Logos and Revelation: Ibn 'Arabi, Meister Eckhart, and Mystical Hermeneutics

Conclusion: The Unity and Diversity of the Mystical Path

283 Conclusion The Unity and Diversity of the Mystical Path Listening not to me, but to the Logos, it is wise to agree that all is one. Heraclitus Though the Logos is common, most men live as if they had a private source of understanding. Heraclitus God does not become more divine when we push him away from us in a sheer, impenetrable voluntarism; rather, the truly divine God is the God who has revealed himself as “logos” and, as “logos,” has acted and continues to act lovingly on our behalf. Certainly, love, as Saint Paul says, “transcends” knowledge and is thereby capable of perceiving more than thought alone; nonetheless it continues to be love of the God who is Logos. Benedict XVI Throughout all four parts of this book, I have tried to show that the mystical thought and practice of Ibn ‘Arabi and Meister Eckhart cannot be understood without reference to a revelation and a hermeneutics of that revelation that seeks the inner meaning of all revealed texts: the inner union of the soul with God. This mystical hermeneutic is what allows the soul to see creatures as embodied signs of spiritual realities. Just as, for Eckhart, the circle outside the tavern is the sign of the wine within, so are creatures signs of the “wine” of divine existence and truth accessible from within the soul. So, for Ibn ‘Arabi, do the verses of the Qur’an, or ayat, have also the meaning of “sign” (āya), pointing to the spiritual significance of all things in creation. Thus, for both, the true nature of things is inaccessible to the human intellect without special 284 Unity and Diversity of the Mystical Path revelation. But this mystical hermeneutic is not fulfilled until it leads to union of the soul with God. This union occurs in and through the divine Logos: the soul remains a creature always for both Meister Eckhart and Ibn ‘Arabi, but insofar as the soul realizes its own nothingness and allows itself to be conformed totally to God, it is made over into God. That is, there is no union until the soul becomes conformed entirely to the divine Word. Only then does the soul become, quite literally, an image of God and, as we saw, the image as image derives all of its being from that of which it is the image. It has no being of its own. Hence, the ultimate goal of the mystical life is to imagine God, not, it must be emphasized, in the usual way we think of “imagine”— as some particular or material image. But rather, in the very active and literal sense in which someone like Eckhart means the term: actually to be an image of God in one’s entire intellect and being in which one derives all one’s existence from God’s existence. This is the true sense of the imagination . The imagination is analogical when it recognizes the very finitude with which the soul images God, and therefore opens itself up completely to God’s infinity. Such a soul is made over into God in and through the divine Logos, because it is as intellect or heart that the soul is made over completely into God by the divine Logos, just as the wood is transformed into fire by fire, to use an image of Eckhart’s. While as creature, the human being is related to God’s being analogically, as an intellectual being, he or she is related to God univocally, for in intellect, the knower and the known are the same. In this relationship, the soul becomes the Universal Man or Nobleman . Meister Eckhart and Ibn ‘Arabi do not present us, therefore, with utterly private irrational ecstasies or with rational systems that can stand independently of revelation or religious tradition. Instead, they present us with a sustained attempt to use the tools that reason offers in philosophy , logic, and science in order to enter into and be transformed by the inner meaning of God’s special revelation to humanity. By entering into the inner meaning of revelation, reason is, in turn, illuminated by revelation and is able to grasp, even if only imperfectly, what is beyond and above it. So transformed, the mystic relates to the divine Logos as Universal Man or Nobleman, the created reflection of God’s creative and communicative power. Unity and Diversity of the Mystical Path 285 But...