Meister Eckhart
From KIAwiki
Meister Eckhart O.P. (c. 1260–c. 1328), is the most common formula used to refer to Eckhart von Hochheim, a German theologian, philosopher and mystic, born near Erfurt, in Thuringia. Meister is German for "Master", referring to the academic title Magister in theologia he obtained in Paris.
Novel concepts Eckhart introduced into Christian metaphysics clearly deviate from the common scholastic canon: in Eckhart's vision, God is primarily fertile. Out of overabundance of love the fertile God gives birth to the Son, the Word in all of us. Clearly (aside from a rather striking metaphor of "fertility"), this is rooted in the Neoplatonic notion of "overflow" of the One that cannot hold back its abundance of Being. Eckhart had imagined the creation not as a "compulsory" overflowing (a metaphor based on a common hydrodynamic picture), but as the free act of will of the triune nature of Deity. Another bold assertion is Eckhart's distinction between God and Godhead. These notions had been present in Pseudo-Dionysius's writings and John the Scot's De divisione naturae, but it was Eckhart who, with characteristic vigor and audacity, reshaped the germinal metaphors into profound images of polarity between the Unmanifest and Manifest Absolute. (This may interestingly be paralleled with Hinduism's Brahma Nirguna and Brahma Saguna, or, God without form and God with form). The 19th century philosopher Schopenhauer, who stated that "every man takes the limits of his field of vision for the limits of the world," saw in Eckhart's vision the equivalent of the teachings of Indian, Christian, and Islamic mystics, Quietists, and ascetics.
It is also sometimes suspected that his practical communication of the mystical path is behind the influential 14th c. "anonymous" Theologia Germanica. But this is unlikely. According to the medieval introduction of the "Theologia Germanica" its author was a member of the Teutonian Order living in Frankfurt
Adapted from Wikipedia
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