unknowing that is God. This paper departs from a consideration of the "uncanniness" ("unheimlich" - literaly, "not-at-home-ness") that characterizes Eckhart's description of union with God; moves through an analysis of the theme of the incarnation in his metaphysics, Christology, creation theology, and eschatology; and briefly contrasts his apophatic vision with the beatific vision of Aquinas, on the one hand, and certain New Testament images of the Resurrection, on the other.

scholarly journals History of Dezful City

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-127
Author(s):  
Samira Bashiri
Keyword(s):  
Present Article ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The City ◽  
The Way

In the present article, an attempt has been made to present a picture of the city of Dezful and to describe the details of the city and the way of life of the people using first-hand sources, and this description, geographical and historical conditions and type of economy And it encompasses the livelihood of the people and provides an overview of the city of Dezful.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document