The God who Becomes: Eckhart on Divine Relativity

THE GOD WHO BECOMES: EcKHART oN DIVINE RELATIVITY An historian of Christian thought who is at the same time persuaded by process philosophy cannot restrain his interest when he comes across a writer who appears, on both internal and external grounds, to offer some continuity between his two concerns. Meister Eckhart (c. 1260-c. 1328) is especially arresting in this connection, particularly so because of his understanding of the relationship between God and the world. One is led to Eckhart on this issue both because of the external characteristics of his writing and because of the religious situation for which his work is an expression and a response. Eckhart qualifies on a number of counts as a writer who might teach a process theologian. He was as speculative as a more or less orthodox Thomist of the 14th century could be. His most speculative and controversial work appears in his activity as preacher and spiritual guide to groups of nuns under his care. The German writings are thus deeply ethical in purpose and are in addition developed in terms of a series of highly erotic images. Speculative, ethical, erotic-all are characteristic of process philosophy. The problem to which Eckhart addressed himself is also one keenly felt by process theology. My construction of that problem is as follows. Eckhart, as spiritual director of Christians with special religious vocations, felt a particular obligation to develop a theology that would at once reflect religious experience and answer its needs. To do this he had to interpret the traditional doctrine of God in such a way that God's relationship to the world, specifically to the soul, became as theologically important as the inner-trinitarian relationships, and the latter as religiously meaningful as God's relationship to the soul. This meant developing the motifs of " marriage," 405 406 JOHN LOESCHEN " covenant," "birthing," or, in the more technically safe language of a later time, God's relationship to the world de potentia ordinata, into senses of meaning as metaphysically profound as divine aseity, unchangingness, omnipotence, as God de potentia absoluta. Eckhart set himself to a task impossible of acceptable solution in his time, of course. But his struggle may serve to educate those of us who are not quite ready to believe that the Christian tradition has been completely unaware of the kind of alternative suggested by process philosophy. I We begin with an appeal very familiar to Eckhart's hearers. The Christian should become free from all images, from selfreliance , even self-awareness, as free and as virginally pure as Christ who endlessly receives from and is borne into the Father.1 To be this free of Eigenschaften, defining characteristics is to be one with Jesus.2 It is to be like the Son; nay more, it is to be the same Son in a different body,3 different only in that the soul, unlike Christ, is created. But still the same Son, since all that God loves he loves in his Son. And to become like Christ means that the Father is birthing his Son in the soul and the soul as the Son.4 This most basic and fertile of Eckhart's themes, the ecstatic, erotic fusion of the soul with the Son under divine agency, provides the staging area for the first step towards a meta1 DW I, 11.5 ff.; cf. 26.6-8. Citations are from Meister Eckhart, Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke, J. Quint, E. Benz, et a!., eds.; (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1956 -). Material cited not yet available in this edition is from Meister Eckhart, deutsche Predigten und Traktate, J. Quint, ed. and tr.; (Mtinchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1963). Citations from the deutschen Werke (DW) and the Quint edition (Q), will include volume, page, and line; from the lateinischen Werke (LW), volume, sermon number, and section. 2 Ibid., 31.4-8; cf. Vladimir Lossky, Theologie Negative et Connaissance de Dieu chez Maitre Eckhart, "Etudes de Philosophie Medievale, XLVIII," (Paris: Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1960), p. 191. 3 Ibid., 7Q.l4 ff. • Ibid., 72.8 ff.; 168.12 ff.; 381.5 ff.; cf. Lossky, p. 188. THE GOD WHO BECOMES 407 physics of the relationship of God...